Dear Friends,

Happy Passover, Easter, Nowruz, or whatever manner you prefer to mark the coming of Spring. 

From improving pedestrian safety to curbing leaf blower pollution, I’m excited to relay that a number of key initiatives I’ve been working on are bearing fruit at City Hall.

But before diving in, just one piece of housekeeping: Got a friend who wants to subscribe to this newsletter but doesn’t know how? Here’s the link to sign up!

In a special meeting last month, council took its first steps towards approving our city’s 2023-25 biennial budget.

With new funds available to the city through Measure CS, we’ll be able to enhance several programs that have proven successful in addressing homelessness and public safety.

This includes expanding the reach of our homeless multidisciplinary street teams and the SMPD’s Homeless Liaison Program (HLP), both of which employ mental health clinicians to help those most incapable of helping themselves.

In addition, successful programs funded on a one-time basis – like the Directed Action Response Team (DaRT) and enhanced security services in our parking structures – will become permanent fixtures in keeping our downtown, pier, and beach areas safe.

And while the economic effects of COVID-19 as well as certain legal liabilities continue to thwart our efforts to fully restore city services to pre-pandemic levels, we’re getting closer when it comes to our libraries and after-school programs.

By temporarily suspending prepayment of city pension obligations, council has found additional funds to add back hours at our libraries, accommodate more families in our after-school programs, and restore vital youth services at Virginia Avenue Park.


Street safety

No conversation about safety in our community can exclude motor vehicles, which are the leading cause of death for children aged 5-14 across LA County. 

To address this, I sponsored a motion with Councilmember Caroline Torosis to pilot a number of emerging best practices at select intersections, including no right on red, ditching the “beg button,” and leading pedestrian intervals (LPI).

Santa Monica’s pedestrian- and bike-friendly infrastructure is one of many things that make our city a unique and desirable place to live and visit, but we could do so much better. I look forward to seeing this program in action and building off it in the future.


Leaf blower pollution

Gas-powered leaf blowers are shockingly bad for the health of humans and the environment: A half-hour of yard work with a two-stroke blower emits as much hydrocarbons as a 3,900-mile drive in a Ford F-150 and produces noise as loud as 100 decibels, which is the equivalent of a plane taking off.

Santa Monica has long outlawed gas-powered blowers, but if your experience is anything like mine, you see and hear them everywhere across our city. 

Which is why I put forward a motion with Councilmember Phil Brock to enhance enforcement by directing the city to accept video evidence of violations not directly witnessed by Code Enforcement officers.

To provide a viable alternative to landscaping companies, the motion also proposes allowing the use of electric leaf blowers, so long as their noise rating does not exceed 70 decibels.


Meeting our housing needs

Council is nearing the finish line in implementing changes to our zoning code and general plan that will allow us to meet our state-mandated housing obligations.

Beyond doing what’s required, I pushed for and won support for two additional pieces of direction to staff.

The first is the development of a set of timelines for the permitting process, which will ensure that whether you’re trying to build an ADU or an apartment building, you have a clear set of expectations about how long the approval process should take – and staff have a clear benchmark for providing excellent and timely service. 

This is especially important because delays in housing approvals waste time and create economic uncertainty, driving up the cost of financing and construction and making housing more expensive in our city.

The second item I am excited about is the direction for staff to study a set of small-lot development standards to make possible the beautiful mixed-use boulevards envisioned by the Livable Communities Initiative.

Allowing apartments above single shops along our commercial corridors will protect the fine-grain retail establishments we all cherish while ensuring we don’t run afoul of state housing law and cause a second round of “builder’s remedy” projects in our city.


Looking Ahead

Healthcare workers are emotionally, mentally, and physically exhausted from keeping our system afloat during a global pandemic. Job vacancies are rising, and the cost of living is increasing faster than the salaries of many who serve in our hospitals and health clinics.

In order to ensure a healthy and functioning health system in Santa Monica going forward, I am introducing a motion on Tuesday alongside Mayor Gleam Davis and Councilmember Phil Brock for the city to study and draft an ordinance guaranteeing a $25 minimum wage for healthcare workers in our city.

We all banged pots and cheered on healthcare workers as heroes during the pandemic – now it’s time to pay them adequately as well.


Twilight Concert Series 2.0?

After a 30+ year run of free summer shows at the Santa Monica Pier, the Twilight Concert Series was discontinued 5 years ago. There were legitimate concerns around costs and safety, and then of course there was COVID-19.

Now, as Santa Monica reopens for business, there is renewed interest in reviving the concert series – and willingness from sponsors to cover the city’s costs and then some.

How do you remember the pier concerts? Are you happy they’re gone or eager to see them return? What if revenues were used to restore our after-school programs?


What I'm reading

How Paris Kicked Out the Cars

Car trips within Paris declined by almost 60 percent between 2001 and 2018. Car crashes have fallen by 30 percent, and pollution has fallen dramatically as well. 

How did Paris do it – and what can we learn from it?


The Democratic Senator Who Says Liberals Have Lost Their Way on Housing

“ ‘Do I want a nurse or a firefighter or a sanitation worker or a restaurant worker or an elderly individual or a disabled individual or a student to live near me?’ And if the answer is ‘Well, sure, but only if they can afford this 1-acre lot,’ then you’re not that progressive.”

Meet Democratic Senator Bryan Schwartz and learn why he thinks you can’t call yourself a progressive if you’re not pro-housing.


The fastest-growing homeless population? Seniors

New research shows the fastest growing segment of the homeless population in California are people who are falling into homelessness for the first time after age 50.

It’s a stunning and heartbreaking finding, and it belies the notion that our crisis is simply the product of substance abuse or mental illness. Instead, rents and home prices are soaring far faster than people’s incomes – and seniors are suffering the most.


The Problem With Everything-Bagel Liberalism

“One problem liberals are facing at every level where they govern is that they often add too much. They do so with good intentions and then lament their poor results.”

SoCal native and New York Times columnist Ezra Klein weighs in on what ails California politics.