We are excited for our upcoming City Council Candidate Forum with the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica Education Fund! We are so excited, in fact, that we couldn’t wait to introduce you to the two people who will be moderating the forum.

The forum, which is free and open to the public, will take place on September 22 in the MLK Auditorium at the Main Branch Public Library (601 Santa Monica Blvd., 90401). The forum will start at 7 p.m., doors will open at 6:30 p.m.

The City of Santa Monica will be providing free bike valet until 9:30 p.m. While the bike valet will be set up for the City’s Pedestrian Action Plan workshop, which will be held up stairs in the library’s Multipuprose Room starting at 5:30 p.m., all are welcome to use it.

Questions are provided by Santa Monica Next staff, League of Women Voters volunteers, and Santa Monica Spoke.

Without further ado, let’s meet our moderators! And please, don’t forget to register to vote at your current address before October 20!

ANN WILLIAMS

Ann Williams, President of the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica

Ann K. Williams is president of the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica. She moved to Santa Monica in 1989 and has come up through the grass-roots ranks as a volunteer.

Williams’ public service started in the local Parent-Teacher Association. She served as the legislative chair for the Santa Monica-Malibu Parent-Teacher Association Council before she joined the League of Women Voters, where she  worked on Voter Service before branching out in other directions.

She also worked a number of years as a reporter for The Lookout News, one of the oldest exclusively online local news sources in the country. Williams eventually became managing editor of The Lookout, running the operation while helping young reporters learn the ropes of journalistic writing.

Through her work, Williams has had a lot of exposure to Santa Monica politics in its various manifestations, and continues to be fascinated by a town in which participatory democracy is the community’s favorite sport.

The League of Women Voters’ commitment to civil discourse and impartial analysis, along with the group’s progressive policy advocacy, makes it her favorite political organization.

Williams is delighted that the League gets to mentor a new generation as millenials find their way through the forest of competing political claims, and the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica/Santa Monica Next City Council Candidates forum is a great opportunity to do just that.

CARTER RUBIN

Carter Rubin, member of the Santa Monica Nextadvisory board

As a Santa Monica resident, Carter Rubin sits on the City’s Housing Commission, an advisory body to the Housing Authority and City Council on affordable housing matters.

He is also on the Santa Monica Next advisory board and a former board member for the Southern California Streets Initiative, the nonprofit organization that locally funds and supports Streetsblog L.A., Santa Monica Next, and Longbeachize.

As a member of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garecetti’s team, Rubin serves as a program manager on the Great Streets Initiative, which seeks to create vibrant community places along Los Angeles’ commercial corridors.

Born and raised on the Westside of Los Angeles, Rubin is committed to improving the region’s quality of life by streamlining the delivery of public services and by tackling its persistent land use and transportation challenges. He’s passionate about Measure R and wants to ensure that its full promise is delivered to the whole region. To Rubin, that means incorporating the expanding rail system into the urban fabric with a suite of transportation choices and land uses that support vibrant, safe and healthy communities.

Rubin holds a Master of Urban and Regional Planning degree from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He was recruited to UCLA with an Institute for Transportation Studies Fellowship, a Martin Wachs Scholarship, and a David and Marianna Fisher Fellowship.

During the 2012-13 academic year, Carter served as a David Bohnett Fellow in the office of Los Angeles Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa.

Rubin is excited to partner with the League of Women Voters of Santa Monica on this forum to help educate and engage younger voters around local politics in his city. As a young, civically engaged person, Rubin understands the importance of having a diverse body-politic participating in government at all levels.

FIND OUT MORE

For more information about the Candidate Forum, please email Barbara Inatsugu at program@lwvsm.org or Jason Islas at jason@santamonicanext.org.

The forum is free and open to the public, but seating is first-come, first-served. The forum will also be broadcast and archived at our Live Stream page, StreetsblogTV. As mentioned above, there will be free bike valet available. The Main Branch library is also served by Big Blue Bus lines 7 and 10. Big Blue Bus lines 1, 2, 3, 8, and 9 stop within a short walking distance.

Motor vehicle parking is also available. Enter on 7th Street.