Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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February 1, 2024 - Can you imagine Santa Monica without drug addicts exposing themselves while you're waiting for a bus? Where vagrants are not allowed to take up residence in your garage? Where those who commit retail theft actually get charged and go to jail? Jonathan Hatami can imagine that. A veteran of the United States Armed Forces and a Los Angeles County prosecutor for the past seventeen years, Hatami is running for District Attorney, the job George Gascon has...
Tuesday evening February 20th I attended the Santa Monica City Council's Audit Sub-Committee Meeting. The Audit Subcommittee is not a City commission or board. It is supposed to provide an alternative way for employees, taxpayers or other citizens to confidentially report suspected illegal, improper, wasteful or fraudulent activity and provide periodic review and selection of external auditors. It is supposed to act in an 'advisory' capacity and review all City audit reports,...
(Editor’s note: Gleam Davis is not termed out and could run for one more term). Gleam Davis will term out on the City Council this year. Why are Santa Monica taxpayers paying to send a lame duck Council Member to Vienna, Austria for a week in April for a housing conference? Find out (or not) when the City Council addresses the Budget at its Tuesday, February 27 meeting. ____ Nobody else could go? But the City is already sending Council Member Torosis. Is Caroline’s att...
Let me tell you about the time Ruth Bader Ginsburg saved Donald Trump $355 million plus interest. It was Feb. 20, 2019, and Justice Ginsburg delivered the opinion of the court in the case of Timbs v. Indiana. In that case, police in Indiana had seized Tyson Timbs' Land Rover SUV, which he bought for $42,000 with money he received from a life insurance policy when his dad died. The state sought civil forfeiture of the vehicle because Timbs had pleaded guilty to drug dealing...
Editor's note: We received the following letter sent to Los Angeles County's top Department of Public Health officials from a Santa Monica resident: To Dr. Tsai and Dr. Ferrer, I've lived within two blocks of Reed Park for 25 years and lived firsthand the destruction of our commons under all sorts of "harm reduction," and decriminalization social experiments. I just caught Dr. Tsai's presentation to the Santa Monica Recreation and Parks Commission and your answers to their exc...
I am writing in opposition to Item 5G ("Discussion of Potential Resolution for Charter Amendments for Additional Tenant Protections") on the Agenda for the February 13 meeting of the Santa Monica City Council, l and any proposal to adopt by Initiative, Ordinance or otherwise any proposal to condition eviction for nonpayment of rent on the nonpayment of any more than the rent that is past due, which in the case of a month-to-month tenancy would ordinarily be one month's rent. T...
The photos you see here were taken on the same day, Sunday January 21, a mere 40 minutes and about 25 miles apart. The $5.79 "high water mark" was the Chevron on Cloverfield; the low water mark, my favorite Sinclair station in North Long Beach. My absolute fave station, it even offers same price, cash or credit; and, no, I don't make a special trip down there to buy gas. But when I'm passing through on the way back from points south, I take a very short detour and fill up. A...
To the Residents of Santa Monica: Remember the names of our City Council members: Gleam Davis Lana Negrete Phil Brock Christine Parra Jesse Zwick Caroline Torosis Oscar de la Torre The City of Santa Monica has many problems. Ample and affordable housing. Public safety. Commerce. Education. Traffic. The homeless. Infrastructure. Taxes. A limited budget. There are many ways to learn about housing and other planning issues and solutions. We have many world class universities i...
On Sunday morning, the Los Angeles Times endorsed George Gascón in the District Attorney's race. Their justification? Voters should "reject the nonsense and keep Gascón on the job and criminal justice reform in place." The editorial board returned to that theme in their closing sentences. "Voters were right to pick him in 2020," they wrote. "They ought to keep him in place for another term." Notice that language: "Keep him in place." Their editorial was not what one would call...
New state laws initiated January 1st are going to allow building up to 20 stories in Santa Monica and add 67,000 residents. Land use lawyers for developers have already begun pulling and resubmitting housing project plans to the City in order to take advantage of the huge increases in size allowed by the new law. What’s the vision for Santa Monica? Is it Miami Beach? Residents, read this excellent article that spells out what’s coming: (https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site...
These Observer pages have long chronicled decades of mismanagement by Santa Methica's governing bodies, the accumulated misdirection and incompetence having led the city to the death spiral in which it currently finds itself. However, there is likely agreement among not only Observer regulars, but, residents and tourists alike, that there is at least one thing in which Santa Methica has always excelled: terrorizing all who dare to drive a car here, by handing out very expensiv...
Arthur Jeon writes: This is the truth being obfuscated by anti-police activists (a tiny but vocal minority): 2438 people were arrested in Santa Monica last year. 180 of those 2400 had Santa Monica addresses (many repeat offenders using SAMOSHEL as an address). This means that approximately 92% of arrestees were NOT FROM SANTA MONICA. So comparing racial identities with Santa Monica residents is intellectually dishonest at best, or a lying manipulation by defund activists at wo...
Gascón Abandons All Murder Victims' Families In the criminal justice system, a prosecutor's role of seeking justice extends beyond the courtroom; it involves a profound responsibility to victims' families, ensuring their voices are heard and their concerns addressed. Under District Attorney George Gascón, this fundamental duty has been abandoned. Instead of championing the rights of victims and their families, the Gascón administration has opted for a disheartening ap...
Los Angeles (CA)--The California Racial and Identity Profiling Advisory Board (Board) released its Report on Police Stop Data for 2022 made by California law enforcement agencies. The Los Angeles Police Protective League and the San Francisco and San Jose Police Officers Associations issued this joint statement in response: "This latest RIPA report takes the easy way out by relying on a dizzying number of charts, figures and statistics instead of presenting a serious public po...
Santa Monica DOES NOT have a police brutality or bias problem. After being attacked twice in a year within a block of my house, I don't care that the first attacker was white and the second one was black. It was their behavior that was the problem. But if we're clocking immutable and random differences in pigmentation, I did notice that the responding officers were female, Hispanic, and in the second attack, majority black. I didn't care what their skin color was either; I...
Thanks for sharing these videos, Santa Monica Coalition. This is my neighborhood. Council et al, Really watch these two videos and what these women are saying. Take whatever opinions you have about where the videos came from and simply absorb them. I did. Right behind my fury came a surprising and deep sadness. These women, with babies, just trying to live their lives at the local park. The addicts, allowed to disintegrate and die on the streets under the empty promises and...
Dear Northeast Neighbors and friends: Last night sparks flew as the City Council discussed the proposal of internationally renowned public park design firm Sasaki Associates to design a Great Park at Santa Monica Airport. City Staff presented and recommended a six-point Action plan for the agreement with Sasaki. Councilmember de la Torre was absent, but a discussion and vote ensued. Sasaki made an impressive presentation of its past projects converting airports to parks. Then...
The Board of Directors of the Association of Deputy District Attorneys ("ADDA") has adopted the recommendation of its Endorsement Committee to endorse Eric Siddall to be the next District Attorney of Los Angeles County. This endorsement is the product of an exhaustive, months-long, fact-based analysis of District Attorney candidates by the ADDA's Endorsement Committee, a process outlined in the Association's Endorsement Protocol. The Committee, which was composed of Deputy vol...
Los Angeles (CA) –Today, Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and other activist groups filed a lawsuit against the LAPD attempting to prohibit car stops of suspected stolen vehicles. The Los Angeles Police Protective League issued this statement in response: "If successful, the latest legal stunt by the police abolitionist group BLM-LA will serve no other purpose than to allow car thieves to get away with stealing more cars and place police officers in further danger as they a...
The repeal of existing law (Costa Hawkins Act) and rent freeze effort by the Aids Foundation has been defeated twice before. Polling shows it will be defeated again. This initiative to freeze rents on vacant units is on the November '24 ballot. It is bad for RENTERS, bad for our city, bad for homeowners, bad for condo owners, bad for prospective tenants, bad for new construction, and bad for our apartment supply . Since vacancy decontrol/recontrol was fully implemented in...
December 19, 2023 - In an email, John Alle of the Santa Monica Coalition, supplied comments from Santa Monica residents regarding the proposed ten percent increase in the salary of City Manager David White, and they are not in favor. The Santa Monica Coalition is a group of residents, property owners, and businesses that advocate restoration of safety, cleanliness, and prosperity to the city. The proposal to be considered at tonight's city council meeting is to raise White's s...
Email to City Manager David White and Lori Gentles Dear David and Lori. You have generally been highly responsive to inquiries from me, so I believe you will reply to this urgent email today. The issue of the increase in David's salary comes before Council only 6 days after it was announced in yesterday's Council meeting Agenda for Tuesday., so time is extremely of the essence. The public and media should know your thoughts now on an issue that might be significant( both on...
December 14, 2023 - California State Senator Scott Wiener tweeted on X today his horror at hearing bystanders shout "Free Palestine" at him in Union Square at a Hanukkah celebration there. "Harassing Jews celebrating a holiday has nothing to do with the war & everything to do with antisemitism," he wrote. One wonders what planet Wiener has been living on. Does he still think those who oppose the Jewish State of Israel separate their feelings about Israel from those about...
In Early November, I had an illuminating conversation about Santa Monica on American 2916 heading west from LaGuardia to Dallas/Ft. Worth. The middle seat on the Airbus was empty and the 60ish gentleman sitting in the aisle seat was well groomed and well dressed. Quiet at first, he began to chat somewhere over Kentucky. Introduced himself as Paul K., a lifetime New Yorker, proud of his humble southern Italian origins and subsequent success in the restaurant/food business. He...
As the sun rises over our beautiful Santa Monica beaches, marking the end of Mayor Gleam Davis's tenure and the beginning of Mayor Phil Brock's, there's a palpable sense of hope and anticipation in the air. Today, we stand at the threshold of a new era, an era where the voice of the residents reverberates through the corridors of City Hall, promising a future that aligns with the dreams and aspirations of those who call Santa Monica home. Mayor Phil Brock, a true son of Santa...