Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 334
Measure BL, on Culver City’s November ballot, is a proposal to raise the annual business license tax on Culver City businesses based on what category the business falls into and its gross revenues. Because Culver City’s business license tax is based on the gross revenue of the business – not the profit from operations – a business could be operating at a loss but still receive a huge tax bill from the city. While the proposal exempts businesses with gross revenues below $200,000 annuall...
Dear Editor, On Aug. 8, 2022, the City Council majority of Mayor Daniel Lee, and Councilmembers Alex Fisch and Yasmine-Imani McMorrin voted to eliminate R1/single-family zoning, deliberately evading California’s new housing law SB9. Laws such as SB9 were recently passed to encourage the building of more housing, while at the same time protecting neighborhoods from profit-only-driven Wall Street investors and speculators that have no connection to our city and our community. SB9 allows h...
When we first became involved with Fiesta la Ballona (FLB) in 2003 our understanding was it was a celebration for residents of the City and intended to increase the desirable profile of Culver City as the small-town city in the midst of the Los Angeles megalopolis. An important aspect was to highlight our numerous volunteer organizations that contribute to that sense of community. Through the years, we as part of the Fiesta la Ballona Committee (FLBC) have tried many new things to make it more...
Dear Editor, At the Culver City Democratic Club candidate forum on June, 29, 2022, candidates were asked the following question: “How will you address the housing and homelessness crisis?” Among other statements, Councilmember Alex Fisch, who is running for re-election made the following comment: “Marching people off to concentration camps in Palmdale is not a solution. It’s not moral and it’s not the Democratic Party way of doing things.” Source: CCDemClub Candidate forum around 17.33, comm...
Dear Editor, Thank you to the Culver City Observer and specifically to Sandra Coopersmith for the beautiful, detailed and well-deserved feature story on Lisa Skelley and Grace Diner. The Culver City Equity and Human Relations Advisory Committee carefully considered nominations for our Equity and Human Relations Awards. We determined that Lisa Skelley was by far the person who most deserved her award, and that Grace Diner, which Lisa Skelley has grown to serve nutritious meals to a great number...
Dear Editor, These council members are trying to turn Culver City into Hollywood, high density luxury rentals replacing our low-density green city. Have you been to Hollywood? It consists of luxury high-rises, homeless encampments, $30.00 parking lots and hardscape. It is an urban heat trap with no urban tree canopy like we have here in Culver City. Have you even been to New York? It has a mature and robust in place rapid transit district. Still, it has bumper to bumper traffic. We have one...
Dear Editor, My thoughts keep going back to your article from a few weeks ago: “Dem Club President speaks on key issues.” Right away it opens up with an accusatory pull quote: “Common Sense Culver City is the same old guard, seizing on the issue of the moment.” Let’s set aside the humor here, that CCDC president Jeff Schwartz is nearly ten years older than the president of Common Sense CC. My concern is this one man used your platform to cast aspersions at so many groups in Culver City - fr...
Letter to Editor, I have one simple question to ask the anti-gun folks protesting in Culver City. How would you defend yourself if an armed criminal broke into your house and threatened your life? I have posed that question to our local Culver City social network groups, and I never got a coherent answer. Infact, one person whined to me and asked me what I would do. I simply answered that I would shoot the intruder and the person who was anti-gun would be dead. As a consequence, to my answer,...
Dear Editor, Happy Pride Month! As a Catholic woman who came out very publicly in a very Catholic space fifteen years ago, I learned the transformative impact of being proud of your queerness and living it out loud. One the many reasons I was so excited to take the helm at Catholics for Choice was it gave me the opportunity to live out the truth that reproductive rights are queer rights. All of us — whether gay or lesbian or trans or non-binary — are fighting the very same ideology and ide...
Dear Editor, We have the means, all that is lacking is the political will. Providing low-income California families with $2,000 per child will give the next generation of children a fighting chance. This is a chance to do the right thing. Thank you, Tim Bowler Santa Monica...
Dear Editor, The recently-expired monthly federal Child Tax Credit payments cut child poverty dramatically in California by over 33%.1 California has an opportunity now to step in and keep those children from falling back into poverty. California has a budget surplus in the tens of billions of dollars this year.2 Providing low-income California families with $2,000 per child would cost the state less than $5 billion. Data shows that in January, right after the Child Tax Credit expired, the...
A homeless man sleeps on the corner of 6th St. and Calif. Ave. Opinion By John Alle May 13, 2022 - The Ambassador program is a waste, and in the words of Councilmember Phil Brock, DTSM, Inc. itself must be dissolved. We need real law enforcement during the hours of 11 pm and 8 am. Private security has not worked and puts us all at physical and legal risk. The following was witnessed and photographed from this morning. 1) Ambassador following a City Maintenance street sweeper and power washer,...
Is the city not sending out parking enforcement on street cleaning days to enforce the No Parking during the posted hours? It seems that is the case on the 4000 block of Huron Avenue. I called the Culver City police and asked the question to which the person that answered replied “I don’t know. Let me transfer you to the Front Desk”. Which brings me to my second thing. When being transferred the automated message said “For English press 1”. If you don’t press 1 the message proceeds in Spanish. S...
Dear Editor: I live in R-1 Carlson Park. I love my neighborhood and my neighbors. Adding denser housing to our neighborhood might take a little getting used to. It might mean a few more cars on my street. It might mean a little more construction. It might mean a few more joggers and bikers, a few less McMansions, a few more volunteers at my kids’ public schools, more Girl Scouts selling cookies, and a few more people planning and attending our Block Party. I think I can get used to these c...
Dear Editor, Those of us who oppose racism, must also support more housing in Culver City. Did you know that housing inequality is one of the major reasons there is a large wealth gap between Black or Hispanic households and white households in the U.S? And did you know a typical white family has ten times the wealth of a typical Black or Hispanic family? In other words, on average, for every one hundred dollars a white household has, a Black or Hispanic household will have ten dollars. And,...
By Jon Coupal and Scott Wilk During the past two years, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration has paid billions of dollars in secretive no-bid contracts with little to no transparency. Now Newsom is deploying his same secretive approach to a growing number of other public contracts. All Californians, irrespective of party affiliation, should be deeply concerned. Especially troubling is the Newsom administration’s perverse penchant for no-bid contracts, many of which renew automatically. Since 202...
By John Alle, Local Business Owner I am responding to the Opinion piece co-authored by City Manager David White and Police Chief Ramon Batista. They responded to the "recent local and regional news coverage of a report portraying Santa Monica as unsafe". I have lived, played and/or worked in Santa Monica since the 1970's. My son attended and graduated from from school here in Santa Monica. The City Manager's and Police Chief's only factual statement is that the "messages (from the media) are...
The California State Board of Equalization (BOE) released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2020-21 Annual Report, which reported that the total net statewide county-assessed property value was $7.1 trillion, resulting in $79.9 billion of local property tax levies. Those property tax levies contributed $43 billion to schools and $36.9 billion to local government. This is an additional $4.5 billion, or a 6% increase, in property tax levies from FY 2019-20 of $75.4 billion. “The increase in property tax l...
Melissa Toomim, Candidate for Congress On Monday, March 14, 2022, the City of Santa Monica began the process of tearing down Parking Structure 3 in downtown Santa Monica. Santa Monica Bayside Owners Association (SMBOA) lost its court battle to preserve the parking garage located on 4th Street, between Arizona Ave. and Santa Monica Blvd. The demolition is the culmination of the city's battle to destroy small businesses along the Promenade and downtown, which are served by the garage. Mayor Sue Hi...
By Mark Thies Democratic leaders on Capitol Hill are scrambling to find a way to amnesty illegal immigrants in their nearly $2 trillion budget bill. The Senate parliamentarian, who decides what provisions can and can't be included in the bill that's being advanced under the filibuster-proof "reconciliation" process, shot down their first two proposals. So now, lawmakers are proceeding with "Plan C" -- which would grant illegal immigrants "parole," a status that gives illegal immigrants work...
Editor, It’s the same old theme since 1916. In your head, in your head, they’re still fighting. With their tanks, and their bombs, And their bombs, and their guns, In your head, in your head, they are dying…” — The Cranberries, from their anti-war #1 smash hit song “Zombie” released in 1994 “Z” stands for Zelenskyy. F**k whatever Vladimir Putin and his Russian zombie military thinks “Z” stands for! KGB Count Dracula Vlad the Impaler can go shove a “Z” right up where the sun don’t shine, in o...
By David E. Mastagni and Taylor Davies-Mahaffey In 2019, a California appeals court held that Proposition 57 allowed those convicted of multiple violent and nonviolent crimes to qualify for early release after serving only the sentence for one of the nonviolent crimes. The California Supreme Court found that the language in Proposition 57 was ambiguous and, upon reviewing ballot materials, concluded that the initiative did not require the early release of violent felons. Voters were told that Pr...
Dear Editor, When we purchased our home in Culver City in 2015 there were many reasons why: proximity to work and family, a location that afforded a walkable lifestyle with plenty of parks and very important while expecting a child - a highly regarded school district. This was our first home, but even in 2015 we thought of the purchase as a forever home, not a starter, given the explosive growth in California home costs happening then and before that have only accelerated. Now with our first...
2/18/22: Last evening I listened to a City commission zoom meeting, then tuned in 20 minutes late to the "Developer-hosted zoom meeting" regarding the large development proposed for Ocean Park and Lincoln. The meeting was recorded and was scheduled to be made part of the City's public record for presentation to our Council. This was the developers' second attempt at a meeting. The first was sparsely attended and scheduled at the same time as a City Council Meeting. There were just 4 images on...
Mayor Sheds Crocodile Tears While Ruining Santa Monica Permanently for Residents: Letter from Santa Monica Voter Boo-hoo-boo, Mayor Himmelrich. Cry me a river with your comments. If you and this City Council were doing your jobs for the people who voted for you, the citizens of Santa Monica would not be upset with your inadequate performance. You close off Parking Structure 3 so no one can park there, especially on Wednesdays during the Farmer's Market. People can't go to the Promenade from...
