Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 131
My open letter to SM City Council and School Board on the quarter billion $+ plan to acquire the Civic Auditorium: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education, Santa Monica City Council, Mayor Gleam Davis Dear Members of the SMMUSD Board of Education, City Council, and Mayor Gleam Davis, I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of Santa Monica and a parent of two school children in the SMMUSD. The proposed plan to purchase and repurpose the Santa Monica...
Letter to the Editor: City Attorney Sloan has broken his ethical obligations to all residents, the Council, and the State Bar by falsely claiming in the Observer that the Brown Act will not be violated Tuesday when Council meets in Closed Session to discuss and make decisions on all aspects of proposed sales of the Civic Auditorium without any open meeting on the issue. He is also causing all Council members , the City Manager and other senior staff members to be put in...
A recent petition states that LA County is conducting a free needle distribution program in the 7 Eleven parking lot, across the street from the Santa Monica Proper Hotel. A luxury hotel, the Proper's rooms start at about $1,000 a night. A petition to rid Santa Monica of the County of LA's distribution program has the signatures of at least one Santa Monica City councilmember, Phil Brock. "The City of Santa Monica and the County along with Venice Family Clinic have been...
L.A. county police union blindsided by plan to 'depopulate' jails -- A sweeping proposal calling for depopulation and decarceration of the Los Angeles County jails will be considered Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors, drawing the ire of an organization representing police chiefs for 45 law enforcement agencies. The plan advanced by Supervisors Hilda Solis and Lindsey Horvath would declare a "humanitarian crisis" in the jails and advocate for or instruct several county...
April 12, 2023 - Citing out-of-touch leadership and mismanagement of funds, 54 business and property owners on the Third Street Promenade have hired an attorney to create their own business district, apart from Downtown Santa Monica Inc, with no city government participation. Currently, DTSM operates the downtown area, including the Third Street Promenade and from Second Street to Lincoln Boulevard and the 10 Freeway. They are to maintain the area, keep it secure, and...
Director BARBARA FERRER, Ph.D., and her 4th in command at the County of Los Angeles Public Health, Gary Tsai. M.D., are at it again, this time in Santa Monica. The City has acknowledged that without the knowledge of its Police Department, residents and businesses, it has funded and allowed over a year for the County and the Venice Family Clinic to administer a clandestine needle and synthetic drug distribution program in one of the City's largest parks (Reed Park), adjacent...
Dear Mayor Davis and Honorable Santa Monica City Councilmembers, As you know, Measure GS, the Himmelrich-financed 5.6% transfer tax on properties $8+ million sold in Santa Monica, takes effect tomorrow, March 1, 2023. As I predicted to you earlier, the impact of GS is already being seen. In the last 2 days, we have seen rapid real estate closures of at least three homes in N of Montana valued at $33,941,000, depriving the city of over $1,900,000 in Himmelrich tax for you to...
Convictions of rape, multiple murders must be reversed The blunder of a San Diego judge in 1989 in countermanding the ruling of another judge in the absence of any new law, facts, or circumstances resulted yesterday in the California Supreme Court unanimously overturning the conviction of a man for three first-degree murders, rape, and other felonies committed during a 1985-86 crime spree. The infeasibility of re-trying Billy Ray Waldon, 71, for offenses perpetrated as long...
January 25, 2023 - Citing a budget that is heavy on salaries and failed programs, incompetent leadership, and the economically and physically depressed state of the Third Street Promenade, property owner and business leader John Alle is calling for the disbanding of Downtown Santa Monica Inc (DTSM). DTSM is a "private" non-profit organization that is supposed to work with the City government to manage services and operations in downtown Santa Monica. The 13-member board of...
LA County loses bid for contempt hearing for Villanueva, for now A judge has denied on procedural grounds a request by attorneys for Los Angeles County that a hearing be scheduled on whether to hold former Sheriff Alex Villanueva and his ex-undersheriff in contempt for allegedly ignoring subpoenas to appear before the Civilian Oversight Commission and testify about suspected deputy cliques.--City News Service Judge declines to shoot down California's restrictions on openly...
UPDATE December 12, 2022 - The mountain lion known as P-22 has been safely captured according to the National Park Service and SaveLA Cougars. Beth Pratt, Regional Director of the National Wildlife Federation, thanked NPS and California Department of Fish and Wildlife for bringing P-22 in safely for a health evaluation. As well, Pratt wrote that, "Our hearts go out to the pets and people that in P-22's distress have been impacted. We acknowledge that these interactions are...
California Supreme Court tosses gang murder conspiracy case: The California Supreme Court on Thursday threw out the conspiracy-to-murder conviction of a gang member who used social media to applaud the killing of rivals during a San Diego gang war. "Being a cheerleader" isn't enough to show that Nicholas Hoskins conspired in the murders, the court said in an unusual and unanimous opinion. The court overturned Hoskins' sentence of 25 years to life and sent the case back to the...
Los Angeles District Attorney Taxpayers on hook as Gascon brings in nation's highest-paid attorney in legal battle with his own prosecutors Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon, whose own deputies sued him for permission to charge repeat offenders to the fullest extent of the law, has pulled out all the stops in his California Supreme Court appeal against them, retaining one of the nation's top lawyers. Neal K. Katyal, a former Acting U.S. Solicitor General who represen...
Open Letter to Sue Himmelrich and husband Michael Soloff: It was with dismay that I watched both your orchestrated attacks on councilman Phil Brock's alternate tax transfer measure at the July 12 City Council meeting (http://santamonica.granicus.com/ViewPublisher.php?view_id=2). It was the definition of bad faith. Michael Soloff, in your labored straw man argument, you called Councilman Brock's measure a "poison pill." You used every cliche in the canon to push for endless...
Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón claims L.A. County is safer 'in some areas' because of his policies despite rise in violent crime over past year Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón joined local station KTLA 5 Saturday morning to defend his record as he faces a potential recall. Gascón was asked by news anchors Lynette Romero and Mark Meester to respond to those criticizing him as a "soft-on-crime" DA as L.A. has seen an 8.6% rise in violent crime ove...
Los Angeles District Attorney Los Angeles DA George Gascon 'overstates his authority,' can't ignore California law, court rules A California appeals court of Thursday upheld an injunction that said Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon can't refuse to charge three-strike cases, which can significantly increase prison sentences. The court affirmed an earlier ruling that said the directive not to charge strikes against dependants violates state law and the rights...
May 26, 2022 - Property owners surrounding the former downtown Santa Monica parking structure 3 noticed that the lights attached to the building were permanently shut off on Tuesday evening, May 10, by Southern California Edison. These lights illuminate the alley behind the parking structure for about 225 linear feet. . In addition, 8 city light poles from Arizona to Santa Monica Boulevard are out. On top of the lack of light at night, the construction site is left unlocked...
To save, preserve and expand the United States Postal Service requires making the post office a national priority. Plus, first firing Louis de Joy. Now that the dysfunctional board which governs the postal service has new directors firing Postmaster de Joy is - priority one !! Note to president Biden ...... please, before your next international trip, before you sign your next bill, before your next state dinner, before your next cabinet meeting ...... in other words,...
Thank God for life's little pleasures! The mailbox in front of Will Rogers station post office, at Euclid and Wilshire, is once again bolted in the cement where it belongs. So now you can once again mail a letter 24/7 in Santa Monica. There have been rumors, says our source, that the Will Rogers station would close and the installation of a new box, does seem to indicate that they will be leaving the only Post Office in 90403 or 90402 open for the time being. About 40,000...
Amid an affordable housing and homelessness crisis, why would the City want to suspend all meetings of the Housing Commission "until City Council considers its annual appointments in June 2022" (May 10, 2022 agenda item 13C)? And why are the Mayor and Councilmembers insisting that "once the Housing Commission resumes meeting following the appointments, it shall immediately hold elections for Chair and Vice Chair"? Those elections are already compulsory per Council Resolution 1...
Courts & Rulings Court hears case over deputy who didn't read Miranda rights You have the right to remain silent. Everyone knows police aren't supposed to question suspects without reading them their Miranda rights. But what happens when law enforcement officers don't first read suspects their rights? The Supreme Court on Wednesday wrestled with whether a sheriff's deputy can be sued for money damages for violating the rights of a hospital employee who was accused of sexually...
The City Council of Calabasas has published an open letter to Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascon, spurning his requiest to meet and discuss his "vision" of law enforcement. Citing a spiraling increase in crime in Calabasas and the continued presence on the street of an accused serial child predator, Councilmember James Bozajian, a past president of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys, posted the below letter to Gascon, outlining the reasons a meeting w...
April 12, 2022 - City officials at all levels are struggling to respond to the recent news reports ranking Santa Monica as one of the least safe cities in California. In an open letter, City Manager David White and Police Chief Ramon Batista - both relatively new hires - claimed they have heard residents' fears and dismay and are taking aggressive action to restore the city's safety. Meanwhile, Barry Snell, the Interim Chief Executive Officer of Downtown Santa Monica, Inc.,...
Courts & Rulings FBI wins narrow high court ruling on failed mosque sting operation The FBI can invoke privilege for state secrets to duck a lawsuit over a failed operation spying on Muslims after 9/11, the Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Friday. Sheikh Yassir Fazaga, an imam with the Orange County Islamic Foundation, brought the suit with two other Muslim men over a decade ago, saying their rights were violated through the FBI counterterrorism investigation...
As you might expect, conspiracy theories are making the rounds on Russian social media. One theory that the real reason Russia invaded Ukraine has nothing to do with history, national pride, neo-Nazi's or internal Ukraine politics. It's about the CIA Biolabs, of course. The US Embassy to Ukraine denied these rumors 2 years ago. But some Russians nevertheless deflect blame for their invasion, on the US and the CIA. "I'm not sure what the whole truth is, but for one, there are...
