Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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Dear Northeast Neighbors and friends: Last night sparks flew as the City Council discussed the proposal of internationally renowned public park design firm Sasaki Associates to design a Great Park at Santa Monica Airport. City Staff presented and recommended a six-point Action plan for the agreement with Sasaki. Councilmember de la Torre was absent, but a discussion and vote ensued. Sasaki made an impressive presentation of its past projects converting airports to parks. Then Gleam Davis made a...
December 14, 2023 - California State Senator Scott Wiener tweeted on X today his horror at hearing bystanders shout "Free Palestine" at him in Union Square at a Hanukkah celebration there. "Harassing Jews celebrating a holiday has nothing to do with the war & everything to do with antisemitism," he wrote. One wonders what planet Wiener has been living on. Does he still think those who oppose the Jewish State of Israel separate their feelings about Israel from those about Jews? Jewish...
December 19, 2023 - In an email, John Alle of the Santa Monica Coalition, supplied comments from Santa Monica residents regarding the proposed ten percent increase in the salary of City Manager David White, and they are not in favor. The Santa Monica Coalition is a group of residents, property owners, and businesses that advocate restoration of safety, cleanliness, and prosperity to the city. The proposal to be considered at tonight's city council meeting is to raise White's salary from $ $365,9...
Email to City Manager David White and Lori Gentles Dear David and Lori. You have generally been highly responsive to inquiries from me, so I believe you will reply to this urgent email today. The issue of the increase in David's salary comes before Council only 6 days after it was announced in yesterday's Council meeting Agenda for Tuesday., so time is extremely of the essence. The public and media should know your thoughts now on an issue that might be significant( both on its own merits and...
In Early November, I had an illuminating conversation about Santa Monica on American 2916 heading west from LaGuardia to Dallas/Ft. Worth. The middle seat on the Airbus was empty and the 60ish gentleman sitting in the aisle seat was well groomed and well dressed. Quiet at first, he began to chat somewhere over Kentucky. Introduced himself as Paul K., a lifetime New Yorker, proud of his humble southern Italian origins and subsequent success in the restaurant/food business. He three years ago...
As the sun rises over our beautiful Santa Monica beaches, marking the end of Mayor Gleam Davis's tenure and the beginning of Mayor Phil Brock's, there's a palpable sense of hope and anticipation in the air. Today, we stand at the threshold of a new era, an era where the voice of the residents reverberates through the corridors of City Hall, promising a future that aligns with the dreams and aspirations of those who call Santa Monica home. Mayor Phil Brock, a true son of Santa Monica, takes...
In the previous article, I brought to the public's attention a covert plan orchestrated by Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón aimed at securing the release of a convicted cop killer and prominent figure within the Mexican Mafia from state prison.[Previous article can be found at https://www.smobserved.com/story/2023/12/04/opinion/gascns-secret-scheme-to-release-a-convicted-cop-killer-and-mexican-mafia-shot-caller/7959.html] Earlier this week, in response to tenacious reporting that...
December 7, 2023 - At a congressional hearing before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce on Tuesday, the presidents of three Ivy League universities declined to admit that calls for genocide against Jews violated their policies against bullying and harassment. The presidents of Harvard, University of Pennsylvania, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology all called on the primacy of free speech in a university setting and stated that only when speech was "directed and severe...
I learned from someone with first person knowledge of the @Harvard president search that the committee would not consider a candidate who did not meet the DEI office's criteria. The same was likely true for other elite universities doing searches at the same time, creating an even more limited universe of DEI-eligible presidential candidates. Shrinking the pool of candidates based on required race, gender, and/or sexual orientation criteria is not the right approach to identifying the best...
On May 29, 1979, Jesse Gonzales murdered Los Angeles County Deputy Sheriff Jack Williams and left William's two daughters -- then 11 and 12 -- without a father. Those daughters have missed their dad every day for 44 years. But now Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón and a former public defender he brought on to gut the county's most heinous and serious murder convictions are just days away from letting Gonzales out of state prison. And they are trying to do it in secret. We...
November 15, 2023 - The President of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sally Kornbluth, released a public statement to the community, including parents of students and alumni, that attempted - and pathetically failed - to address recent events on campus that have made national headlines and TV and Internet news reports. In her cover email letter, she claimed she was going to include a written update that "clears up some false rumors and answers some common questions about what...
Today I listened to Patrick Kingsley's report on his visit to Gaza on the NY Times " The Daily". The reporting showed a clear double standard by Kingsley in favor of Hamas. Why? Kingsley and the NYT accept facts and figures reported by Hamas as "true" while demanding a higher level of proof from Israel. This is now a systemic tool of NYT reporting. When shown the entrance to a deep and well constructed tunnel entrance, right next to Shifa Hospital, Kingsley said that he couldn't verify that it...
UPDATED: to include Barbara Phillips's contact information. Behold, this is the story of Barbara Phillips. We call her "Ms. Bobbie" here on the prison women's prison yard. Ms. Bobbie is here with an LWOP sentence with 26 years down. As California courts implement new resentencing laws, male prisoners regularly get relief from the courts and ultimately leave BEFORE female prisoners. Younger prisoners also get relief before older ones. Now, honestly, you should know that I don't care about either...
November 9 - Many years ago I took out a second mortgage on my home. The house had grown in value and had at least $30,000 of equity. At that time, I had multiple reasons. The second mortgage added a second monthly payment to my already very tight budget. I made both the original payment and the second mortgage payment for a couple years until I was able to refinance both loans into a ten-year fixed interest rate loan. Fortunately, I was able to pay off the ten-year loan in about six years. Let...
Letter to the editor: I am appalled by the City's "Police Reform Commission" that voted 6-4 against allowing our police to make pretextual stops because they think the Santa Monica police are making traffic stops based on race. You have gamed the statistics and revealed yourselves as out of touch with reality. This will soon come up as a vote by the city council. Residents will be watching. Because yet again Santa Monica, held hostage by a tiny group of people with an anti-police ideology, is...
SANTA CRUZ, CALIFORNIA, Oct. 25 – After learning of an appalling letter sent from the University of California Ethnic Studies Faculty Council that justifies Hamas' brutal murder, mutilation, beheading and burning alive of women, children, babies, the elderly, the disabled and others, 115 organizations today demanded that the University of California (UC) reject a proposal for a UC ethnic studies admissions requirement. The faculty who wrote this letter are the same faculty tasked with...
Santa Monica's Police Department recently hired a bunch of new sworn officers. Why now? Why didn't Santa Monica's police department hire a bunch of new sworn officers in December of 2021? Well, because the City Of Santa Monica was mandating an experimental MRNA treatment for new police recruits. The experimental MRNA treatment causes heart attacks in some people. So for the entire term of the vaccine mandates Santa Monica has had an impossible time hiring new sworn officers. Santa Monica was...
I am an assistant professor at Columbia Business School. I am a father, a husband, an uncle, and a son. I am a forty-year-old man, and last week I found myself crying in front of a group of complete strangers. In a video that has since gone viral, I stood on Columbia University's main campus and pleaded with my employer to protect me and help me protect the thousands of Jewish students whose lives and safety have been entrusted to us by worried parents all across the United States. I pleaded...
Last Tuesday, Santa Monica City Council Woman Caroline Torosis delivered a scripted speech about cash bail. She said that she has "Seen first hand" how cash bail "destroys families." No she hasn't. She's reading from a script she didn't write. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail "criminalizes poverty." No it doesn't. It criminalizes criminals. Caroline Torosis said that cash bail resulted in "either below or similar to historical average" failure to appear in court. That is lawyer speak for...
For those waiting for the show, you're about to be disappointed. US President Joseph R. Biden, in his trip to appears to have convinced Benjamin Netanyahu, to punt. No Gaza invasion despite the buildup of tanks and troops. "Let's be clear: President Biden and his administration are the only things holding Netanyahu back from absolutely leveling Gaza," said one armchair analyst on Twitter. "While Biden has rightly stood firm with Israel, he has also called for restraint, reflection, and everyone...
Steve Hilton wonders how California has gone so far in the wrong direction. "California has gone from the pinnacle of the American Dream to the place that everyone can't wait to leave. How did that happen in a matter of decades?" he writes. Here's my brief take: 1. Election of Newsom, an empty shell of a handsome spokesman, who turned California into a piggy bank and playground for the special interests who own/control him (see below). 2. Election of Soros-backed DAs (Gascon, Boudin, others) who...
Dear Council, This article reporting on the Rand conference on "homelessness" is revealing. Round-and-round we go, as criminals prey on us, threaten us when we step out to walk the dogs, trespass, and senselessly steal anything and everything (below, this addict, holding either a weapon or a butane lighter for his drugs, steals our dog's ball in broad daylight. Why, my dog Bonnie asks? Because he's here. Sorry, Bonnie!). Not as bad as breaking into our garage and stealing electric bikes (not...
We obtained the latest tax return for the Humane Society of the United States, a national organization that raises money to save homeless animals. The tax return, covering 2022, shows HSUS wasting millions. Despite its name, HSUS is not affiliated with local humane societies. And it generally only gives about 1% of its money as financial grants to pet shelters–which once again appears to be the case in 2022, based on reported grants. Here are more highlights from the 2022 tax year: CEO Kitty...
Dear Mayor Davis, Councilmembers and City Attorney Sloan, The purpose of this open letter is to express grave concerns regarding the constitutionality of item 5-K agendized for the upcoming September 26, 2023 City Council meeting. The name of the item is "Adoption of a Resolution Amending and Restating the Civility at Public Meetings Policy set forth in Resolution No. 10642 (CCS)." The item seeks the addition of the City's Statement Against Hate to the existing civility policy. The Statement...
As we are starting to see Dr. Anthony Fauci in the news again to tout the benefits of masking, we should take the time to follow his directives on this during the past several years. At the beginning of Covid, he went back and forth on the usefulness of masks. In January, 2020 he said they don't work. He doubled down on this two months later when he said people shouldn't be walking around with masks because they're not providing the perfect protection that people think it is. Interestingly, the...
