Politics: A View of Renters Group’s 15-Year History

I write in regard to your recent feature article (“Up Against the Wall,” Dec. 29) about Santa Monica’s rent-control political party, the Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR).

If the truth be known, the doomed fate of SMRR was present from that freewheeling Tuesday in May of 1979 when they were elected. It has simply taken 15 years for events to catch up with the reality of their flawed foundation.

SMRR maintained power only by virtue of the commanding majority of renters represented. Rent control was the ultimate “pocketbook” issue. With time, however, attrition began to take its toll. Condo conversions condemned SMRR to a slow death. Last January’s earthquake simply hastened the inevitable.

History will record the tenure of SMRR as a bitter 15-year rule by a band of myopic, self-serving ideologues. Their major accomplishment was the creation of a new bureaucracy (the Santa Monica Rent Control Board) whose sole purpose has been to harass and intimidate property owners.

The control of SMRR over Santa Monica’s political world since 1979 was complete. But what SMRR could not control, however, was human nature and acts of God. Both worked against SMRR’s socialistic policies. And as with Berlin’s Wall, Santa Monica’s ideological wall has come down. Now begins a new era of healing and restitution.

ROBERT C. HAMILTON

Santa Monica