Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Sorted by date Results 435 - 459 of 570
This Council is about to approve $1.6M in public funding for OPCC dba The People Concern, supposedly for the provision of homeless services. This is despite the City being on notice for at least two years of the provider's unlawful operations which include neglect, abuse and civil rights violations of clients, for example elder abuse and discrimination against individuals with disabilities. Further, OPCC is in violation of the grant agreement they have with the City, which...
United Teachers of Los Angeles have joined the teacher rebellion that’s been sweeping the country from West Virginia to California. More than 12,000 union and community members marched in the “Rally for Respect” demonstration this past Thursday. Teachers sent out their message to LAUSD and the new superintendent, Austin Beutner. They demand a fair contract and a sustainable school district for all. LAUSD educators have been working without a contract for one year At the “All i...
Dear Editor: There are women living at (O.P.C.C.) Daybreak Shelter in Santa Monica who are so severely mental that they are a danger to themselves, and everyone at this facility. This person "Jeanine" screams and sobs, and curses all night long so that the other women cannot sleep. They become angry and combative after having to put up with her psychotic episodes. Other women staying there tell her to shut up and threaten to beat her up if she doesn't stop. The Staff chooses...
The homeless count is a cause for celebration for homeless services providers because it gives them an idea of how much public funding they will be receiving to sustain themselves for another year. Every year the City counts its unhoused residents, and based on those numbers and other statistics disburses about $1.6M in taxpayer dollars to its main homeless services provider, OPCC. This is a great deal for OPCC because the public funding flows to them without any...
After a more than two-year hiatus, Los Angeles' Hotel Figueroa recently reopened its doors. Much has changed since the 1920s-era building last graced the streets of South Park-the commercial center of a county now flush with new hotels. In 2017, Los Angeles County welcomed 4,300 new hotel rooms, while hotel sales hit $1.7 billion-an increase of $344 million over 2016 sales. Today, there are more than 5,300 hotel rooms under construction in the county, whose residents can...
If you take the politics out of it, all the current investigations in politics are about just one thing: Abuse of power. Forget whether crimes can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt. It's not illegal to use a private server for government email. It's not illegal to talk to Russians. It's not illegal to dig for political dirt or to use that information to try to win an election. What should concern us most is the abuse of power for personal gain, followed by the abuse of...
Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Patty Murray (D-WA) created a bipartisan bill last year to improve health insurance markets. The deal allocates funds for cost-sharing reductions, which reduce out-of-pocket costs for low-income beneficiaries. The senators' bill is a welcome step to stabilizing the individual markets. The Administration previously announced its intention to slash funds for CSRs. That action, though, would skyrocket premiums for low-income beneficiaries and...
By Merrill Matthews Democrats and the media have been diligently digging into Russian involvement into U.S. elections for over a year. But when you dig a hole you sometimes run across things you wish had remained buried-like the dirt pointing to Russian ties to the U.S. environmental movement. Democrats hoped their digging would expose some kind of Russian connection to President Donald Trump. That hasn't happened. But as the investigations have progressed, there is a growing...
Massive increase in Gas & Car Tax: First SB-1: increases your gas taxes by .12 Cents and the car tax (Vehicle License Fee) by an average of $150. Then 9 sellout traitor Republicans voted to renew the Cap N Trade program-which should be called Cap n Tax Scheme-which will increase gas approx .73 cents per gallon according to the supposedly 'non-partisan' Legislative Analysts Office (LAO). Multiple laws to turn California into a Sanctuary for Illegal Alien Criminals: A) $30 milli...
Now that the tax reform bill has passed, big-spending California politicians have a problem. The state's General Fund receives 65 percent of its revenue from personal income tax collections, and 35 percent of the personal income tax revenue collected comes from just 0.4 percent of California households, about 60,000 of them, according to 2014 tax data. Until this week, California politicians could tell wealthy taxpayers, "It's deductible! Don't even worry about it!" And they...
Although this matter has been a harmful problem for NON smoking the people in cities like Santa Monica, but the ignorance of the city governments agencies is shown to be yet another added problem when it coms to smoking ban ordinances. It all started when a new neighbor moved in two months ago in a new and remolded apartment but of course with a higher rent, an elderly man hip kind of upper-class attitude with a law degree from Barkly practicing labor law, among other, surely...
"Said the night wind to the little lamb Do you see what I see? Way up in the sky little lamb Do you see what I see?" ~Christmas Carol by Noël Regeny & Gloria Shayne Baker Las Posadas is Spanish for lodging, or accommodation, which in this case refers to the "inn" in the story of the nativity of Jesus (born from a Jewish mother). The novenario (nine days of religious observance) is celebrated chiefly in Latin America and by Hispanics (Latinos and Spaniards) in the United...
I have been volunteering for a couple of hours every Monday morning at the Access Center, operated by OPCC to serve the homeless population here, for the last 25 years. Having read the article about OPCC by Mr. Louis, I think he must be living in some alternate universe. http://www.smobserved.com/story/2017/11/20/opinion/ocean-park-community-center-opcc-accused-of-human-rights-violations/3202.html Wherever that alternate universe may be, the charges he makes about the abuse...
The Kate Steinle case was always about more than just the Kate Steinle case. The 32-year-old was shot in the back while walking with her father along San Francisco's Pier 14. She collapsed and died in her father's arms. It was July 1, 2015. The bullet came from a gun stolen four days earlier from a federal ranger's official vehicle, where it had been left unsecured and loaded. But the story wasn't about carelessness. The gun was fired by a man who was living on the street,...
I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, UCLA allowed the Chemistry & Biochemistry Department to have Professor William Happer speak skeptically about Climate Change at a Physical Chemistry Seminar, until I learned two Conservative Chenistry professors had to do it under the radar. Nevertheless, in a room that could hold under 100 there were at least 50 standing with many in the hall outside. I'm told there has never been such an overflow attendance for any previous seminar in...
(From a speech delivered Thursday evening, November 16, 2017 to Santa Monica's Housing Commission: I am part of a group of concerned citizens that for the past fifteen months have been advocating for the most vulnerable adults in Santa Monica, namely the ones experiencing homelessness. Our principal goal has been to raise awareness and introduce measures of accountability for an issue that the public is largely unaware of. The issue is: the routine discriminatory and...
The City of Santa Monica just sent out a "survey" to residents and workers who live outside the city titled Your City, Your Voice... The survey begins by stating it's about "what's important to you personally and how we can make Santa Monica even better." But then what unfolds is an effort to manipulate your perspective. The survey asks you to describe Santa Monica by rating these words on a scale of one to ten: caring, inclusive, diverse, thriving, equitable, neighborly,...
Dear Fellow Santa Monicans, I'm writing to you about an issue that affects virtually every member of our community. The issue of "labor peace agreements" threatens the livelihoods of local business owners and many of the people they employ. When they are impacted, you and I are impacted. I've been a member of this community for 68 years, having been a member of six unions, and served as Vice President of California's largest police union. I strongly believe in supporting...
"Championing justice is not charity work. It is not meant to make anyone "feel good." And this idea that we should "win people over" by watering down our principles and approach confuses social movement building with political campaigning (where the message keeps changing according to the audience). This is not a popularity contest. Which means I'm not after your vote." ~Dr. Ruha Benjamin The waters have settled following the commotion from the last three workshops of the...
In a recently leaked off-the-record speech to a group of congressional interns, White House senior advisor Jared Kushner said that the administration is committed to working "with the parties very quietly to see if there's a solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He followed this up with what seemed like a throw-away line that's actually very significant: "There may be no solution, but it's one of the problem sets that the president asked us to focus on. So we're going...
Last week, Senator Cory Booker introduced the Marijuana Justice Act in an effort to legalize marijuana across the nation and penalize local communities that want nothing to do with this dangerous drug. This is the furthest reaching marijuana legalization effort to date and marks another sad moment in our nation's embrace of a drug that will have generational consequences. Our country is facing a drug epidemic. Legalizing recreational marijuana will do nothing that Senator...
Dear Council Members, I spoke to all of you at a Council Meeting on August 23, 2016, asking for help to a specific problem for my business, inadvertently created by the City of Santa Monica. I followed up the next day with an email to all of you and spoke and wrote to City staff before and after. Our general manager has spoken to City Staff dozens of times and given you a petition of over 300 student signatures. After almost a year, I'm writing now to give you a status report...
To the Editor: It is disheartening to read that for a few Santa Monica residents, being able to sleep in is more important than tolerating a short period of noise to help save someone's life (July 10, "5 AM Airport Takeoff on 4th of July Wakes Up and Infuriates Santa Monica Neighbors"). http://www.smobserved.com/story/2017/07/10/news/5-am-airport-takeoff-on-4th-of-july-wakes-up-and-infuriates-santa-monica-neighbors/3003.html Sirens from law enforcement vehicles and ambulances...
Why is homelessness increasing in Los Angeles? According to a count taken in January, homelessness is up 23 percent across L.A. County over 2016, a total of more than 55,000 people. News stories round up the usual suspects: high rents, low-paying jobs, drugs, alcohol, mental illness, domestic violence, and the release of prison or jail inmates without rehabilitation programs. But one reason for the exponential increase in homeless encampments is rarely mentioned: In 2007, the...
Is the city of Santa Monica too incompetent for basic road design? Just outside my own apartment on the busy intersection of 7th and San Vicente, contradictory signs newly installed by the City of Santa Monica are endangering motorists every second of every day. On the road a simple painting declares that the right hand lane can go straight or left, and the left lane turns left. Across the street a sign repeats the message. Look at the new, bright red sign on the corner...
