Behind the modulated, stentorian voice that was made for radio -- and for awakening the soundest sleeper in the next county -- stands City Councilman Kevin McKeown, one of the principled progressive thinkers at City Hall who drives traditionalists crazy. Vigorously out front on issues that have polished Santa Monica's national reputation for daring political innovation, he believes city government should closely track commercial and residential activity. Which is why he has banged the drum for such groundbreaking laws as the selectively applied Living Wage Ordinance, for forcing employers to rehire certain laid-off workers in order, for renters' rights, for environmentally sensitive expansion of governance and for voting reforms.

Like his council colleagues, he is strongly against the Veritas reforms on next November's ballot that would sub-divide Santa Monica into council districts. "This city is too small for districts," he says.

With a large and reliable majority of Santa Monicans for Renters' Rights on the City Council (five of seven members), led by the political allies and social pals Mayor Michael Feinstein and Mayor Pro Tem McKeown, the council regularly seeks to write new and expanded laws about rights.

Just as loudly, business owners contend that the city is over-regulated, that a line should be drawn in the sand.

In swiftly rejecting their claim, McKeown says: "The sand is blowing."

Having grown up in a raggedly poor, single-parent Irish family in New Haven, Conn., McKeown has overcome these sometimes disqualifying barriers to carve successful careers in radio, computers, and politics in addition to becoming a passionate maven on rock 'n’ roll history.

Nearly obsessed with the idea of fairness for all, the City Councilman makes his living in the computer field where he gets a chance to flex his favorite philosophy. "With computers," he says, "everyone is equal on a playing field of ideas."

As long as he govems, he says he never will forget the economic handcuffs that are inescapable for many who are poor. At 53 years old, he believes even more ardently than he did as a '60s liberal at Yale that society needs to spread goods to everyone.

All the more, says McKeown, does this apply in the richly blessed paradise of Santa Monica. "We have such an opportunity for abundance in Santa Monica," he says. "We just need to share it."

To the many critics of the Living Wage Ordinance that passed last year only to be forced into a referendum vote next November by organized opponents, McKeown said the fuss is exaggerated.

"The problem is limited, and so is our application," he says. "What we did (by enacting the ordinance) was so obvious and so just."

Sometimes sad-eyed, always passionate about individual rights, McKeown says he is driven to give a voice to the underdog, not the perceived overdog. When business owners protest that City Hall is intruding too far into their doorways with what they feel are cramping regulations, McKeown shrugs.

"They are just objecting in principle to city mandates that have anything to do with business," he says. "By nature, they are committed to minimal regulation. The City Council, on the other hand, is committed to assuring fairness across all economic classes."

Tall and burly with a rugged brush-cut and a craggy mug that is unmistakably Irish, City Councilman McKeown's imposing appearance gives him an immediate advantage when he takes an iconoclastic stand in council chambers.

A model of masterful locution, his carefully cultivated views ring with authenticity, at least in part because of the package he brings to the dais, starting with his huge size. Physicality impresses voters. For 200 years, the taller candidate for United States president has won virtually every election.

Besides his height and girth, McKeown gains a head start on his views with the help of a magnificent booming voice, and clearly reasoned opinion, popular or not.

An officer and gospel-spreading believer of the environmentalist Green Party who insists that it will become an influential player in American politics, McKeown drives what he preaches, a green electric car.

As for McKeown's character, friends say it takes a special brand of courage to step out from the crowd the way he does.

A flaming desire to change the world first became evident after he, a poor hometown boy, enrolled at Yale in the late '60s. Hoping to escape poverty forever, he aimed for a world-class career. He wanted to be an astrophysicist. However, one day he detoured into a gig with the campus radio station, which he says was the first FM rock ‘n' roll station in the country.

Like a bucket of water, he came face-to-face for the first time with hardball politics. Instantly, a political future devoted to change was made.

He fell in love with the concept of altering the way others think and live.

The class conscious McKeown says his political credo was formed during his undergraduate days at Yale. The fumes of revolution and constant upheaval swept the campus that was a raging focal point of the '60s war against social mores. Only by closing the gap between haves and nots could he make the world more fair.

In his 50s, he still wants to change the world. "All that has changed," McKeown says, "is that what I thought then has been tempered by a tremendous amount of compassion."