AN UNFORTUNATE AND UNNECESSARY LOSS

The loss of Measure ii on the November ballot was unfortunate. And it didn't have to be. Measure ii lost for lack of money. Money, as they say, "is the mother's milk of politics." We ran our SMRPH campaign for under $50,000 but we were outspent 5 to 1.

Other campaign's for Measure JJ and Yes on EE spent hundreds of thousands of dollars apiece and lost. Over a hundred thousand dollars of which was skimmed off as consulting fees for two SMRR leaders.

To recap, Measure ii was the brainchild of Attorney Paul DeSantis to give apartment owners the right to convert their units and homeowners and condominium owners the right to rebuild their properties if destroyed by natural disaster. The signatures were gathered two years ago. I stepped up last spring to help raise money to move the initiative along. Only to find myself nominated as chairman of the committee. I have never professed to be a professional campaigner as I do have a day job.

Contrary to the lies of SMRR, there were no big real estate interests donating money to the campaign nor were the hotels or business community. Most of the donations came from mom and pop owners. There was only one donor over $5,000. That donor only had two small buildings, a five and an eight unit, which would qualify for condo conversion. As is too often the case, the corporate and large owners left it to the little guys in ACTION to effect change.

Without money, it was very difficult to get the word out to the homeowners about the necessity for the right to rebuild. The homeowners recognized that they were being gored by the threat of historic districts and raised over $90,000. However, they have not been educated to the fact that they need the right to rebuild.

Unfortunately the first El Niño rain of the year hit three days after the election and toppled a 1920's craftsman triplex. This property is in the new OP-2 zone. Thus, he can only rebuild two units where there use to be three. Had Measure ii, passed the owner could rebuild his three units. While our good friends at SMRR had stated publicly that "the City always has allowed people to rebuild," the City of course is now taking the opposite stance and saying tough luck, "Measure ii did not pass and you can only rebuild two units." So we need to educate the homeowners as to their risks and as to the lies of SMRR leadership.

One thing that went right is that we educated a lot of tenants; we had about 15,000 hits to our web-site. Of those, approximately 70-75% indicated that they would vote yes on Measure ii. So most of the tenants who reviewed our website understood the issues and voted yes. As with the original TORCA initiative we will have to run a second campaign in order to get it passed. TORCA failed the first time and then passed the second and third. It takes a while to educate the voters.