Fox Hills has long been a neighborhood without city representation, several residents have implied over the years. Candidates for political of fice in past elections have consistently bemoaned how difficult it is to penetrate the condominium and apartment complexes of the hillside residential and commercial neighborhood, where hundreds of potential voters reside, as well as some of Culver City’s most high-profile businesses.
Residents say few or none have tried.
This year, Christopher King thinks he has a chance to capitalize on the feelings of isolation and disconnect and transform them into votes in his quest to win a seat on Culver City’s governing body. And he feels that way because he lives in Fox Hills.
A Culver City resident of nine years, King said ser ving the city on the council would be an extension of his current community service engagements. “I see being a city councilman as the perfect union of city service and community activism,” the candidate, who is the president of the Culver City Rotary Club, said during a recent interview. “We have a city in need of change.”
An ardent opponent of hydraulic fracturing, King says his position on the controversial oil extraction procedure contrasts greatly with those of certain local elected representatives. He supports an idea floated by former City Councilman Gary Silbiger and other opponents of hydraulic fracturing last year- a citywide ban.
“Our current leader (Cooper) has said he is opposed to a ban on local fracking,” said King, using the more common name for hydraulic fracturing. “I think a ban means a lot more that lobbying Sacramento to ban fracking.”
Culver City’s council passed a resolution last year asking their state representatives to outlaw fracking. State law currently allows oil companies to use the extraction technique, which opponents and some scientists say can contami- nate ground water. It could also supersede any local laws if fracking was allowed to continue.
Asked what he would tell property owners who receive royalties from oil drilling due to mineral rights that they own, King said he was unaware of these homeowners and could not respond to the question.
King, who owns the mortgage company CPK and his been endorsed by the local Democratic Club, realizes that he has to make a solid case to the electorate in order to convince voters to take him seriously and considering choosing him over the current officeholders Jim Clarke and Jeffery Cooper. But he believes there is an opening for upstart candidates can take advantage of, primarily regarding fiscal policy.
“We are in a city that is in need of change,” he said. “We have a $50 million storm water mandate and are $20 million behind in deferred maintenance. The council has not addressed these and other major problems and they need to look at them in a broader sense.”
Some residents are willing to take a chance on the first-time candidate. “We need fresh pro- gressive voices in Culver City, and he is absolutely one,” said Claudia Vizcarra, who herself was a first-time candidate in last year’s Culver City Unified School District Board of Education race.
The mortgage broker thinks Mayor Cooper’s contention that Culver City has built more affordable housing in the last few years than in past year ignores the fact that other cities have had far more success in this area.
“That’s a good sound bite,” King said, “but what’s the truth behind it?”
A housing development at Tilden Place that has 33 affordable housing units is the development that city leaders tout when they discuss low cost housing.
“The city needs to create more affordable housing, no question,” he said. “And more that just 33 units.”
The state Office of Oversight and Outcomes, found that the Culver City Redevelopment Agency’s low to moderate income housing fund took in nearly $5 million in property tax money, the highest of any of the 12 agencies selected at random in a 2010 review and held a total of $22.1 million. The state group found that during a 13-year period, beginning in 1995 and ending in 2008, Culver City reported only four new units of affordable housing. King said over 1,000 people applied for the 33 Tilden Place units, which he said is a powerful indicator of the desire for lower-cost housing in and out of Culver City.
Santa Monica opened a 100-unit affordable housing complex in December, one of several throughout the beachside community.
As vice president of the city’s homeless committee, King thinks he has an idea about how lower income hous- ing can be a life raft for many people. “Culver City has a hidden homeless population, even if people don’t know about it,” King said.
The candidate said he recently heard about a possible plan to eliminate funding for homeless services at budget time. “No matter how tight a budget is, we should never do anything to harm our most vulnerable citizens,” King asserted.
On rent control, which has slowly become somewhat of a hot-button topic, King said now is a critical time to have a conversation about whether or not to impose certain price controls on rents in Culver City.
“There are people who have been hugely affected and injured by very high rents,” he said. “This has become a very polarizing topic.”
King counts Shireen Daytona, who is leading a movement to create rent control in Culver City, among his supporters.
As the owner of an apartment complex, King is wary of relocation fees that in some cases landlords are required to pay tenants. “I’m concerned about the fees,” he said.
Other than on fracking, creating more affordable housing and his pledge not to cut funding for the homeless, King addressed a variety of topics but did not offer clear positions that he would take on others.
King said too often in the political discourse in Culver City residents are given what he calls “false choices” on critical matters. These false choices, he says, are fostered by what he calls “conflicting tribes” within the city.
“We need to break ourselves of this ‘either or’ mentality,” he said. “Part of good leadership is getting people out of that way of thinking.”
Political consultant Jewett Walker is unsure how much Fox Hills voters will turn out on election day, considering their numbers in past elections. He also noticed that King did not include any neighborhood accomplishments in his earlier mailer. “[King] didn’t tell anyone about what he’s done for Fox Hills,” Walker, who has managed statewide campaigns, noted. “He didn’t have in his mail piece that he led an effort to reduce traffic or was the president of the Fox Kills Neighborhood Assn., so it’s hard to say of he can get them to turn out to vote [for him].”
Becoming the first member of the city’s governing body from Fox Hills could inspire residents there to become more involved with city politics, King says, which is why he says this race is as much for his neighborhood as it is for him.
“I think Fox Hills does tend to feel disconnected [from City Hall] and I feel that it would be greattofinallyhaverepresentation from that part of town,” he concluded.
Election day is April 8.
