By Doug Trussler, Candidate for Santa Monica City Council
My name is Doug Trussler. I have lived in Santa Monica since 2005, built my business here, raised my family here, and plan to retire here. My entire career has been as an investor and manager. I have been involved in more than fifty businesses as an investor, employee, board member, and executive. I have sat on over fifty audit committees and participated in hundreds of audits.
I am running for City Council because I believe Santa Monica’s financial situation is serious, fixable, and not being described honestly to residents.
Given my background, I am uniquely qualified to assess the City’s financial position. My experience gives me the unique opportunity to solve our greatest financial threat in more than 50 years. I am running for City Council because I believe Santa Monica’s financial situation is serious and that it needs to described honestly to residents.
Yesterday, Councilmember Dan Hall sent residents an email titled “Special Edition: Santa Monica’s Financial Report Card.” Its timing is noteworthy. The Council is aware that fixing the City’s budget is the centerpiece of my campaign. It is also aware that it is simultaneously asking residents to approve a new parcel tax, one framed as support for local schools, but which, in practice, simply allows the City to reduce its existing obligations to those same schools by an equivalent amount. Charge residents $12 million, hand it to the schools, and reduce what the city was previously required to contribute. That is not school funding. That is a budget maneuver dressed up as civic generosity.
For the record: I support the parcel tax, because the City genuinely needs the revenue. But I support it only with a five-year sunset provision. If I am involved in City government, we will not need this tax in five years.
That tension — claiming the City is financially stable while simultaneously asking residents for more money — is the central contradiction of Mr. Hall’s email, and it deserves to be named.
Audits are Just That
Mr. Hall anchors his reassurances to the city’s Annual Comprehensive Financial Report, a document that is nine months old and looks backward. His claim that it is “one of the most reliable documents available to understand the city’s true financial health” reflects a misunderstanding of what audits actually do. A clean audit confirms that the books are accurate. It says nothing about the city’s trajectory, its contingent liabilities, or its prospects. There are plenty of companies that received clean audits for decades before becoming insolvent.
Government accounting is also significantly less transparent than private-sector accounting. Governments can move money between accounts in ways that would draw serious regulatory scrutiny in the private sector. Capital assets are carried at depreciated cost, not market value, meaning Santa Monica’s considerable land holdings, some of the most valuable in California, are largely invisible on the balance sheet, while a depreciated water pipe underground appears as an asset which can’t be sold. Mr. Hall’s email does not explain any of this.
If we want to measure how this Council is actually performing, the right document is the city’s own forecasts, compared against actual results. That comparison is not flattering.
Focus on the Numbers Ahead
The 2026 budget projects $477 million in revenue — a 6 percent increase over 2025, a year in which revenue actuallydeclined from 2024. That growth assumption requires a 15 percent increase in hotel tax receipts and a 30 percent increase in parking revenue. The parking increase may be achievable, since tax rates on residents to park were raised substantially. The hotel revenue increase will be far more difficult; 2025 was a damaging year for Santa Monica’s hospitality sector. Santa Monica tourism is down more than 50% since 2019, yet other southern California cities have rebounded. Unfortunately, Santa Monica has not recovered which has severely impacted our City’s financial situation.
Against that optimistic revenue projection for 2026, budgeted expenditures are $512 million. As a result, the city plans to spend more than $35 million more than it takes in. The 2027 forecast shows a $20 million deficit, an improvement, but only if you believe projections that have, to my knowledge, never been met. I am hopeful the new City manager may change that.
Every resident in Santa Monica knows that if your expenses are greater than your revenues, the City is not sustainable over the long term, residents don’t need the ACFR and Mr. Hall to figure that out.
Importantly, Mr. Hall characterizes the rating agency’s negative outlook as “a yellow flag, not a red one.” That framing undersells the practical implications. Santa Monica carries relatively little debt today, so the immediate impact is limited. As the City moves forward with financing projects (the Great Park conversion of the airport pursuant to measure LC) without a financially healthy city, that negative outlook will translate directly into higher borrowing costs, costing Santa Monica residents millions in additional interest.
What Audits Can’t Tell You
Step outside and look at what Santa Monica actually looks like: substantial vacancy rates on the Third Street Promenade, tourism that collapsed and hasn’t recovered, more than $450 million in unfunded capital projects where key infrastructure desperately needs repair, the highest rate of homelessness of any beach city in Southern California, and commercial real estate values in sustained decline. These are not forces entirely outside anyone’s control. They are the cumulative result of policy decisions, and they demand accountability, not reassurance. Currently, the City options are limited and it is choosing to fund deficits with land sales which is akin to burning your furniture to keep warm.
Santa Monica residents are educated and perceptive. Everyone can see what is happening in our streets. Our people deserve elected officials to be honest and truly understanding of the problem – not spin and and no transparency. Solutions do not emerge until problems are acknowledged by Councilmembers like Mr. Hall.
Why I am Running
I would not be entering this race if I did not believe these problems are solvable. They are. But solving them requires elected leadership willing to say clearly: we are in a difficult position, the decisions ahead are hard, and we need to work through them together, not paper them over with backward-looking audit letters.
The financial health of the City impacts the ability to provide solutions to its residents on taxation, homeless, housing, tourism, and bringing businesses back to our City. It is the starting point for every conversation and every action the City takes.
That is the campaign I am running. No excuses. No spin. Just a serious effort to fix this city’s finances so that every resident, renter and homeowner, longtime and newcomer can afford to stay and thrive in Santa Monica. The new Santa Monica will be where problems are identified and solutions are implemented.