Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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I take no joy in writing this piece, but feel it must be done for the good of political cause everywhere in California. Before going any further though, it must be stressed that he countless hours of volunteer labor, sweat, and tears poured into the effort to Recall Gascon can never be discounted nor diminished. Nor the pain the victims have gone through, time and again, especially after being given false hope with two rounds of recalls. Sadly, precious resources were...
In February 2021, 16-year-old, straight-A student Sammy Berman Chapman asked his dad for a cheeseburger. An hour later his mom, TV therapist Dr. Laura Berman, went into his room in their Santa Monica home to talk with him about a summer internship and Sammy was dead – poisoned from a single Xanax pill, illicitly manufactured and laced with fentanyl. Sammy had been feeling isolated throughout the pandemic and ordered the pill from a brightly colored menu of "prescription" d...
WASHINGTON, DC, -- Reading, writing, and arithmetic aren't the only lessons being taught in our public schools these days. In some schools -- too many of them across the country -- teachers have added transgender ideology to the curriculum, according to Moms for Liberty co-founder, Tiffany Justice. But Moms for Liberty is not just a place for moms; "Dads, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Friends" are all welcome and are urged to join in the defense of parental rights. Justice had...
August 22, 2022 - The Los Angeles County Public Health Department claims that 31,291 residents have died of Covid-19 as of August 22 since the pandemic began in March, 2020. But have that many people actually died from the effects of becoming infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus? Given the loose definition health officials use for a Covid death, it is not at all clear. "We don't categorize deaths as 'because of' Covid vs. 'with Covid,' health officals wrote us. "All Covid...
UPDATE:ANOTHER CAR (The Tesla, attached) was smashed and grabbed at the same address two days after I sent the original message. Neighbors said they saw a black Honda Civic and racing away from the crime scene (They didn't see the license plate). Hi Santa Monica City Government, Criminals are increasing their activity in Santa Monica. Yesterday my friend's car & his neighbor's car were both smashed & robbed in Santa Monica (Pictures attached). I have two other friends who...
August 19, 2022 - In her most recent media briefing yesterday, Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, Director of Public Health, had increasing trouble maintaining the notion that she either understood the nature of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the result of the "safety precautions" her office ordered to control it or wished the public to understand. Rachel Walensky, head of the Centers for Disease Control, admitted a year ago, in August of 2021, that vaccines were not providing immunity...
If you shudder, as you pass the infamous, filthy, dangerous, druggie-filled "Boninville" camp under the freeway at Venice and Sepulveda, or the countless homeless vagrant encampments in Hollywood, or, indeed, that horrible homeless mess under the Pico/Centinela bridge as close as Santa Monica's eastern border with West Los Angeles, well, don't take comfort by telling yourself that that can't happen here in Santa Monica. Actually, it can, and IS already happening. And it all...
August 17, 2022 - Having failed in their attempt to make Ethnic Studies a high school requirement for admission to a University of California campus, proponents of "critical" ethnic studies are turning their attention toward training K-12 teachers in their politically trendy version of the nation's history. This version, in which people are divided into oppressor versus oppressed classes, has been accused by the AMCHA Initiative as "inherently anti-Jewish" and "can't help but...
On August 12, 2022, the Los Angeles Times published an editorial by Erwin Chemerinsky, Gil Garcetti, and Miriam Aroni Krinsky. The article criticized a recent state court appellate decision that ruled that District Attorney George Gascón violated California state law when he ordered his deputies not to follow California's Three Strikes law. No one at the Los Angeles Times wrote the piece, but a quick fact check would have turned up a slew of egregious mischaracterizations....
I'm going to tell a story for those people who think dealing with the IRS is somehow fair or "reasonable" - buckle up. When I was a kid, my dad owned a small cabinet shop. He decided (against better judgement of my mother) to go into partnership with another furniture maker. The business with both of them operated for about one year successfully. Dad ran the shop with about 55 employees. The other guy ran the books (you see where this is going.) Until one day, a bunch of...
If Arthur Jeon truly is running for SM city council, he needs to be honest and truthful. His letter in your July 25-31 issue was neither. SM voters -- who are mostly renters -- must know he clearly has an anti-renter agenda. Mr. Jeon threatens the very existence of rent control which protects so very many low- and moderate-income SM renters/voters. Mr. Jeon is wrong when he says the mayor's property tax measure would benefit only the homeless. In addition to our schools, the...
August 5, 2022 - At her media briefing yesterday, LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer, PhD, MPH, MEd, declined to answer a question from a Los Angeles Times reporter regarding to what extent it is safer to be around a person who is vaccinated. Ferrer does not typically miss answering a question from the press, even if multiple questions come from one reporter. Data from the Health Department's website on "Outcomes by Vaccination Status," clearly show that transmiss...
It was with sadness that I read this in a recent story in The Santa Monica Current: “The One Thing you need to know is that SMPD responded to a call at Palisades Park last night for two unresponsive men behind a restroom. One man was pronounced dead at the scene and the other was taken to a local hospital. There were no signs of foul play but officers did find drug paraphernalia nearby.” Sadness, but not surprise. Because this is a photo I took recently of the area at the top...
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...
Dear Editor, The Santa Monica city attorney, or the city council needs to act immediately to force the Mayor's recusal from all council discussions and votes regarding either of the transfer tax ballots currently under consideration. Fact: The Mayor is spending $200,000 of her own money to gather signatures and campaign for her transfer tax ballot measure. The presence of a competing measure will require her to spend additional funds to achieve success, which will lessen her...
If you have walked our iconic bluffs overlooking the ocean, you will find discarded cans, old backpacks, blankets and clothes on the other side of the concrete railings that spoil the otherwise majestic ocean view. While the rest of Palisades Park is kept up beautifully, the bluff's rim is riddled with trash. I asked a Parks employee about it and he said they weren't allowed to go over the fence to clean it up because it was too dangerous. So that's it? Are we out of ideas on...
July 8, 2022 - Los Angeles County has been living under the threat of a new indoor mask mandate for weeks now as Covid-19 cases, driven by various Omicron subvariants, bring more Covid patients to area hospitals. Once there are over 10 Covid patients per 100,000 residents in the hospital, the county is deemed by Centers for Disease Control guidance to be in a High transmission level. A patient is a Covid patient if they test positive for Covid, whether they suffer from the...
July 7, 2022 For many weeks now, Los Angeles County Health officials have warned that a health order requiring masks at indoor public places will be re-instituted when there are 10 admissions or more of "Covid" patients per 100,000 residents for two weeks in a row. The cutoff is a guideline from the Centers for Disease Control. It is designed to reduce the stress on the hospital system. Two questions require to be answered for one to consider this guideline and its...
As Caroline and Anastasia say, rent control is for all tenants, but it is the rent challenged who they, understandably, use to justify emergency rent freezes, thus lumping all renters into one group. But using a subset of the group to set policy for all is the opposite of how progressive taxation and the redistribution of wealth is performed in any well-meaning democracy, such as ours. All taxation and economic policies need to account for individual wealth, to ease the...
A Call-to-Action on Crime Dear Editor, I believe many Santa Monicans, rattled by an epidemic of brazen crime, are understandably furious at LA County DA George Gascon. They may not be aware, however, that the City of Santa Monica, not Gascon, has authority over violent misdemeanor prosecutions in our city, while Gascon's permissiveness, which the Council has failed to condemn, applies solely to felonies committed here. The combined effect is that lawbreakers, many of them...
Gascón's refused to hold Victor Bibiano accountable for a 2009 double murder. That decision was based solely on Gascón's ideological policy. There is no science, no data, and no consideration for public safety supporting his position. It was a policy based upon having the "lightest touch" on all criminals. The same failed reasoning kept Justin Flores on the streets on June 14, 2022, when he murdered two El Monte police officers. It is why Mario Rodriguez was murdered on A...
June 15, 2022 - Pools of urine, tagged walls, drug addicts, and homeless squatters greeted downtown Santa Monica property owner John Alle as he arrived early to work the morning following the City Council meeting that approved extending the contract with Allied Universal Security. The security company is charged with patrolling the seven public garages and associated alleyways overnight until 6 am in the morning. The Block by Block Ambassadors take over patrol duty at 6 am,...
July 4th is fast approaching, along with the devastating impact of fireworks. I know first-hand, as an illegal yet permitted fireworks show was responsible for the death of my dog last year. All fireworks are illegal in the city of Santa Monica. Despite restrictions, The Beach Club, a "members only" private club in Santa Monica, circumvents the law by claiming its parking lot sits over the city boundary in Los Angeles County. By doing so, last year, they received a last-minute...
On Thursday June 9, 2022 the Rent Control Board will be discussing the details of filling a vacancy since Board Member Nicole Phillis announced her resignation. In accordance with the City Charter, whenever there is an unscheduled vacancy on the Board, they make an appointment. They always appoint someone who will have the advantage of being listed as an incumbent in the next election. The appointee is always another SMRR (Santa Monican for Renters' Rights) member and never a...
This is not a 'wealth tax' as the signature gatherers proclaim - it is a real estate transfer tax. They are completely different things. With this new transfer tax, if you buy and sell a house for even the same price, you will owe $500,000. And as the threshold is not inflation adjusted, in a very few years it won't be just the wealthy paying this, it will be everyone - even for modest homes. And then the house-flipping industry will stop... This will have a crushing effect...