Phil Brock does not feel safe walking around the town he represents.
“For the first time in my life, I carry pepper gel with me to downtown Santa Monica,” the freshman City Council member revealed in a town hall discussion with residents Wednesday night.
“I can’t tell you how horrible it makes me feel that I won’t let my significant other go out to the alley to take out the trash at night.”
Brock is a rare, outspoken public figure in a city where transparency and public input have not always been embraced.
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He came into office in 2020 positioned as the people’s politician, an unfiltered leader who isn’t afraid to tell it like he sees it.
In just under two hours, Brock touched on many of the issues that impact Santa Monica’s most:
Crime: “We have laws on the books that cover almost every eventuality in the city,” he said. “We have had a problem over the last few years with the City Attorney’s office and making sure they would back up Santa Monica Police Department if they enforce those rules…The City Attorney has to back up the laws of the city to make sure that everyone is held accountable.”
Police presence: The city currently has 161 active police officers, down from 221 before the May 2020 riots. “We need a minimum of 250,” he said.
The economy: The city can no longer afford to be “wasteful” with taxpayer dollars, he said. “We couldn’t build $75 million additions to City Hall with $75 million in interest. Absurd. We are a city, not a nation state. We do not have unlimited resources. We are already taxing our residents higher than almost any other city in California.”
The crisis on the pier: “There is a criminal gang that operates 60 to 70 food carts on the pier,” he revealed. “Most of those vendors are underage. I watched as two of those carts were taken into the bathroom on Saturday afternoon so that the operator of the cart could go to the bathroom. The hotdogs, the corn.. Nothing is sanitary. Nothing is sanitized. But yet starting a year ago in September when we had a cart owner assaulted and sent to the hospital, our police department, our fire department, our essential services have not enforced the rules so the problem has mushroomed. If I was a merchant on the Santa Monica Pier, I would not pay my rent. I am not against people trying to make a living, but the people who are really making a living are the gang that controls this.”
Why police won’t arrest illegal food cart operators: “Police are afraid that if they have to take a Hispanic cart operator to jail the video swill be on YouTube and social media the next day and they will be accused of being racist and unfair to those poor individuals,” he said.
Tourism: Brock spoke about the murder of two German tourists near Ocean Front Walk in the 1980s. “After that, tourism declined,” he remembered. “With the comments that are out there on the internet about how Santa Monica is crime ridden, it’s tough. And it hurts me, someone who has been in this city all my life to walk these streets and not feel proud. But I will tell you this, there are a ton of business people who care and who want this city back. But we have got to build it back in a different way than it was before.”
The state of downtown Santa Monica: “Only 12 percent of residents visited downtown Santa Monica in 2019,” Brock noted. “That is absurd…. People aren’t going downtown because they didn’t view it as safe. And they didn’t view the shopping experience as something that is commensurate to their incomes. It has been tough. The police chief is adding a bike patrol and a foot patrol downtown this week through Christmas. Downtown Santa Monica as a core needs to return a sense of neighborhood. The stores need to reflect the needs of the residents. The restaurants cannot all be the land of $20 burgers. We have to make sure that as we rebuild stores, restaurants and services that they first and foremost are attractive to the people who live here.”
The future of Parking Structure 3: There are several proposals under consideration including once focused on affordable housing, one for a supermarket and another for a bowling alley. No decision has been made yet.
A huge portion of the evening was taken up with a conversation about homeless-related crime.
While many residents commented that it is time for Santa Monica to cut services to the unhoused, Brock acknowledged the City’s long history of offering compassion toward those in need.
“Helping is never leaving someone to rot on the streets,” he said, acknowledging that “so many of the homeless people on our streets have mental health issues.”
Brock noted that there are currently 1200 unhoused individuals inside the city limits and that as many as four to five die on the streets each week.
In 2019, he said, 40 percent of all calls to the Santa Monica Fire Department (more than 17000 total) were related to homelessness.
Currently, the City offers limited services to the homeless Monday through Friday from 6:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. No services are offered east of Lincoln Boulevard.
Brock has promised to conduct more public meetings on a monthly basis.
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