Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Sorted by date Results 251 - 275 of 456
On Memorial Day in the late afternoon, when family picnics were winding down and folks were heading home to watch the baseball game, an observant individual noticed a man roaming the area near the 7-11 on 16th Street and that the man had a handgun stuck in his waistband. Police arrived and were able to confront the armed man, who turned out to be an ex-felon from Las Vegas. He had a .45 caliber Glock semi-automatic in his waistband and was wearing a bulletproof vest. His previous convictions...
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," reads a press...
May 31, 2021 - A 3.0 earthquake gently rocked Santa Monica early in the morning of Memorial Day. The epicenter was located 11 kilometers south of Santa Monica, directly south of Pepperdine University and in the middle of Santa Monica Bay. The depth was 10.1 kilometers, according to the United States Geological Survey. The exact location of the epicenter was 33.931N 118.697W. The earthquake was the fourth of a series of small, early Memorial Day earthquakes in California Around midnight of the...
The Santa Monica-Malibu(for now) School District seeking to demolish the art moderne History building in the center of the Samohi campus teaches the public an important civics lesson. Never vote in favor of school bond measures. You may have five children in the district - you still shouldn't vote for them. Here's why. School bond money cannot be used for the things your children actually need: more teachers, smaller class sizes, high-quality teaching staff. It can't even be used for better...
UPDATE: From the Los Angeles Fire Department blog: CONTAINED: Firefighters have hand lines around the perimeter as helicopters continue to conduct water drops to assist with the efforts. The burn area is approximately 2 acres on a steep hillside. No structures threatened and no injuries reported. Crews will remain on scene for approximately two more hours conducting mop up operations and traffic on PCH will remain affected. No further details. May 24, 2021 - A brush fire is sending up huge...
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 Covid-19 case rates...
May 18, 2021 Authorities today identified a suspect they had arrested on Sunday in connection with the Palisades wildfire that burned over the weekend and is only 32% contained as of this morning. Ramon Santos Rodriguez, 48, a homeless individual, was detained and treated for smoke inhalation on Sunday. He is being held on $75,000 bail. Speculation locally had been rife that the culprit was a convicted arsonist on probation who makes his home in the Palisades bluffs, paints himself red, and...
Although California officials have repeatedly said they have no plans to institute a "vaccine passport" system in the state, apparently a lively trade in counterfeit vaccination cards has presumed they will not honor their word. How unreasonably suspicious of them! Adding to the completely unreasonable suspicion that access to public and private places will soon hinge on proof of vaccination, California Attorney General Rob Bonta stresses in a recent press release the dire danger posed by...
May 20, 2021 - The Los Angeles Fire Department announced last night that the Palisades brush fire that began on Friday, May 14, is at 66% containment. "Firefighters have turned the corner on this fire," reads a tweet from Wednesday night. Nevertheless, "We won't let our guard down just yet," the fire department said. "Small heat signatures still remain near the fire line." No structures were damaged and 1 injury has so far occurred in the fire which as burned 1,158 acres of the natural...
May 18, 2021 - In the early hours of the morning on Monday, a man who was openly carrying a handgun in his waistband walked into the AM PM market at 3rd and Pico together with a woman companion. Police were alerted and arrived to detain the man as he exited the store. They successfully disarmed him and discovered he was a convicted felon. For most people, it is illegal to carry a firearm in California. It is an additional crime to carry a gun if you are an ex-felon. The woman was questioned and...
May 19, 2021 The Los Angeles County Fire Department lifted evacuation orders for residents of Pacific Palisades at 1:00 pm Tuesday afternoon. Earlier that day, they lifted evacuation orders for residents of Topanga Canyon as an air assault on the brush fire appeared to gain them control over it. On Sunday, a suspect was arrested in connection with the fire that burned over the weekend and through Tuesday. His identity was withheld until Tuesday. Ramon Santos Rodriguez, 48, a homeless...
In a move that appears calculated to kill what little retail life is left in the Third Street Promenade and downtown, city officials are asking the California Coastal Commission to approve their proposal to tear down Parking Structure 3 in downtown Santa Monica. Officials wish to replace the 337-car structure with "affordable" housing for low-income tenants. Since 1968, the parking structure has served Santa Monica and the tourists who come here. Pre-pandemic, all of the downtown parking...
SMPD arrested an 50-year-old white male arson suspect in the early hours of Monday morning, who had allegedly set fire to an umbrella outside Stefano's Pizzeria on the Third Street Promenade. The suspect was cited for the crime and would have been released due to the zero bail Covid-19 regulations, but was instead placed on a 5150 involuntary psychiatric hold. The Los Angeles Fire Department estimates an average of 24 fires a day occurring at homeless encampments. Below is the SMPD press...
May 18, 2021 A fire that is suspected arson that started Friday night was 32% contained as of 9 am Tuesday morning, according to the Los Angeles County Fire Department incident report. Evacuation orders were lifted for Topanga residents but remain in place for residents of the north portion of the Palisades Highlands. A thousand residents had to be evacuated for the fire which has so far burned 1,158 acres. Better mapping decreased an earlier estimate of 1,325 acres. At a press conference...
May 14, 2021 - On Thursday the Centers for Disease Control changed their guidelines regarding the wearing of masks for vaccinated people. As of yesterday, the nation's top disease authority announced that they believed it safe for people who are fully vaccinated to dispense with masks in all situations, indoors and outdoors, crowded or not. Los Angeles County's Department of Public Health is not ready to go along with these new guidelines, a situation that would allow vaccinated individuals to...
In an email sent by anti-development group Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City, victory was declared over the city's attempt to put a large mulit-use building on what is now mostly a ground-level parking lot, used seasonally as an ice skating rink. "Located on 2.5 acres of City owned land between 4th and 5th Street downtown, just south of Arizona Avenue; the Plaza would have included 11 stories of office space, luxury hotel rooms and underground parking. The proposed development, known as...
On Monday, May 10, a federal judge modified an earlier injunction restricting the Los Angeles Police Department's use of less lethal 40-millimeter and 37-millimeter projectile launchers as a means of crowd control. Headlines around the region proclaimed that U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall had granted Black Lives Matter LA's request for the injunction against this arsenal in the police's use of force. In reality, the judge expanded the circumstances already allowed under the original, A...
Paula Goldman is looking for the artist in you, Santa Monica. With a grant from the Art of Recovery, an initiative of Santa Monica Cultural Affairs, Goldman is tasked with the mission of seeking the public's response to a year of Covid-19 and our hopes for the post-pandemic world. She wants as many people as possible to visit the "Journal of The Plague Year" website (https://covid- 19archive.org/s/archive/item) and post their text, image, video, or oral history. From these, she selects some...
During the Covid-19 lockdown, at least one person noticed the increased workload on the delivery personnel, the drivers for Amazon, FedEx, UPS, and the post office. During the summer heat wave, Eileen Tennant-Grant was unable to watch the delivery workers come and go without feeling that something should be done to help them out. So Eileen took to keeping cold bottles of water in the refrigerator, which she handed out to every delivery person who came to the door. Using the family's Ring...
On Tuesday, May 4, police were called to respond to a call to remove a trespasser from a carport in the 1400 block of 16th Street. They arrived, together with a Mental Health Clinician from the LA County Department of Public Health and discovered a male individual on the premises without permission. Upon a search of the trespasser's belongings they found a large cache of methamphetamine, but more importantly, an unmarked and unregistered loaded handgun. It is fortunate that the Santa Monica...
Every eight years, California's Department of Housing and Community Development comes up with a magic number of additional residents moving to the state for which the area must plan. The way they arrive at this number is shrouded in mystery and bureaucratese. For the future period of 2021 to 2029, HCD decided that Southern California had to plan for an additional 1.34 million more housing units. Officials all over the region were ordered to figure out how to shoehorn in this much housing. The So...
The Centers for Disease Control released new guidelines regarding masks, distinguishing between people who are vaccinated and those who are not. The Los Angeles County Health Department has reluctantly agreed to align with the new guidelines. Revealing that the government is as godawful at marketing as they are at producing, distributing, and creating, the federal agency recommended vaccinated people still wear masks in outdoor settings where 6 feet of distance can not be observed between...
April 27, 2021 The Los Angeles County Health Department announced today that the area is enjoying case numbers and test positivity rates that set it on course to move from the orange to the less restrictive yellow tier. Should the numbers hold up for another week, the region may be able to enter the yellow tier as early as May 5. For over a year, LA County was stuck in the most restrictive purple tier. Then, as the January surge subsided and vaccinations began, the county began to see a rapid di...
A bill to create a single financial fund for all health care in the state was shelved in the California State Legislature last week. AB 1400 did not make it out of the Assembly Rules Committee in time to be heard by the legislature in 2021. The proposed legislation, authored by State Assembly members Kalra, Lee, and Santiago would establish a "comprehensive universal single-payer health care coverage" for all state residents. The bill is co-authored by, among others, Lorena Gonzalez, who was...
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 target of the recall...
