Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 334
Our city wifi has been off in the Sunset Park area between 21st and 26th Streets on Ocean Park Boulevard, the Pico corridor and the Montana Avenue areas since May 26, 2021. this is a valuable service that we, the tax paying voters depend on in those communities. Seniors, low income families, students and people who now work from home depend on city wifi as it is their communication lifeline to the world. I brought this to the attention of Mr. Joseph Cevetello who runs the information systems dep...
I was unable to speak tonight after taking the time to log onto the meeting, I want to list the items that need to be addressed. 1. How does the Culver City Council intend to pay for the infrastructure needed to take care of the additional people who would inhabit the units that you are voting on tonight? That includes more police, fire firefighters, installation of sewer lines, etc. Does Culver City have a slush fund to pay for these costs? If new schools are needed, does the District have the...
Letter to the Editor, Culver City’s Proposed Housing Element Upzoning Perhaps future historians will, with the advantage of hindsight, be able to look back and dissect how a small group of clever, organized, and powerful interests engineered the transformation of Culver City from a lovely town of idyllic, family-oriented neighborhoods into a soulless, overcrowded, overpriced version of greater Los Angeles. These same historians will marvel at this group’s ability to cloak their actions in obt...
Hello Council, I have to chime in on the lack of accessibility of these ongoing online Council meetings. I’ve lost count of how many of these e-mails we’ve received at Protect Culver City complaining about inability to join the Council meeting to speak. And that’s among people with enough computer access to send an e-mail. I also get calls from people who don’t have computers. Furthermore, these Council meetings get harder and harder to join. We used to be able to send people a link to registe...
By David E. Mastagni and Taylor Davies-Mahaffey In the recent City of Tahlequah v. Bond decision, the United States Supreme Court revisited the protections officers should receive through qualified immunity (City of Tahlequah v. Bond, 2021 U.S. Lexis 5310 [2021]). Qualified immunity provides immunity from certain lawsuits raised against government officials acting in their official capacity. It is important to note that qualified immunity not only protects peace officers but any federal, state...
Dear City Council: Last night’s City Council meeting was an atrocious embarrassing mess. I have lived in Culver City all of my life, and never have I been so embarrassed by such a kangaroo Council. It did not even let Vice Mayor speak about the Housing Element before the vote, a decision made by the Council that will irrevocably harm the City. I am used to being muted and muzzled by the YIMBY Council majority, but it was painful to see it being done by Mayor Lee to Vice Mayor Vera so he could c...
Dear Editor, The volunteers collecting signatures for the petitions to recall Alex Fisch and Daniel Lee have repeatedly been asked one question by the community: “How many signatures do we still need to get?” We decided to answer the community inquiry with an open Letter to the Editor, and hope you will publish: Dear Culver City Residents, We. Are. Still. Counting… and will continue counting to the very last minute! We are the 5 sq. mile town of Culver City. Our fight is to preserve that uniqu...
Neither drizzle or cold could stop the Exchange Club of Culver City from participating in the Backpacks for Kids Holiday meal giveaway to 150 families in need at Farragut Elementary yesterday afternoon . Our club provided the turkeys . Moments like this with the many volunteers giving is what makes living in CC special . Thank you to Kathy Vigil and the other leaders of the Backpack program for allowing us to participate. — with Tasha Lowitz and 2 others....
To the Editor: I'm writing in support of a campaign to significantly increase the number of new, affordable multi-family housing units in every neighborhood in town. My wife and I recently moved here from Arlington, VA. We moved to Fox Hills to be near her sister, and were dismayed by the rental price of the few apartments we could afford. Our income is above the CC average; we suspect that, excepting the most affluent, many families in town (especially those with children) are mortgaging their...
I acknowledge our presence on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples. When this is expressed, some people think, “so give your house back”. Maybe. Maybe we all do it so we live in a society that owns its atrocities. For now let’s start with more educational support for Native people and more just housing policy. When my kids were little I used to drive through Culver City to get them to daycare. Cruising at pedestrian safe speeds, I loved the trees...
Dear Editor, I acknowledge our presence on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Gabrielino/Tongva peoples. When this is expressed, some people think, “so give your house back”. Maybe. Maybe we all do it so we live in a society that owns its atrocities. For now let’s start with more educational support for Native people and more just housing policy. When my kids were little I used to drive through Culver City to get them to day care. Cruising at pedestrian safe speeds, I loved...
Dear Culver City Voters, You may have heard about a proposed recall of Council Members Alex Fisch and Daniel Lee. The Culver City Democratic Club opposes this campaign. We urge you to not support it. If you have signed the petition, please consider contacting the City Clerk’s office at city.clerk@culvercity.org to have your name removed. The California Democratic Party, the largest Democratic organization after the national party, passed a resolution on August 29 condemning recalls as u...
Dear Editor, My wife and I moved to Palms in June 2020. We were interested in the area's walkability and proximity to Culver City, and I was a big fan of the Expo Line access, since I was about to start the Master of Public Policy program at USC. Today, I'm close to graduating, and we are preparing to eventually buy our first home. After getting to know the area, we would love to put down more permanent roots in Culver City specifically. As I'm sure Culver City residents know, it's a great...
Dear Editor, In response to the affordable housing crisis, California’s lawmakers have changed single-family zoning as we knew it. In 2019, it became easier for owners to build both a full-size Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) (1,200 sq. ft) and Junior ADU (800 sq. ft) on residential lots. In January 2022, Senate Bill 9 (SB9) takes effect. SB9 allows for duplexes to be built on any residential lot. It also allows for lot splitting, in which a current lot can be divided into two. This means that i...
by John Alle Santa Monica Property Owner The following letter was sent to the entire city council, the city manager, and police chief. Chief Batista and City Manager White both replied with thanks to the author. It consists of a short-, medium-, and long-range set of solutions to the crime and vagrancy plaguing Santa Monica's downtown area: A. SHORT TERM (IMMEDIATE) Objective: Stabilize safety 1) Remove the requirement to renew the NO SITTING OR LYING IN THE ENTRANCE NOTICE. 2) Deploy pairs of...
Dear Editor, Have you ever wondered why there is a shortage of housing in Culver City? I own residential housing in Clarkdale and I wonder about this myself. When I purchased a newly-built fourplex in 1988, I didn’t realize it was nearing the end of a building boom in Culver City. In the more than three decades that followed, I have seen very few new housing units under construction. At that time, Culver City was a great place to build. There was no rent control. Taxes and fees were r...
by Chuck Levin Saving the United States Postal Service and stopping disingenuous forces from dismantling and privatizing it must be a national priority. We have witnessed the destruction of our post office and that must end, service levels must be restored and expanded, postage rates reduced; PO box rental prices slashed and new PO boxes added, local post offices re-opened, mail boxes that this postmaster general blatantly confiscated weeks before a national election must all be returned; and...
Dear Editor: In Culver City we're facing housing unaffordability on an unprecedented scale. Residents like to think of our city as a place diverse in both ethnicity and income, but our demographics only move further and further from that ideal because people with middle and lower incomes can't afford to live here anymore. Between 2010 and 2017, median home prices increased 64%, coinciding with an 18% decrease in Culver City's total Black population over that same period. Culver City residents...
Dear Editor, The Culver City Democratic Club has pushed aside mainstream Democrats and is now nothing more than an echo chamber of YIMBYism and white privilege. This was never more evident than the way the Club treated Lynetta McElroy, a powerful African-American housing advocate who attended a recent meeting to speak about how the elimination of R-1 zoning is threatening the African-American community. Club leaders didn't like what she had to say about the negative impacts of SB9 and SB10 on...
Dear Sirs, There is now a homeless encampment in Vet's park that has been there for several days. I am posting a photo below. Many community members have been in touch with CCPD on this, because there is a law against camping in city parks. However CCPD says their hands are tied because the city council has told them not to enforce laws when it comes to the homeless. One community member said the police told him that other laws are not being enforced as well, per the direction of the council....
Dear Editor, I am writing in support of the actions being considered by some of our City Council members to modernize housing policy in Culver City. I have heard the arguments that some in this community have made against the proposed zoning changes, characterized as eliminating single family zoning. I find these arguments to be disingenuous, and I feel that they have intentionally created fear and confusion about an important issue that we all need to be invested in solving. Here’s why… On a s...
Dear Editor, I live across from the Little Culver Blvd Project (the Storm Drain). This project has been on going close to 2 years now. They took out the beautiful Park that was there and put us thru 2 years of hell with banging and our house shaking so badly we thought we were having a series of earthquakes. I called many times to complain and not one person from the city would call me back. I finally gave up calling and tried to live with it knowing that they promised that the park would be mor...
Dear Editor, Your city council majority wants to allow 4 full-sized housing units on every single-family home lot. This is called upzoning where they will rezone single-family neighborhoods from R1 to R4. Right now, a homeowner can add both a full-sized Auxiliary Dwelling Unit (“ADU”) (up to 1,200 sq. ft) and a Jr. ADU (max. 500 sq. ft.) on their lot. The Housing Element (“HE”) is part of the General Plan that the city has to update. The plans show that the city goes further than the state!...
If Culver City Unified School District (CCUSD) is an excellent school district, if it’s why so many of us moved to this little village within a metropolis, then shouldn’t we strive to share our high-quality education with more students and their families? Senate Bills 9 and 10 have been signed by the governor. These will allow the parts of town that were previously exclusionary to house many more people, including families with school age children (exclusionary means it was impossible for man...
Dear Editor: Patrick Meighan’s letter states that the submission of a resolution against the Elimination of R-1 Zoning to the Culver City Democratic club was “forced by a right-wing member”. I am that member. I am a Biden Democrat. This is part and parcel of the Exclusionary Politics practiced by the Exclusionary Upzoners who pretend to be progressive while promoting an elitist policy that will displace the middle class and people of color. They have fought hard to prevent full discussion on th...
