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When I learned that long, long-running Santa Monica City Councilman Herb Katz died yesterday morning, my mind flashed to the numerous interview visits I made to the architectural firm he founded in 1965.
For two reasons, you should know about him, even in death:
• Next to God, Mr. Katz, 78 years old, was the best-known personality in Santa Monica.
• He endured more personal tragedies than anyone I have known or heard of.
At the end, cancer took him down, just as he was beginning his fifth term on the City Council, days after completing his second term as Mayor.
In the old days, Mr. Katz would have been known as a pepperpot. He was not terribly tall but he was terribly measured, and that strong sense of moderation dwarfed all other qualities from the day he was elected to the City Council 25 — got that, Culver City? —years ago.
Always accessible, always candid — the most admired qualities a politician can possess.
Also, always discreet. Some lines were not to be crossed.
His Digs Below Ground
Just as you might expect of an architect, his creative Robertson Boulevard office was subterranean.
High-ceilinged and brilliantly illuminated, the environment in his rear-of-the-building space may have seemed wide open, but the commanding general was the opposite. We could talk about everything — but when he silently motioned with his left hand, that signaled the tape recorder was to be turned off.
Likely, our conversation had turned a personal corner. No one was allowed into the sacred area known as the Family Room.
Not until he was planning his remarriage five years ago was I allowed to discuss Mr. Katz’s off-stage life, away from Council Chambers on Main Street where meetings routinely were stormier than any a prizefighter ever had engaged in.
These were twice-a-month cheek-shattering rhetorical brawls, which Mr. Katz entered as a calming, centrist force. Reliably, you could predict Mr. Katz’s fist-less role years in advance. In his own words, “I am an independent voice of reason on the Council.”
A liberal politician by nature, he was a thoroughly sensible businessman, meaning that his conservative dimension also was vital.
Getting Personal
To succinctly violate one of Mr. Katz’s laws, he and his wife lost all three of their children through separate and staggeringly tragic circumstances at early ages. Cancer also claimed his wife.
How he withstood wave after wave of tribulation, I have neither a glib nor a reasoned answer.
Apart from covering the Santa Monica City Council, Mr. Katz and I have a spot of history.
Seven years ago when Diane and I were married, there were three stars — witnesses, technically — at our wedding, Mitch Chortkoff, editor of the Culver City Observer, Joe Cahn, the sharpest 89-year-old on the Westside, and Mr. Katz.
Nine months later, the widowed Mr. Katz married his second wife, Brenda, on Valentine’s Day. For members of a certain generation, the next-day reception would be a smash today on Youtube or Facebook. You never have seen a mature man who was more obviously in love.
He Was Widely Affiliated
His best known hometown imprint may be that he was a founding co-father of a Santa Monica landmark, the Third Street Promenade.
Prior to his four terms on the City Council, he did eight years on the Planning Commission, mostly as the Chair, on the Architectural Review Board, the Pier Restoration Commission, the Santa Monica College Advisory Board (30 years), the old Bayside District, Step-Up on 2nd Street and the Santa Monica College Foundation.
Final Services
Mr. Katz’s funeral will be on Monday at 10:30 at St. Monica’s Catholic Church, 725 California Ave., just off downtown Santa Monica. Burial will be at nearby Woodlawn Cemetery.
Updated information on a memorial reception will be at the city of Santa Monica website, smgov.net
Eschewing flowers, the family has asked that donations be made to the John Wayne Cancer Research Center, 2200 Santa Monica Blvd., Santa Monica.
