Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
Community, Diversity, Sustainability and other Overused Words
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The University of California Ethnic Studies Council, which claims to represent all 300 ethnic studies faculty on UC campuses, is vigorously promoting a proposal for a UC ethnic studies admission requirement, whose course criteria are intended to set the standard for ethnic studies courses statewide. That proposal, if approved, would force virtually every high school student in the state to take an ethnic studies course whose content would be determined by UC faculty "experts" who believe...
I'm always thinking about the next topics to address in my periodic submissions to the Observer. Upcoming candidates include the insanity of the road diet, the hulking, creepy "The People Concern" campus on Cloverfield, and the ridiculous and unacceptable amount of emergency vehicle siren/air horns noise in Mid City. Look for those submissions soon. Monday night, Sept. 18, I took a walk downtown for the first time in weeks. Those walks commonly provide me with ideas to be explored. Monday night...
Dear Mayor Davis & Honorable members of the Santa Monica City Council, I hope you're having a pleasant Labor Day Weekend. In case you're unaware, I wanted to inform you of a major crime wave that's hit Montana Avenue businesses in Santa Monica this weekend. Last night, several businesses, including the restaurants Margot's and Bardonna and a Pinkberry franchise were broken into, vandalized and looted. And today, at least one other occurrence happened when a woman (shown in the photos below)...
September 7, 2023 - The Los Angeles County Health Department is telling us they "have been seeing a gradual and consistent rise in COVID-19 transmission" over the past few weeks. This alleged information, unsupported by any reliable data, is accompanied by various recommendations, including a plug for the latest iteration of the Covid vaccine. After three-and-a-half years of recommendations from the health department, headed by a non-doctor, non-epidemiologist - none of which stemmed or in any...
To the Editor: I’m hoping that this brief email get’s to the correct people in the city government and that it doesn’t fall on deaf ears. As a 16 year resident of Sunset Park, and a business owner, I’ve built my family and business in our lovely city. In particular, I purchased my home on Maple Street because of the beauty and shade the mature ficus trees offered. Tree coverage is the once thing you cannot really buy - only time and patience will provide. So you will understand that I...
Santa Monica has some of the strictest rent control in the country. But did you know that the rent control in Santa Monica is selective? Some buildings in Santa Monica have rent control and some buildings do not. It's interesting to note that the rent on the brand new buildings in Santa Monica is not controlled the same way that the rent on small mom and pop buildings is controlled. For example: I live in a small mom and pop building which is strictly rent controlled. My friend used to live in a...
August 28, 2023 - The wildfire that gutted Lahaina has claimed many human and animal lives. In a tragic new story, parents found their 14-year-old son's body. He had died while hugging his dog. Unfortunately, as with any disaster, there are those who seek to exploit emotions to raise money. Today and yesterday we saw a fundraising ad for the ASPCA on Facebook. The ad claimed the ASPCA is "on the ground in Hawaii assisting with animal search and rescue efforts" and "searching for displaced animal...
Dear Editor, Around July 3, the City Attorney's office issued a biased and distorted press release with claims claims which were just lot of malarkey, driven by the malicious aim to sully my reputation, conceal mismanagement within the City, and shamelessly endorse the City Attorney and a law firm. This deceitful maneuver is intended to shift the focus of the public away from the City's misconducts, which has led to a surge in drug usage in parks and other public areas, a rise in criminal...
Wildfires. Hundreds of lives lost. Thousands of homes destroyed. Millions of people without power. Billions of dollars in damages. Everyone seems to opine on where to point fingers for the mind-numbing fires we are enduring across our state. But the following fires here in California show a common denominator in each tragedy: - In 2003, San Diego Cedar Fire investigators determined that fires broke out in three areas, scorching 273,000 acres, caused when San Diego Gas and Electric power lines...
City staffer made unilateral decision to affect the composition of policymaking body which is supposed to be comprised of seven councilmembers and two housing voucher holders, including one with lived experience of homelessness To those who follow Santa Monica politics it is no surprise to hear that a city employee took it upon themselves to make a policy decision without direction from a policymaking body like the Council or the Housing Authority Board. City activists refer to such...
Dear Mayor Davis and Members of the Santa Monica City Council, I am writing to express my deep concerns over the proposed plan to address our homelessness issue by constructing multi-million-dollar accommodations in one of the most expensive real estate markets in the world. Not only is this approach economically imprudent, it would likely be ineffective in achieving our overarching goal: providing safe and stable housing for every homeless person in our city. I would like to present an...
My open letter to SM City Council and School Board on the quarter billion $+ plan to acquire the Civic Auditorium: Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education, Santa Monica City Council, Mayor Gleam Davis Dear Members of the SMMUSD Board of Education, City Council, and Mayor Gleam Davis, I am writing to you as a concerned citizen of Santa Monica and a parent of two school children in the SMMUSD. The proposed plan to purchase and repurpose the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is...
For quite some time---maybe, even, years---I've been working out in my head a piece dealing with a curse that arrived in Santa Monica at 9:49 AM on May 20, 2016. At that moment---cheered on by people who had had a hand in its gestation and birth, including (now convicted felon) Mark Ridley-Thomas, the now conveniently exiled hapless Eric Garcetti, and last but not least, the now blessedly-disappeared Pam O'Connor, Sheila Kuehl, and Kevin McKeown---the first train from downtown L.A. pulled into t...
August 9, 2023 - The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health appears to have given up on getting addicted residents off of drugs. In a recent press release warning of the potential presence of the veterinary anesthetic xylazine in illicit drugs, the Department included one sentence in a 700-word press release that advised people not to use illicit drugs. The next six paragraphs described ways to "minimize the risk." Nowhere in the press release did the Department list phone numbers, websi...
Under the current postmaster general the cost of stamps keeps going up, service keeps going down, the post office is drowning. Louis de Joy has, in 4 years, never missed an opportunity to perpetrate the dismantling of the United States Postal Service. Meanwhile, the critical federal government battle to contain inflation can not count on postmaster general de Joy's help in this national initiative to avoid recession. The soaring cost of living is not imagined, prices for everything from gas to...
Since its inception, the Two Sides North America Anti-greenwashing Campaign has eliminated literally billions of instances of paper-related greenwashing in the United States and Canada, and its engagement with large utilities, banks, insurers and other organizations during the first half of 2023 has added to this success. During the first six months of 2023, 21 additional companies representing approximately 90 million customers have removed greenwashing messages such as "Go green, Go...
Diane Feinstein will resign no later than August 15th, an inside source close to her children reports. The 90 year old Senator from California doesn't seem able to follow the proceedings in the Senate. She is in a wheelchair. An inside source, someone close to the Feinstein family, tells me that the Senator from California is no longer capable of performing her duties at the US Senate. There are serious concerns about her health. Cal. Gov. Gavin Newsom has said he will appoint a black female....
Letter to the Editor: City Attorney Sloan has broken his ethical obligations to all residents, the Council, and the State Bar by falsely claiming in the Observer that the Brown Act will not be violated Tuesday when Council meets in Closed Session to discuss and make decisions on all aspects of proposed sales of the Civic Auditorium without any open meeting on the issue. He is also causing all Council members , the City Manager and other senior staff members to be put in serious legal risk of...
I wasn't going to write an email, because I didn't think it would do any good. Upon reconsidering, it will do ME good to convey my anger and sadness at what my city has become. I never go out alone. I drive to work with mace in my lap. I shutter when someone pounds on my door and screams crazy obscenities at 3am. I read the crime reports on social media, because YOU refuse to tell us or warn us about anything. I don't wear my wedding ring or any jewelry anymore, and rarely carry a purse,...
Subject: An Alternative Perspective on Addressing Homelessness in Santa Monica Dear Editors, The Santa Monica City Council's recent discussions around resolving the city's homelessness and related crime crises have given rise to a proposition that seems both unfeasible and impractical. This proposal suggests constructing housing units for the homeless in Santa Monica, which, while well-intentioned, raises significant concerns regarding the fiscal burden on our city, the potential magnetization...
Dear Mayor Davis & Honorable Santa Monica City Councilmembers, I hope you're all having a good start to your summer. I never thought I would have to escape Southern CA to experience some warmth but just returned from 11 days in Florida. Upon returning, I was shocked to hear the news that Santa Monica is declaring a continued Level 2 Water Shortage. Despite the drought being declared long over due to obvious severe rainstorms that have forced us to dump fresh water into the ocean, for some re...
Venice Blvd was designed to be a working street. It looks like a freeway, or used to. People drive 70 miles an hour on it's 4 lanes of grandeur and utility, that also angle from Southwest to Northeast. It was a quick route between downtown LA and Venice. Venice High School and the former Helms Bakery are some of the sites on its 12 mile length, down to sunny Venice Beach. So what was the problem? The problem is working class Venice Blvd travels mostly through minority neighborhoods. Which means...
June 1, 2023 - For as long as he's been our governor, Gavin Newsom has advocated for stronger gun laws. On the national level, he has condemned lax enforcement in Florida, Texas, and Missouri, where gun laws are far less stringent than in California. On the state level, he has passed regulations to combat gun violence. Every prosecutor would agree that gun violence is an American epidemic. We see it, up close and personal, almost every day. And we fervently believe, like the governor, that...
I just read this piece about the needle exchange at that ongoing dumpster fire that is the 7-11 parking lot. So it goes like this for our unending stream of new unhoused "residents": 1. Drift into town via the end of the line train (or bus). 2. Wander to where the "action" is (my neighborhood). 3. Buy booze at the liquor store on 10th and stagger over to Reed Park. 4. Buy drugs at Reed Park and wash down with said alcohol. 5. Sleep it off all day in Reed Park, making it unusable for residents....
April 12th, 2023 marked seven years since the Pico Neighborhood Association and I filed a lawsuit challenging Santa Monica's at-large city council elections for violating the California Voting Rights Act. By then, the at-large election system had worked for 70 years to largely prevent Black & Latino candidates supported by voters of color and allies to win a seat on the Santa Monica City Council. For all that time, the Pico Neighborhood, where Santa Monica's Latino community is...
