Santa Monica City Council Candidate Spotlight: Phil Brock

SANTA MONICA, CA — Phil Brock doesn't have much trouble answering the question of what brought him to Santa Monica. He was born here.

Brock is a second-generation Santa Monican whose 98-year-old mother was also born in the city and still lives here. His grandparents arrived in Santa Monica around 1926, while his father, a Marine from North Carolina, met Brock's mother in Palisades Park after arriving aboard an aircraft carrier in 1949.

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Brock attended Santa Monica public schools and Santa Monica College before earning bachelor's degrees in history and kinesiology from UCLA and a master's degree and teaching credential from Loyola Marymount University. At 10, he wanted to be either president or Sandy Koufax. He has owned Santa Monica-based Studio Talent Group, which represents actors, for more than 30 years. Brock was elected to the Santa Monica City Council in 2020 and served as mayor in 2024.

What is Santa Monica getting wrong about homelessness today, and what would you do differently?
It's not about housing first. It needs to be about treatment first. Leaving people on the streets of Santa Monica who are addicted or have mental health issues is not humane and it's not compassionate. We have to provide the help that's needed, and it has to be accountable.

SAMOSHEL and the Downtown Service Center both should be closed. We need to assign L.A. County responsibility for the homeless people who come into our city and change the paradigm toward treatment and recovery.

What measurable result would convince you that a city-funded homelessness program is working, and what result would cause you to stop funding it?
A nonprofit has to show results, and there has to be intense accounting to make sure it does. The objective has to be that somebody comes through the program as a changed person. It can't just be about having a place to lie down and sleep. We need to know how many people go through these programs and actually regain their lives.

What should happen when someone living on the street repeatedly refuses an offer of shelter, treatment or services?
I don't want to put anyone in jail for being unhoused or being a drug addict, but I also don't want to leave them on the streets. We have to have an alternative for them, but we don't have to leave them on the street.

What's your default karaoke song?
None. I used to DJ, but I've never sung. I don't karaoke.

What song or band makes you crank up the volume in the car?
Coldplay, U2, The Killers. I've never been someone who only listens to the music they grew up on.

Santa Monica Airport is scheduled to close at the end of 2028. What, specifically, do you believe should replace it?
I believe we should have a park. I'm part of the Great Park Coalition, and I believe we have always needed more recreational facilities in Santa Monica. We could build a great recreational area that includes ice skating, a swimming pool and many different variations.

I've seen alternative ideas. One would keep an all-electric airport combined with 100 acres of parkland, and I thought that was intriguing. But I believe we should have a park, and I've pledged that I will support what the residents of this city want there.

The airport property is enormous and converting it will be enormously expensive. How much should Santa Monica taxpayers be expected to pay for the project, and where should the rest of the money come from?
I don't want our taxpayers to be taxed anymore. I've said I will not vote for a new tax or new fees. I believe we can build a park, live within our means and not float more taxes.

At some point, four or five years from now, if a bond is needed for parks and the residents want that, that's one thing. But I don't believe we should be adding more taxes now.

What's your guilty-pleasure TV show?
It changes constantly because I watch for my job. I'm usually watching four to six shows. I watch "The Rookie" and I'm watching "Ted Lasso" on Apple right now.

When was the last time you took public transport and where was it to?
Little Rock, Arkansas, and Memphis, Tennessee, in July. I took public transport in both. Here, very rarely. It usually doesn't go where I want to go or takes too long.

What is the single most important thing City Hall can do in the next two years to bring businesses and residents back to Third Street Promenade?
Safety, safety, safety. Period. Safety means visible police presence. It's not just Third Street Promenade. The access roads to downtown need a public safety presence, and our streets need to be lit much better.

Is downtown Santa Monica fundamentally suffering from a public-safety problem, a business-model problem or a development problem and what role should new housing play in its recovery?
It's more than one thing. We need people who live here to use downtown again. We need restaurants and businesses residents actually want to patronize, and we need to diversify our economy.

Housing can be part of downtown, but the answer isn't simply tearing down buildings and putting up high-rises. We're not supposed to look or feel like downtown Los Angeles.

Who would you most hate to be stuck in a lift with?
I can't think of anyone. I don't have a hate list. I'd rather have a conversation, whether we agree or disagree.

What's your most irrational superstition or habit?
I don't really have one.

Does Santa Monica have a revenue problem or a spending problem and if finances deteriorate, what specifically would you be prepared to cut or change?
Spending problem. We have to look at common-sense priorities. Investment in public safety needs to be increased, but we also have to look at what we're spending on homelessness and how we're giving grants out.

Get rid of lawsuits we don't need. Get rid of the vanity projects. Let's go back to common sense. What do we need to make the city run well? Period.

Who was your childhood hero?
My grandfather was one. I've always been somewhat politically motivated, so presidents and public officials and actors like John Wayne.

What's the most recent book you gave up on, and why?
Vicente Fox's book. I got through about half of it and got so busy I never came back to it.

Has Santa Monica gone too far, not far enough or roughly the right distance in redesigning streets around bicycles and pedestrians and would you support removing or substantially redesigning a project that was shown to create new safety or access problems?
We've gone too far in some places. I'm very much pro-bike lane. I ride a bike. But I don't think the 17th Street project was thought out well. I've ridden that street with fire, sanitation and street-cleaning vehicles and saw the problems they had maneuvering it. I don't want to see that repeated on 14th Street.

What's the worst job you've ever had?
Making milkshakes at a beach club. They put me in [charge of] the soda fountain. I hate lumps in milkshakes, so I'm making one and sliced through the paper cup. Milkshake all over the room. I cleaned it up and quit that day.

What completely different job would you secretly love to do
I've thought about going back to acting, but I hated auditioning. I've also thought about working in federal or state government.

Santa Monica faces major decisions over the future of both the Civic Auditorium and Bergamot Station. What should happen to each, and how much should preserving their existing cultural uses influence those decisions?
I want Bergamot to remain an arts center. If housing has to be built there, do it in stages. Keep the galleries operating, build around them and move them into new spaces before taking the old spaces down. The idea that galleries can disappear for three or four years and then come back isn't realistic. By then they're either out of business or established somewhere else.

The Civic is more complicated. I've wanted to find a way to preserve its cultural use, but the building itself has major problems. I'd be open to keeping the historic elements, including the facade, while substantially rebuilding behind them so it can function as a modern venue. But we've been trying to make the Civic work for roughly 20 years. If the current effort can't make it financially viable, at some point you have to acknowledge that we've tried.

When did you last do something for the very first time?
I went on my first cruise a year ago. It was okay.

Do you have any tattoos?
No.

Should Santa Monica continue challenging state housing mandates, or accept that Sacramento has largely removed the city's discretion and concentrate on deciding where new housing goes?
Bullshit. You have to fight, period. I believe strongly that we go to the state. We complain. We cajole. We work on it.

My argument is that Santa Monica has already done more than its share. We should look at the region and the state and ask where there is room to grow without negatively affecting communities that are already densely developed.

I'll fight. I may lose, but damn it, they're going to hear me.

Does Santa Monica need substantially more housing, and if so, where should it be built? Would you concentrate most new development downtown even if that means substantially taller buildings, and what areas should be protected from additional density?
The short answer is no. We are a built-out community. If we're going to build more housing, I'd like to see more condominiums and opportunities for homeownership. I want people to be able to put down roots here rather than having everything become rental housing.

I don't believe downtown Santa Monica should be lined with high-rises. We are not Miami Beach. We're not supposed to be downtown L.A. We're supposed to be a low-rise beachfront city.

If we need to build, let's build low-rise. I want us to be uniquely, distinctly Santa Monica, and that does not mean being littered with high-rises downtown or on residential streets.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.