Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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UPDATE: ICU capacity did drop below the magical 15% over this weekend. The additional restrictions will kick in at midnight on Sunday, December 6. The fear-mongering statements predicted were made by Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health: "we are likely to bear witness to one of the worst healthcare crises our county has seen in our lifetime." See our article https://www.smobserved.com/story/2020/12/06/news/no-more-haircuts-entrance-scree...
A small but noisy protest was held outside of LA County Supervisor Sheila Kuehl's house in Santa Monica this Tuesday morning. The previous week, on Monday, November 23, Kuehl voted to close all outdoor restaurant dining. A day later Kuehl was observed eating outdoors at Il Forno Trattoria on Ocean Park Boulevard - the last day, according to her own rules, that such activity was permitted. According to an eyewitness account, the Santa Monica Police Department met the 10-15...
About 75 protestors marched up the hilly roads above Dodger Stadium on Sunday to protest outside the home of Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health. Ferrer has been the orchestrator of the various lockdown orders beginning in March. An expert in social justice and health equity, Dr. Ferrer is now referred to on talk radio as "doctor non-doctor" or "not-a-doctor" Ferrer. She makes almost half a million dollars a year in salary and benefits and has no medical...
Two Los Angeles County Supervisors led a failed attempt to reverse the county Department of Public Health's decision to close outdoor dining at area restaurants. Supervisors Kathryn Barger and Janice Hahn co-authored a motion to allow outdoor dining to continue at 50 percent capacity. The motion failed 3-2. The two supervisors' motion followed an announcement on Sunday, November 22, by the county's Public Health Department that they were ordering the closure of all outdoor...
It's been almost two weeks since the City's Planning Department hosted their first webinar about the Housing Element Update - the plan to zone for an additional 8,874 residential units as ordered by the Southern California Association of Governments. Although the questions raised during the webinar have been posted online, none of the promised answers have been given. Every eight years, SCAG distributes among the 191 cities of the region the portion of expected new housing...
UPDATE: The questions posed during the webinar can be found under the "Get Involved" tab on the Housing Element Update website. However, no answers have yet been posted. We did receive an answer to an emailed question about financing for the affordable housing: "Regarding your questions, producing affordable housing takes investment both from private and public sector. You are right that the amount of affordable housing allocated to Santa Monica is a substantial amount that...
Reacting to a rapid increase in COVID-19 cases, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health issued new restrictions, including a 10 pm cutoff hour for non-essential businesses - with the promise of more rules to come if case load continues to rise. The most recent restrictions affect restaurants, breweries, and wineries and personal care establishments. Also affected are outdoor recreational activities and private gatherings. Effective Friday, November 20,...
California Governor Newsom was outed as having flouted his own state's guidelines and rules when he was caught attending a birthday party on November 6 at the exclusive French Laundry restaurant in Napa. At the time of the gathering, which consisted of at least 10 people seated together at a table, Napa was in the Orange Tier of Covid restrictions, which is somewhat looser than others. However, the entire state had been prohibited from attending gatherings involving more than...
As of Tuesday, a full week after the national election, California has only counted 82 percent of the vote. An estimated 2,740,846 ballots have not yet been counted. If this were a battleground state, important in determining a national election, we would be a complete laughingstock. Even under normal conditions, California allows county election officials nearly a month before they have to report their final results for presidential electors to the Secretary of State. After...
The Santa Monica Planning Commission approved a permit for 7-Eleven convenience store to move into the former Bank of America building on Wilshire at Berkeley. The applicant requested the store be allowed to operate 24 hours a day but did not request an alcoholic beverage license. Neighbors forcefully opposed the project, which they said would generate noise, traffic, and crime. Concerns were circulated on social media claiming FBI statistics show 24-hour convenience stores...
Santa Monica city staff plan to propose making "parklets" permanent, the outdoor dining areas set up in parking areas along city streets. The otherwise illegal outdoor dining, usurping parking spots, was instituted as a way to allow restaurants to stay in business by allowing on-site dining. Indoor dining is still prohibited by the County of Los Angeles. The dining parklets can be seen along Lincoln Boulevard, Montana Avenue, and Main Street. The outdoor dining areas appear we...
Santa Monica is to hold three virtual community workshops to "engage" the public in discussing how to shoehorn in the 8,874 additional housing units assigned to them by the Southern California Association of Governments (SCAG). The city received its allocation of the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) from the quasi-governmental SCAG last fall. That number originated with the state's Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD), who delivered to SCAG an estimate...
There was a marked difference in the response and capability of police in quelling rioting between Philadelphia and Los Angeles this week. In Philadelphia, police were outmanned and overpowered when rioting and looting broke out in response to the police shooting death of Walter Wallace, Jr. Purported protestors rampaged through the city for two days, looting stores and injuring journalists, police, and each other. At least 11 people were shot by other looters. Meanwhile, in...
There are many alarmingly radical propositions on the ballot this election. Please go through the many measures, educate yourself, and vote. Otherwise, you will be unpleasantly surprised with the results, which could include your favorite businesses closing, increased costs for everything - including ride shares - and uncontrollable crime on the streets. Proposition 14 - Bonds for Stem Cell Research-- NO This bond essentially borrows $7.3 billion for medical research. While...
Santa Monica looks like one big construction pit. Soon enough, it will look like one big traffic jam, with cars circling like sharks (if they can move) to find the extremely rare parking spot. All this was done with private agreements between the city and developers to allow building beyond the city's zoning limits. Crimes of all types are on the rise although they are often not recorded. Residents assume the police don't care, and many crimes have been downgraded to...
Along with the alarming issues on the California State ballot there are a few alarming issues to be decided at the city and county level. In addition, you must choose who you want to run various local institutions and think hard about the environment that has been provided by incumbents. We provide guidance. Santa Monica City Council Phil Brock--Christine Parra Oscar de la Torre -- Mario Fonda-Bonardi Together, these candidates have the best chance at changing the current...
The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education approved the $21 million purchase of an office building at 1717 4th Street for use as their headquarters. The building sits on district-owned land and is adjacent to the DoubleTree Hotel and Santa Monica High School. The hotel is also situated on district-owned land and has a long-term lease with SMMUSD. The vote was six to one, with Board Member Oscar de la Torre the lone nay vote. The district currently runs...
The latest in a series of ever-changing requirements for reopening is the California Health Equity Metric. Before the new metric was announced by Governor Newsom at the end of September, a county only had to show an overall lowering in cases and test positivity rates in order to move from one "tier" to the next restrictive tier. Now, a county must also demonstrate that those census tracts in the "lowest quartile of the Healthy Places Index" can meet or come near the rates for...
If you want to avoid getting hot coffee spilled on you in Santa Monica, you're out of luck. Thanks to our current city council, single-use plastics used in the food and beverage industry were banned city-wide in 2018. It does not matter to our city council if such products provide safety for consumers. Even the plastic stoppers used to prevent coffee from spilling as you walk it away from Starbucks are banned. The company will no longer ship them to Santa Monica locations....
The news that Governor Newsom is now allowing people to gather outside of their household was greeted with premature joy and celebration in Los Angeles County. Our county, deep in the most restrictive, purple tier, still does not allow people to gather outside of their immediate household. On October 9, California's Department of Public Health cautiously relaxed restrictions placed March 16 on people gathering with those outside of their immediate household. Now the state...
On Tuesday, I answered a call that turned out to be a push poll in favor of the Plaza project at 4th and Arizona. The Plaza will take over two city blocks in downtown Santa Monica with 106,800 square feet of office space in a massive, 11-story, slightly stepped-back building. The height will be 129 feet. The "questions" in the poll, conducted by Zogby, asked the respondent to consider, one by one, the numerous benefits of the huge development. I was asked to admit the virtue...
Governor Newsom signed an executive order requiring all passenger vehicles sold after 2035 to be zero-emission. The order commands the California Air Resources Board to develop regulations that will make this goal of all-electric vehicles a reality. Once these regulations are drafted, they will go through a process of legal, economic, and environmental analyses, as well as public comment and hearings. Newsom's order, which he calls "the most impactful step our state can take...
8,600 acres have burned and many residents have been evacuated in Yucaipa because of a fire started by a gender reveal party. A device used to blow blue or pink smoke to reveal the gender of an expected baby at a party in El Dorado Ranch Park on Saturday started the fire near Redlands. A press release from the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said: CAL FIRE Law Enforcement has determined the El Dorado Fire, burning near Oak Glen in San Bernardino County, w...
California could lose federal education funding if they persist in teaching an "antiracist" curriculum. Last week, Trump was alerted via segments on Fox News that workers at federal agencies were being forced to attend racial sensitivity training that resembled Soviet gulags, with white workers being forced to concede that "virtually all White people contribute to racism" and that it is racist to consider America the land of opportunity. The president directed Russ Vought,...
On Wednesday, Los Angeles Councilmember Mike Bonin published an editorial in the LA Times and sent out an email blasting the police union for refusing to take a pay cut during a time of deadly pandemic and economic collapse. It would be solely due to the Los Angeles Police Protective League's intransigence, according to Bonin, that budget cuts would have to be taken across the board in other Los Angeles city services. Bonin claims funding cuts will impact emergency...
