[Editor’s Note: Denny Zane, a founding father of one of Santa Monica’s foremost historic boasts, rent control, a long-term Santa Monica City Councilman and model for community activism and organizing, presently is exactly in the middle of helping to accelerate the arrival of light rail on the Westside through his organization movela.com. Days after his 63rd birthday, he has sped up rather than slowed. In his words, here is how it came about. What is his main talent and what does he do for a living? Sometimes, that is the same question. He is that not-so-common visionary who earns a nice living. Uniquely, he probably is more influential today than when he started back in the 1970s.]
[img]989|left|Denny Zane||no_popup[/img]I got into the habit of making a living by pursuing my personal political priorities.
There were about 25 of us who helped to get rent control passed in 1979, with a leadership of about a half-dozen.
It was not a first in the country, but it was one of the first to pass by ballot measure. Berkeley had passed rent control earlier by ballot. New Jersey, at the time, had about a hundred cities with rent control, but not had been adopted by ballot.
I was on the City Council for three terms, 12 years, from 1981 to 1993.
Earlier, I had been very much involved with the creation of the Third Street Promenade. The Promenade had been a unique project. There had not been any similar revitalization strategies, except Pasadena, which is rewally concurrently.
Pasadena and Santa Monica showed similar models, and both succeeded.
We are talking about strategies, adaptive re-use of old buildings, green, and outdoor dining strategies. In Pasadena, it was done with kind of an Old Town feel, and in Santa Monica, of course, it is movie theatres.
As one of the formulators of the unique strategy that succeeded, I thought I was going to make a living working with cities on downtown revitalization.
But that was not the way it happened.
(To be continued)
