Sorted by date Results 151 - 175 of 880
Dear Editor, The only realistic way to solve our local housing shortage is to build more housing! Over the past 15 years, for each new housing unit constructed in Culver City, we’ve added 49 new jobs. It’s not surprising that home prices in Culver City have doubled in just the past eight years. Many thousands of people who work here can’t afford to live here, and so they are forced to buy homes in far-away suburbs and commute. If only we were able to provide suitable housing locally, there...
Dear Neighbors, No matter where one stands on the Jackson Gate issue, the most dangerous and sad fact is that there has been a long history of lack of transparency on this issue and egregious lack of due process, and lack of democracy exhibited by most members of this council. Instead of listening to us, instead of giving us research, studies and facts, instead of answering our questions, instead of inclusion, we have been ignored. Worse still is that supporters of opening this gate, have on...
Dear Editor, Very simply, your wellbeing & mine depend on keeping Gov Newsom in office. Although he has disappointed me on some issues, Gov Newsom’s deliverables on the whole far outweigh the negatives. Not only do we have a balanced budget, but every demographic from Big Tech to biotech to the homeless and all of us in between are benefitting from his leadership! How Gavin Newson dealt with and is dealing with the ethics & economics of the pandemic far outweighs everything else. Should a T...
by: Name withheld due to the disclosure of sensitive personal health information. --------------------------------------------------------- I am a 64 year-old person suffering from AIDS, diabetes and severe mental illness. StepUp is providing formerly homeless people with dysfunctional housing and mental health counseling. Over the past year, I have gone through five therapists who offered no assistance but harmed me. All of the therapists were untrained interns right out of school. They don't h...
Letters to the Editor They Didn't Suddenly Decide to Demolish It During the Pandemic Photo: The History building at SamoHi. People could have looked into these plans long ago, but they don't pay attention until it's too late Opinion by Rufus N. Baker As a SAMOHI alum, class of 1970, and an SMMUSD employee since 1998, I, too, wish the District could save the combined SAMOHI History/Art/Business building complex. But they didn't just suddenly decide during the pandemic. It's nothing new. We've...
The Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) thanks Governor Gavin Newsom for signing the Higher Education trailer bill yesterday, which in conjunction with the main budget bill, delivers unprecedented resources for the state’s community colleges, including dedicated funding for longtime LACCD priorities such as student housing and basic needs, workforce programs and ethnic studies. This is in many ways the largest and most comprehensive higher education budget in the history of California, and represents the forward-looking approach o...
To the Editor: I am surprised at my apathy towards the change to R1 zoning that is being proposed by the Culver City Council. Since I skew conservative, I thought about how I arrived at this indifferent attitude. It started in 2010 when Megan Sahli-Wells became active in city affairs. In November 2010 I wrote a letter to the editor stating my hope that she would never be on the city council. Seventeen months later she won her first term and then was reelected in 2016. This was the first step...
Dear Editor, Representative democracy crashed against the rocks of political ideology when the Culver City Council voted (3-2) to push forward with upzoning almost all R1/single-family lots. Upzoning means that the city will in the future allow developers, speculators, homeowners, and builders to build up to 4 housing units on each single-family lot. (More explanation below). In short, they directed staff to study how to eliminate single-family zoning. The council majority consisted of Mayor...
By Ron Bassilian Guest Writer President,Protect Culver City Council was sued in federal court on June 22nd by Southern California Hospital of Culver City in response to their June 14th ordinance requiring an additional $5/hour “Hero Pay” for hospital employees. Councilmembers Vera and Eriksson opposed this ordinance, along with many residents, questioning the timing, legality and necessity of it. Undeterred, Council majority went along with it anyway. The lawsuit makes a serious allegation - that SEIU, the union representing hospital wor...
A logical opinion by Corva Corvax A law that would grant nearly all (if not all) criminal defendants the right to walk out of jail without bail is now sitting in the Public Safety Committee of the California State Assembly after passing the State Senate with a 30-9 vote. Should the bill, SB 262, get passed by the Assembly, it will be nearly (if not completely) impossible to hold any offender in jail, no matter what crime they are accused of committing. The proposed law would require bail to be set at $0 for all offenses except some serious felo...
Opinion by Corva Corvax There are an estimated 2,000 homeless people inhabiting the streets of Venice, California. News outlets reported 200 tents on the Ocean Front Boardwalk as of June 27. And on June 28, Los Angeles Councilman Mike Bonin boasted in an email blast about housing 19 individuals. Bonin attempted to play up the importance of this insignificant dent in the crisis, brought about in large part by public policies put in place by himself and others like him. That's "someone's mother,...
Dear Editor, I am a member of the General Plan Advisory Committee (“GPAC”), but I am writing as a 27-year resident of Culver City and a native Southern Californian. We bought our single-family home in 1994 after the Northridge earthquake when property prices tumbled. This is our starter as well as our forever home. I have watched Culver City politics regress from dealing with local issues, concentrating on infrastructure, encouraging business growth, providing health and safety, and pro...
California Should Allow Vets, Others to Use Psychedelic drugs Just like prohibition of the sale and consumption of alcohol in the 1920’s gave rise to the likes of Al Capone and American organized crime, our multi-decade war on drugs is a failure and has resulted mainly in empowering inner city gangs and turning our southern neighbor (Mexico) into a permanent war zone. We are already seeing that, with the decriminalization of cannabis, illegal-drug-related crime is disappearing, appropriate r...
By Corva Corvax A logical opinion Santa Monica Planning Department releases their plans to put affordable housing everywhere, raise fees to pay for it, densify your neighborhood, and make you say you're happy about it The City of Santa Monica's Planning Department has made available for public consumption its most current draft of the Housing Element of the General Plan. While this combination of words may cause your eyes to glaze over in boredom, the city staff's recommendations in this bulky document, over 1500 pages long, will significantly...
Will a Misinformation Campaign Lead to a Main St. Closure on the Weekends Dear Editor: Main Street Merchants have been lobbying City Council for over a year to Close Main Street to all traffic on weekends. They wrote a letter to city council last December 21st, claiming: “This pilot program has widespread approval from businesses and Ocean Park residents.” Since when do Lobbyists for Main Street Businesses speak on behalf of Ocean Park Residents? Their next strategy was to partner with Ocean Park Association to create polls to support the...
The City Council of Culver City last week voted in favor of a government-mandated premium pay ordinance for health care workers in the city, and the measure is scheduled for a second vote on Monday, June 14. The so-called “hazard pay” ordinance singles out Southern California Hospital at Culver City and would require the hospital to provide an additional $5 per hour to its workers for 120 days, taking effect on July 14, should the city succeed in their unconstitutional attempt. If it pas...
A miracle just happened for the residents of Santa Monica that can save our city forever: Councilmember Kevin McKeown, who has served for decades in this role, just unexpectedly announced his resignation effective 2 weeks from now to a shocked Council and city. Why is this a miracle? Because Kevin had been leading the efforts to enrich wealthy developers by using “equity” and “anti-racism” as a BS excuse to upzone the entire city (including single family R1 zoned communities) for high density...
by Alyssa Erdley News with Attitude The Santa Monica-Malibu(for now) School District seeking to demolish the art moderne History building in the center of the Samohi campus teaches the public an important civics lesson. Never vote in favor of school bond measures. You may have five children in the district - you still shouldn't vote for them. Here's why. School bond money cannot be used for the things your children actually need: more teachers, smaller class sizes, high-quality teaching staff. This money can only be used for physical capital im...
Dear Editor, On Monday, May 10, the Culver City Council voted 3-2 to put on the June 14 agenda a discussion to eliminate R1/single-family home zoning. This was in response to an organized group that incorrectly believes eliminating single-family zoning will create affordable housing and help alleviate racial inequity in Culver City. Their plan would allow developers and land speculators to build up to 4 units (or more?) on almost any single-family home lot. There is an affordable housing crisis,...
By Corva Corvax, a Logical Opinion May 3, 2021 In what is probably not the smartest move by a state official facing a recall election during a year when violent crime is spiking across the region, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order giving extra time off of violent prisoners' sentences for "good behavior." Newsom's order changes a rule that has been in effect since 2017 that shortens sentences by one-fifth for good behavior. Now sentences can by shortened by one-third. There are currently 76,000 incarcerated individuals w...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion May 5, 2021 - After public outcry regarding illegal food vendors on the Santa Monica Pier, apparently run by a criminal family gang, authorities cracked down on the activity. According to a statement from Deputy City Manager Anuj Gupta on April 21, police would now accompany Code Enforcement Officers onto the pier. The city also pledged to enforce parking restrictions so that the large trucks hauling the vendor carts would not be able to park in the adjacent lots. Residents were urged to notify authorities if...
The Culver City Council will once again take up the proposals that were part of the report by Solidarity Consulting to remake the Culver City Police Department. The report called for a freeze on hiring new officers along with a reduction in police personnel. The report also addressed reallocation some of the duties of the department -- including diverting calls about mental health, homelessness and substance abuse issues --to a mobile crisis response team not affiliated with CCPD. This presumes the dispatch operator can identify issues other th...
This petition against me is categorically false, mean-spirited, and harmful to our exemplary school district. The recall is baseless and does not serve our students or the voters of Santa Monica and Malibu. Here are a few important facts about our school district: unlike every other district in Los Angeles County, all students in SMMUSD (prek-12) will have access to five day a week, in person instruction by April 26th with teachers and staff who have been fully vaccinated. As neighboring...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Dressed up in the language of compassion and social justice, the City Council's vote on March 30 to accommodate 6,168 affordable housing units, 70% of whatever new housing is built, and then to disperse these affordable units throughout the city, including along Montana Avenue and Main Street, is in reality a despicable theft of the earnings of hardworking residents and will end up benefiting no one. There are so many fatal flaws in the logic, data, and goals...
By Jim B. Clarke Culver City Acts of kindness come in many forms. For Rafia Cooper, of Culver City’s Kindness Campaign, the form this month is hiding plastic “kindness” eggs in Culver City’s 12 public parks during the first 12 days of April. Each day, Rafia and former Culver City Mayor Jeff Cooper, her husband, select a different park and hide some eggs, each of which contains a kindness message. One special egg holds a lottery ticket. Rafia, along with Marta Valdez and Jolena Szewczyk, have assembled more than 12 dozen eggs and are hiding...
