Summit of the Americas Snarls Traffic Through the Palisades and Into Santa Monica Thursday Night 6.9.22

6.10.22 The California ramp ordinarily connects Ocean Avenue and downtown Santa Monica, to the Pacific Coast Highway. The City of Santa Monica closed it, however, on Thursday June 9, 2022.

The official reason was said to be due to traffic caused by Summit of the Americas. Here's the alert: "SMAlert: Traffic Closure - Cal Incline Due to heavy traffic conditions, the Santa Monica PD has closed the California Incline to traffic until this evening."

But the real reason was the delegates to the prestigious conference, hosted by US President Joseph R. Biden, were dining at the Getty Center Museum, overlooking the Pacific Coast Highway. The secret service naturally wanted to protect the safety of Biden and the other leaders attending the dinner, which included leadership from almost all the nations of the Americas.

From the State Dept website: "The United States is hosting the Ninth Summit of the Americas this week in Los Angeles, California with a focus on “Building a Sustainable, Resilient, and Equitable Future” for our hemisphere.

"As the only hemispheric meeting of leaders from the countries of the Americas, the Summit serves as the most important forum to address our region’s shared challenges and opportunities. The Ninth Summit marks the first time the United States has hosted the event since the inaugural meeting in Miami in 1994. It is President Biden’s highest priority event for the region.

"The people of the Americas want – and deserve – effective and accountable governance that delivers. The road to the Ninth Summit will map our collective route towards a sustainable, resilient, and equitable future.

"As Chair and Host, the United States will work with the region’s stakeholders toward securing leader-level commitments and concrete actions that dramatically improve pandemic response and resilience, promote a green and equitable recovery, build strong and inclusive democracies, and address the root causes of irregular migration. Our commitment to diversity and inclusion will underpin our efforts. "

Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua were not invited, as those countries are not regarded as democracies by the US. Mexico's president Andrés Manuel López Obrador aka AMLO boycotted the conference because those three countries were not invited.