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Dear Editor What many in our community have found out since progressive majorities were put onto the local city council and school board, is that even if candidates can pass voters’ litmus-tests on political and social issues, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee those candidates will make good financial stewards for our city or school district. This election, though, voters have a chance to review the past record of one such school board member: Kelly Kent. Dr Kent has been on the board for the...
by Alyssa Erdley News with Attitude There was a marked difference in the response and capability of police in quelling rioting between Philadelphia and Los Angeles this week. In Philadelphia, police were outmanned and overpowered when rioting and looting broke out in response to the police shooting death of Walter Wallace, Jr. Purported protestors rampaged through the city for two days, looting stores and injuring journalists, police, and each other. At least 11 people were shot by other looters. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, spontaneous chaos...
This year, after much conversation and discussion, we have chosen not to endorse any candidates for the City Council or School Board races. We appreciate the opportunity we had to host one of the City's only Candidate Forums that had all the candidates on at once, answering questions that impact the business community and are likely to have a deep impact on our community's future. At the same time, we felt rather than make an endorsement on any particular candidates, we will instead take a position of education throughout the remainder of the...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Governor Newsom released a new "equity metric" last week that adds to the requirements necessary before a county can move to a less restrictive tier. The census tracts in the lowest quartile of the Healthy Place Index (HPI) must now meet a threshold close to that of the county as a whole. The HPI is defined by the California Department of Public Health as "a composite measure of socioeconomic opportunity applied to census tracts that includes 25 individual indicators across economic, social, education, transpor...
Dear Editor, As a thirty-five year resident of Culver City, I've seen lots of changes - some good and some bad. But never yet have I witnessed the City losing its moral compass . . . until tonight, June 25, 2018. The City Council convened to discuss and revisit the recent events whereby the four Progressive council members banded together to disallow Goran Eriksson, the one remaining moderate member his rightful turn as vice mayor/mayor and instead handed it over to Meghan Sahli-Wells, queen-bee Progressive and backer of the new members, in...
By Ron Bassilian, president of Protect Culver City Shortly after midnight on June 25 2019, Councilmembers laid bare their plans to phase in rent control. At that late hour, a number of us gathered outside Council chambers, determined something must be done. That was the genesis of Protect Culver City. What should concern everybody is: nobody had run on this issue. Now, they were now fully obeying the demands of some obscure group nobody had heard of. It followed their infamous inauguration - a...
Print headline: by Alyssa Erdley Voting with Attitude There are many alarmingly radical propositions on the ballot this election. Please go through the many measures, educate yourself, and vote. Otherwise, you will be unpleasantly surprised with the results, which could include your favorite businesses closing, increased costs for everything - including ride shares - and uncontrollable crime on the streets. Proposition 14 - Bonds for Stem Cell Research NO Investors who are experts in calculating potential benefits should fund medical research,...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Governor Newsom sent AB331, a bill requiring an Ethnic Studies course for California high school graduation, back to the legislature without a signature on September 30, the last possible day for his action on the legislation. Writing that "I value the role ethnic studies plays in helping students think critically about our history and understand the experience of marginalized communities in our state," Newsom believed the bill was not ready to be made into law. "Last year I expressed concern that the initial...
by Alyssa Erdley On Tuesday, I answered a call that turned out to be a push poll in favor of the Plaza project at 4th and Arizona. The Plaza will take over two city blocks in downtown Santa Monica with 106,800 square feet of office space in a massive, 11-story, slightly stepped-back building. The height will be 129 feet. The "questions" in the poll, conducted by Zogby, asked the respondent to consider, one by one, the numerous benefits of the huge development. I was asked to admit the virtue of the union jobs, prioritized for residents, the...
City and its Housing Authority have been depriving subsidized housing tenants of federally mandated representation on Resident Advisory Board and Housing Authority Board Throughout Santa Monica, about 1,488 residents currently live in subsidized housing known as Section 8, a federal program administered by the Santa Monica Housing Authority (SMHA). These are the extremely low income Santa Monicans – families, seniors, and individuals living with disabilities. One would think that a city which represents itself as a liberal stronghold fully i...
By Alyssa Erdley News with Attitude George Gascon, a Havana-born former police officer, resigned his position as San Francisco District Attorney in October, at the same time announcing his intention to run for the same office in Los Angeles County. It is unclear what Gascon thinks he has to offer Los Angeles after he made such an infamous mess of San Francisco. Does he want to bring soaring property crime and out-of-control behavior by the drug-addicted homeless to Los Angeles County, too? Oh, wait a minute. He already did. Gascon is co-author...
By David Ganezer The Santa Monica Transparency Project has written an open letter accusing SM City Council member Gleam Davis of a conflict of interest regarding the proposed expansion of the Miramar Hotel, a project which has been in the works for about a decade. "Ms. Davis' husband John Prindle is a highly paid, long-term senior executive at Dell Technolo-gies. See Ms. Davis' Schedule C, Form 700 filings from at least 2013. Indeed, he is Global Ac-counts Manager," says the letter. Michael Dell, the largest shareholder in Dell Inc., also has a...
Re: Realignment of City Budget due to COVID-19 Shutdown and Losses in Revenue In light of the pandemic and its devastating impacts at all levels of society, the Culver City Coalition for Fiscal Responsibility (CCCFR), on behalf of local residents, tenants, business operators and housing providers, call upon our city leaders to expeditiously reevaluate funding priorities. With the city’s recent declaration of a Fiscal Emergency, which has been further exacerbated by a shutdown-induced d...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Many are concerned about “election interference” during the campaign season leading up to the November election. The words mean different things to different people. Some see trolls at computer banks pretending to be Trump supporters on Facebook. Others imagine postal workers going rogue and dumping mail-in ballots. Whatever your fear, here are five ways to avoid having your choices influenced by bad actors, be they on social media, mainstream media, or among your personal connections. 1. Look at the sou...
Dear Editor, We all grew up in Culver City and we graduated from Culver City High school in the past five years. Now, as adults and part of the Culver City community, we look forward to and expect Culver City Unified School District to thrive for many years to come. Scott Zeidman is the perfect candidate for the Culver City Board of Education. Scott is not only exceedingly caring and responsible, but he constantly has stressed academics to all of us. Culver City High School alumni Matthew...
As local property owners, we have enough worries about our own properties. We shouldn’t have to worry about how much our homes’ equity has grown in market value. For most of us, the more our property grows in value, the better our retirement. Right? If local property owners do not vote down the city council’s proposed higher transfer tax rates, then, we will have to worry about how much our property’s worth has grown over the years. Because, when we decide to cash in, we will have to pay mor...
The Culver City Police Officers Association wants to thank the hundreds of residents and business owners in Culver City who came out and showed their support for the Culver City Police Department at the “Defend, Don’t Defund” rally in front of the Police Department in July. This was an impressive showing and it touched the hearts of every officer who serves this outstanding community. The Culver City Police Department prides itself on providing the highest level of service to our amazing community. “Defunding” the Culver City Police Departmen...
Dear Editor, These are the ecomments I submitted to the city council regarding Action Item a last Monday evening, 8-17-120: "Honorable Mayor, vice mayor and members of the council. Given that permanent rent control program in Culver City is a virtual fait accompli, I’d like to address two issues which still may be considered and accommodated. One is a provision, which the city of Los Angeles has, to give some further rent cap relief to owners who provide all the utilities to their rentals. I hav...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin presented a town hall on Monday night and left the agenda up to Black Lives Matter-LA and People's Budget LA with the predictable result of the dissemination of confusing and misleading data, woke scolding, and white shaming. Black Lives Matter is an organization that advocates against alleged systemic racism and promotes far-left ideology unconnected to racism, such as trans rights, the necessary breakdown of the nuclear f...
By Mister Mystify Way back in 1968, a man named George Kocher from the RAND Corporation, a local institution that does good work but is the subject of various conspiracy theories worldwide, wrote a paper titled "UFOs: What to Do." The 48-page document, which was labeled as an "internal document," is an interesting read and does not talk down to believers, nor does it say they're definitely right. But that wasn't the purpose of the paper. Its purpose was to cut through the nonsense surrounding...
By Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Superintendent Ben Drati sent an email to parents, students, and the public that is chilling in both its content and its wording regarding the district's new "anti-racism" enterprise. Could Drati possibly be unaware that the term "anti-racism" now goes far beyond the idea not to treat someone as inferior because they belong to a different race? Today, "anti-racism" is defined as rejecting your "whiteness" (if you are white). It means repudiating any part of...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion In reading through the nine proposed laws sitting in our state legislature now, each of which would do its part to kill single-family housing and densify neighborhoods, the rationale for this concerted, ruthless effort to drastically change the very structure of our landscape and society is difficult to grasp. But we're game to try. The laws proposed are SB 902, SB 1120, SB 995, SB 1085, AB 725, AB 1279, AB 2345, AB 3040, and AB 3107. First of all, let's dispose of the idea the densification, land-control grab...
Last night city council deliberated on the task force to "reimagine public safety". This drew out the usual "defund the police" crowd. Rather than have a bunch of us speak at the meeting and draw it out, we decided to have one person speak on behalf of all of us. Keith Jones gave our statement last night on defending CCPD. Transcript: Good Evening Mayor Eriksson, Members of the Council & City Clerk Jeremy Green, My name is Keith Jones, I am speaking tonight on agenda item A-2 on behalf of...
By Maryann Gray I am a Santa Monica resident who lives near the Brentwood Urgent Care center, which is on 26th Street just north of Wilshire (1156 26th). In recent weeks, Brentwood Urgent Care has started offering COVID-19 testing. Testing is important, but a large number of people waiting for their tests, some of whom are surely COVID positive, congregate outside the Center, blocking the sidewalk. Even if they lined up neatly, the sidewalk is less than 6 feet wide in that location, which makes...
Dear Councilmember, I am writing to express my disapproval of what appears to be a reflexive action to consider reducing the budget of our police dept based on the recent unrest surrounding the senseless killing of George Floyd and other Black males at the hands of law enforcement. As an African-American male who has lived in Culver City for over 30 years, I believe I bring another perspective compared to my progressive friends/acquaintances, most of which happen to be white, now (some)...
