Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Sorted by date Results 426 - 450 of 456
An Information Item sent from Santa Monica City Manager Rick Cole to the city council seeks to explain what achievements staff has made over the past year to address homelessness. In late November of 2017, the council allocated $1.4 million from general funds for one-time seed money for staff to implement strategies to address homelessness. Staff intends to discuss what they’ve done with the money at the March 26 council meeting. Much of that information is contained in the Information Item r...
The California Court of Appeal offered temporary relief to Santa Monica's current City Councilmembers, who were facing a special election this summer. Justices Elizabeth Grimes, Maria Stratton, and John Shepard Wiley of the appeals court signed an order staying an earlier ruling by a trial court that the city must hold special elections for city council via newly-drawn districts by August 15. The order to create voting districts in the city comes from a California Voting Rights Act lawsuit...
The weedkiller Roundup, a product of Monsanto, continues to be used in Santa Monica's public spaces despite a recent $289 million dollar judgment against Monsanto for the terminal illness of school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson. The active ingredient in Roundup is glyphosate. In July, 2017, glyphosate was added to the State of California's Proposition 65 list of chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm. In an email, Dean Kubani, Assistant Director of Public...
On Monday around 1:00 pm, a small house fire in the 1300 block of the Pacific Coast Highway closed all southbound lanes and the number one northbound lane. Around the same time, police were called for a suspected house break-in. The suspect was seen fleeing to the roof of a building adjacent to the fire. The police managed to talk the suspect off the roof and take him into custody. Meanwhile, the Santa Monica Fire Department put out the fire, which is described as minimal. Saul Rodriguez of SMPD...
In a video address to citizens on Facebook on Wednesday, January 29, Police Chief Cynthia Renaud explained the 8.8 percent increase in Part 1 Crime in 2018. Part I crimes range from murder through aggravated assault to larceny-theft. Last year there was an increase of 450 more Part 1 crimes (also known as "serious crimes") than the previous year. Renaud pointed out this averages 1.23 more crimes per day. Between 2015 and 2018, there has been an increase of 29 percent in serious crimes in Santa...
Superior Court Judge Yvette Palazuelos ruled on Wednesday that the City of Santa Monica must hold special elections via districts by July 2. Current members of the Santa Monica City Council are prohibited from serving past August 15. Palazuelos's ruling came as an answer to a Monday request for clarification from the city, who is appealing the judge's Feb.15 ruling that the city's current at-large voting system violates the California Voting Rights Act. The initial CVRA lawsuit was filed by...
We dutifully separate our recyclables and put them in a separate container for the waste trucks to pick up, but the fact is that little of that material is currently getting recycled. "In California, less than 15 percent of single-use plastic is recycled, and the cost of recycling exceeds the scrap value of the plastic materials," writes California State Senator Ben Allen on his website on February 21, the day he and fellow senators Nancy Skinner (D-Berkeley) and Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco)...
By January 8, when the City Council voted to increase water rates in the city, there had already been well-above-average rainfall throughout California. To date, California has received 18 trillion gallons of rain this season. This is nearly half the volume of Lake Tahoe. However, the Santa Monica City Council voted to approve city staff's recommendation for a 9 percent hike in water rates. This increase is estimated to raise the monthly bill for single-family home by $4.33. Multi-family homes,...
A proposal by the Santa Monica City Council to halve public speaker time from two minutes to one minute has roused vigorous criticism. The current Rules of Order for council meetings allows a speaker 2 minutes per item with a total of 6 minutes per speaker. Speakers are allowed to accept one donation of 2 minutes from another speaker. However, certain items already restrict a speaker to 1 minute. A further proposal is to limit multiple applicants/appellants to a time of 10 minutes total. Council...
2/28/19 This month, Community Corp. of Santa Monica was awarded a $10.7 million-dollar 'loan' from the Santa Monica Housing Trust Fund to acquire property at 1819 Pico Boulevard, across the street from Santa Monica College. Currently, two 2-story apartment buildings and a church occupy the property. The church, formerly housing the Mount Hermon Baptist congregation, has been there since 1967. A demolition sign is now posted on the iron fence surrounding its parking lot. Community Corp. is a...
In a video released on Thursday, Santa Monica Police Chief Cynthia Renaud promised to discuss traffic and what the police department is doing about it. However, Renaud - understandably - shied away from discussing what residents really want to know about traffic: How can we reduce it, and where can we park? Instead, Renaud and two of her staff, Lieutenant Candice Cobarrubias and Sergeant Joe Cortez, discussed what the police department is doing about traffic safety. Oh, and they talked about...
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted on Tuesday, February 12, to change a plan to rebuild the Men's Central Jail into a plan to build at least one mental health treatment facility. The original $2.2 billion proposal, changed on Tuesday, was to tear down the 1963 Men's Central Jail and build a rehabilitation-focused center called the Consolidated Correctional Treatment Facility on the old building's footprint. This facility was supposed to house 3,885 "inmate patients." The project...
by Alyssa Erdley In a video released on Wednesday, Santa Monica Police Chief Cynthia Renaud informed the public of the steps being taken by her department regarding the homeless on the street. The department's Homeless Liaison Program (HLP) consists of 8 police officers, one sergeant, and a worker from the Department of Mental Health. The unit now operates 7 days a week, often starting as early as 4 am. In the video, Sergeant Erika Akulfi explains that the mission of the HLP is to "create a...
On Monday, the Los Angeles County Homeless Initiative awarded $4.5 million to five different organizations in a contest to propose "game-changing creative and scalable permanent housing solutions for those experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles County." Voters of LA County approved Measure H in March, 2017. This law added a 1/4-cent sales tax throughout Los Angeles that was to be devoted to homeless services and programs. It is projected to generate $355 million each year for ten years. The...
A San Diego politician lost his federal lawsuit challenging California's Voting Rights Act. Don Higginson, former mayor of Poway, a city in San Diego County, had sued in 2017, claiming the drawing of new districts in his area was effectively gerrymandering and was designed to discriminate against him and other whites. Higginson was represented by the nonprofit Project on Fair Representation, a legal defense firm concerned with challenging racial and ethnic classifications and preferences in...
On Wednesday night, volunteers in Santa Monica and across Los Angeles County conducted the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. From 10:30 pm until 2:30 am, volunteers in teams canvassed the streets to count the people they could see sleeping in public spaces. While the 300-plus volunteers went through the city by foot or by car, area shelters, transitional programs, and hospitals also counted the homeless in their facilities. Joining as volunteers for the count were the Santa Monica City...
To the surprise of no one, the Santa Monica City Council appointed longtime resident and community activist Ana M. Jara to fill the city council seat vacated by Tony Vazquez. Vazquez resigned in January to take on his newly-elected duties at the State Board of Equalization. The remaining council members were then obliged to appoint a replacement. 76 applicants threw their hat into the ring, but many observers predicted the council would pick an Hispanic for the seat. Earlier this month, a...
A news story in the SM Daily Press about the arrest of Alfonso Flores, 45, in the early hours of January 12 has sparked a firestorm on social media platforms Nextdoor and Facebook regarding actions taken by the Santa Monica Police Department. According to the news report, on January 12 in the early hours of the morning, a woman walked up to police officers at 3rd Street and Broadway and requested assistance regarding a man who'd been following her. The police discovered, upon approaching and...
In response to our article of December 26, (In the Face of E-Commerce, Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade Struggles to Remain Relevant), we were contacted by Downtown Santa Monica, Inc., the public-private entity that manages the downtown, for a tour of the 3rd Street Promenade and a discussion of how it is and will remain relevant for the foreseeable future. We're always up for a tour, so last Friday I met with Kathleen Rawson, CEO of DTSM, Inc., and she schooled me about the Third Street...
A Superior Court judge ruled Wednesday that the City of Santa Monica should hold a special election and all future elections for council members by district rather than at large. The hearing regarding elections was held by the request of plaintiffs Maria Loyo and the Pico Neighborhood Association in order for Judge Yvette M. Palazuelos to clarify her tentative ruling from December 14. In that ruling, Palazuelos had decreed all future city council elections to be held by district "in accordance...
For a relatively small metropolis, Santa Monica has more than its fair share of national headlines. We're the little city that can...make news. Here's our take on the biggest local stories of 2018. 1. Woolsey Fire (November) On November 8, a fire started in Woolsey Canyon in the Santa Susana Mountains. Driven by powerful Santa Ana winds, it swept quickly south and through much of northern Malibu. For two weeks, the fire burned through 97,000 acres, destroyed 1,643 structures, killed 3 people,...
In an effort to preserve true, rent-controlled housing, the Santa Monica City Council directed staff on Tuesday, December 18, to draft a law that would restrict the ability to sublet units to corporations or for periods less than a year. Currently, Santa Monica only allows AirBnB-type rentals if the owner of the unit is present during the visitor's stay and only for visits of less than 31 days. To date, the city has no legislation that bars tenants from subletting units for more than 31 days. Ho...
While the exponential growth of e-commerce is shuttering storefronts across the nation, Downtown Santa Monica, Inc.(DTSM), the nonprofit organization that promotes Downtown Santa Monica, is determined to preserve the popularity of the Third Street Promenade. Thirty years ago, the brick-paved carless three blocks of stores and restaurants now known as the Third Street Promenade was a makeover itself. For decades before that, there had already been a pedestrian 'street' dotted with fountains and...
A draft environmental impact report has been released for a controversial mixed-use project proposed for the corner of 4th Street and Arizona Avenue in downtown Santa Monica. The project is somewhat scaled back from its original conception where it would have risen to 148 feet in height. This version reaches 129 feet (12 stories) at its highest, which would be along a new east-west alley in the middle of the block. Many residents oppose the project, located on city-owned property, no matter...
San Diego is a critical distance from Los Angeles: just far enough away from to feel as though you've escaped the rat race. Coronado Island, across the bay from San Diego via a high, arched bridge, takes you another step further from your harried life. The Loews Coronado Bay Resort, five miles down a narrow strip of sand from Coronado Island, takes you as far as you can go without getting on a boat. Obligations and worries drift away with the sea breeze as you open your car door on the 15-acre...
