This fall, 27 candidates will appear on the ballot for Santa Monica City Council, Rent Control Board, School Board, and College Board. Of those, 20 candidates are seeking the endorsement of the Santa Monica Democratic Club.

We have some big decisions to make this fall about the future of our City. To help us make the best choices, we sent written  questionnaires to every Democratic candidate asking them about the issues most important to Santa Monica Democrats.

Here are the four questionnaires we sent out for City Council, Rent Control Board, School Board, and College Board.

Below are the 20 questionnaire responses we received, completely unedited. These are now the only candidates we will be considering for endorsement this year.

(in ballot order)
City Council (3 positions, 7 candidates)
Ellis Raskin
Caroline Torosis
Samantha Mota
Armen Melkonians
Natalya Zernitskaya
Jesse Zwick
Troy Harris

Rent Control Board (3 positions, 3 candidates)
Daniel Ivanov
Ericka Lesley
Kurt Gonska

School Board (4 positions, 6 candidates)
Stacy Rouse
Richard Tahvildaran-Jesswein
Alicia Mignano
Esther Hickman
Miles Warner
Laurie Lieberman

College Board (4 positions, 4 candidates)
Sion Roy
Thomas Peters
Barry Snell
Nancy Greenstein

This week, our Executive Committee will conduct interviews with each candidate seeking our endorsement; video recordings of these interviews will also be shared with the membership. 

Finally, in September, we will host a series of three meetings on Zoom for candidate debates, followed by our Club endorsement votes:

September 7 6:30pm
Santa Monica Rent Control Board Debate
Santa Monica College Board of Trustees Debate
Santa Monica-Malibu School District Board of Education Debate

September 14 6:30pm
Santa Monica City Council Debate
Local Ballot Measures Discussion

September 28 6:30pm
Statewide Ballot Measures Discussion
Endorsement VOTE for All Races

RSVP for all three meetings here:
https://forms.gle/E2daRsdFYiM8zM5x5

New members must join no later than August 29 to be eligible to vote by September 28.