Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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At the July 15, 2021 meeting of the Santa Monica Housing Commission, Chair Michael Soloff proceeded with the selection of the leadership even though commissioners had not yet been appointed by the City Council to the four open seats. Apart from participating on the Housing Commission, Mr. Soloff is also the husband of Mayor Sue Himmelrich and a co-chair of SMRR, an organization which has held power over Santa Monica's politics for decades. It appears that Mr. Soloff acted in...
As a SAMOHI alum, class of 1970, and an SMMUSD employee since 1998, I, too, wish the District could save the combined SAMOHI History/Art/Business building complex. But they didn't just suddenly decide during the pandemic. It's nothing new. We've known for years that SAMOHI is on a long-term program to tear down and replace all its buildings except the English building, which is a designated historic landmark. They've made no secret of their plans. It's just that most people...
July 16, 2021 It was only a matter of time, and not very much time, before the uptick in Covid-19 cases caused health officials to begin reimposing the restrictions they have used for 16 months now in order to deflect blame for public illnesses and deaths. On Thursday, county health officials issued a new order that will require the public to wear masks again when in indoor settings, regardless of vaccination status. On June 15, the "reopening" of the state, there were 210...
Santa Monica Mayor Sue Himmelrich thinks the key to saving the dying Third Street Promenade is to allow drug-using vagrants to use the business district's parking garages. Just kidding. What she really thinks will help is tearing down the garages and putting so-called affordable housing in their place. Himmelrich has shown little interest in the problems with vagrancy, trash, drug use, and human waste in the city's public garages. She has not responded to the problem of...
A law that would grant nearly all (if not all) criminal defendants the right to walk out of jail without bail is now sitting in the Public Safety Committee of the California State Assembly after passing the State Senate with a 30-9 vote. Should the bill, SB 262, get passed by the Assembly, it will be nearly (if not completely) impossible to hold any offender in jail, no matter what crime they are accused of committing. The proposed law would require bail to be set at $0 for...
A resident survey sent out with a Santa Monica Community Recreation email blast seems designed to elicit certain results regarding the city's stance on politically and socially progressive issues. The first page of the survey admits "This is not a scientific survey." One must give them credit where it is due. From there on, the survey goes on to attempt eliciting praise of the city, its diversity (a word that is never defined), sustainability (also not defined), and...
The following is a written public comment submitted to the Santa Monica City Council on 6/29/21 This is to request that Mayor Himmelrich refrain from nominating or voting for SMRR-endorsed Council applicant Caroline Torosis due to the appearance of a conflict of interest caused by the fact that Mayor Himmelrich's husband, Michael Soloff, is a co-chair of SMRR. A conflict of interest is a situation in which a person such as a public official has a private or personal interest...
Dear School Board -You all have repeatedly stated that the History Building must be torn down because it cannot accommodate modern classrooms shapes and sizes. This is a lie. After staff said they never studied adaptive reuse, the Information Item last week magically says you did that in the January meeting. Another lie. Of course everyone but the school board, district staff, and the bond manager know that adaptive reuse of the History Building means gutting the interior and...
As an Army Ranger in Afghanistan, I witnessed countless tragedies during my three deployments. After leaving the army and working in finance, I was drinking heavily and fell into a deep depression. I felt lost and suffered from a constant feeling of dread. For so many people, like me, who have suffered from anxiety, depression or PTSD, traditional therapy and medications have failed to treat my mental health. I didn't want to be heavily medicated and numb my pain through...
Courtesy of the brainiac who is pushing to densify our neighborhoods, California State Senator Scott Wiener, Senate Bill 519 to legalize psychedelic drugs, including LSD, was approved by the state's upper house. It will now move to the State Assembly where a similar vote is likely. Citing numerous studies touting the potential health benefits of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), Wiener said "it makes no sense to criminalize" their use....
There will be a Gelsons at the eventual megalith development that is replacing Martin's Cadillac on Olympic Boulevard near Bundy. Hines development company, who is constructing the eight-story mixed-use project, thinks that learning this exciting news will make up for the increase in traffic that 200,000 square feet of offices and 600 apartments will bring to an already crowded area. "Securing a retail anchor of Gelson's caliber is a true testament to our place-making plan,"...
The City of Santa Monica's Planning Department has made available for public consumption its most current draft of the Housing Element of the General Plan. While this combination of words may cause your eyes to glaze over in boredom, the city staff's recommendations in this bulky document, over 1500 pages long, will significantly impact the quality of life in Santa Monica, including its density, environment, strain on infrastructure, cost of living, and finances. Since no one...
A miracle just happened for the residents of Santa Monica that can save our city forever: Councilmember Kevin McKeown, who has served for decades in this role, just unexpectedly announced his resignation effective 2 weeks from now to a shocked Council and city. Why is this a miracle? Because Kevin had been leading the efforts to enrich wealthy developers by using "equity" and "anti-racism" as a BS excuse to upzone the entire city (including single family R1 zoned communities)...
May 18, 2021 After taking the weekend to mull the matter, Governor Newsom and the California Department of Public Health decided that California would not be following the guidelines put forward May 13 by the Centers for Disease Control regarding masks. On Thursday, the federal CDC declared that vaccinated people could safely remove their masks in all situations: indoors or out, crowded or not. But on Monday, California officials, ruling over a state with one of the lowest...
May 17, 2021 The Los Angeles Fire Department responds to an average of 24 homeless-related fires a day, according to reporting by the Los Angeles Times. That's two dozen emergencies every day. LAFD classifies one third of those fires as arson. The rest of the fires are caused by outdoor cookstoves or other unsafe and unpermitted use of flames. These fires cause death and a great deal of damage. 41 homeless people have been killed by them since 2015 and they have caused an...
The current Los Angeles District Attorney sends press releases that are markedly different from his predecessor. While Jackie Lacey would announced the arrests of people in positions of trust, such as police officers and politicians, she would intersperse such victories of justice with stories of the detainment of the sorts of criminals that most people are going to encounter and from whom they will suffer. Serial murderers, rapists, and the like. Not DA George Gascon. He...
Pfizer has submitted a request to the Food and Drug Administration to approve its innovative Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 12 to 15 years old. At present, this vaccine is only approved by the FDA for emergency use for individuals aged 16 and older. The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health is solidly behind the vaccination of children. "To prepare for this change, Public Health is urging providers to consider expanding the range of vaccines they are delivering...
Our legislators' hunger for more and more housing units in the region ignores one remarkably significant limiting factor: water supply. Over recorded history in the region, California has suffered multiple droughts, many of the more recent episodes requiring strict rationing of residential water supply. Los Angeles is currently at only 46% of average rainfall for the Water Year according to the California Department of Water Resources (DWR). Riverside is at 50%, and other...
State Senator Josh Newman, a Democrat, is pulling from consideration his proposal to allow the objects of a recall petition access to the names and contact information of those who signed the petition. Newman, reelected in 2020, was himself the victim of a recall election in 2018 - which he lost. He says the present system of privacy for those who sign a recall petition allows for potential fraud. Those who sign the recall petition may not realize what they are signing. The...
How does one get a free room with oceanfront view, no taxes to pay, and no building codes to follow? According to Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin, be a vagrant. The controversial councilmember is already routinely lambasted on social media for the unsanitary and dangerous conditions caused by vagrants in his district. His proposal to allow the homeless to legally camp in the beach parking lots at Will Rogers and Dockweiler Beach and next to Fisherman's Wharf was met with a...
On every page of the official Black Lives Matter website, a button urges one to "donate today." Benefactors may warm themselves with supporting BLM's "ongoing fight to end State-sanctioned violence, liberate Black people, and end white supremacy forever." In their 2020 Impact Report released in February, the activist organization attempts to explain how they are going about achieving these lofty, distorted, and utterly vague goals. In the process, they try to explain what...
The case against Assembly Bill 101, a law that would require ethnic studies be a part of the high school curriculum in the state's public schools, was made by Tammi Rossman-Benjamin of the Amcha Initiative in the San Diego Tribune. AB 101 will be heard before the California Assembly Education Committee this week. The Amcha Initiative is a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to combating anti-Semitism on school campuses. Rossman-Benjamin's contention is that the entire curriculum...
UPDATE/CORRECTION: The Santa Monica Shines program does not involve inspections from city of Santa Monica code inspectors. Sustainable Works conducts the walk-throughs to grant the Assurance Seal and they are a separate entityt hired by the city. The empathy course that seems so mysterious involves guidance in how to interact with business customers or guests who do not want to follow the county's safety guidelines, i.e. are refusing to wear a mask or socially distance. Half...
Dressed up in the language of compassion and social justice, the City Council's vote on March 30 to accommodate 6,168 affordable housing units, 70% of whatever new housing is built, and then to disperse these affordable units throughout the city, including along Montana Avenue and Main Street, is in reality a despicable theft of the earnings of hardworking residents and will end up benefiting no one. There are so many fatal flaws in the logic, data, and goals involved in both...
Police were needed to protect construction workers on Wednesday night at Echo Park as over 200 protestors arrived to decry the attempt to clear an estimated four dozen homeless people who'd set up camp on park grounds. The City of Los Angeles said they need to close the park to conduct about $500,000 in damage to lighting and plumbing and to remove hazardous waste and make public safety improvements. The park has been the site of a tent city commune of up to 100 people at...
