Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 411
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...
John Alle Santa Monica Property and Business Owner For the first time in over a quarter century, the organization designated to manage Santa Monica's 3rd Street Promenade and Downtown, will have a new Director. What began as a volunteer business owner organization, and later became one of the first "business improvement districts" funded by property owners, has since become a bloated quasi-City agency. The business owners on the Promenade pay a higher percentage of assessments than other members of DTSM, yet the City selects a majority of its...
By Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion 12/7/21 - LA County District Attorney George Gascon proudly announced yesterday the charging of a Los Angeles man with the murder of Jacqueline Avant. This particular press release was a vast departure for the "criminal justice reform" DA, whose press releases rarely involve boasts about catching violent criminals. His more recent press releases include information about a restorative justice project, an anti-racism initiative, and moves to reform juvenile three...
By Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion 9/21/21 - In an email to constituents, Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin suggested the city buy up motels and even office buildings to turn them into "housing with services." Bonin went on to claim it would be a good idea for the city to become a major land and property owner, creating what he calls "social housing." Bonin believes government landlordship is merely an "expansion," a logical next step from the initiative taken over the summer to give motel vouchers to vagrants camping on the Venice...
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...
By Alyssa Erdley, News with Attitude In an example of the consequences of Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon's zero bail policy, a suspect was able to break into and rob the same restaurant on the Third Street Promenade three times in one week. Jason Tyrone Strickland, 42, allegedly homeless, was observed on surveillance footage breaking into the CULT restaurant on the Third Street Promenade on August 20, 22, and 26. He was issued citations and let go about his business on the first...
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...
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...
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...
In some 229 years neither law professors, academic scholars, teachers, students or congressional legislators after much debate have not been able to satisfactorily explain or demonstrate the Framers intended purpose of Second Amendment of the Constitution. I had taken up that challenge allowing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett's dilemma to understand the true intent of the Second Amendment. I will relate further by demonstration, the intent of the Framers, my understanding using the assoc...
This encampment is getting bigger and bigger with more trash,sewage, trash,rv’s,trucks with trailers, vans, you can’t even walk by lady in blue van has a huge dog that won’t even let you walk by something really needs to be done I feel city council and police department are just ignoring emails Jo Hu South Del Rey...
By Corva Corvax, a Logical Opinion March 5, 2021 On Thursday, Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascon released a press statement regarding a poll conducted by Californians for Safety and Justice, claiming the results proved that crime victims prefer public resources go toward crime prevention and rehabilitation of criminals rather than their incarceration. Gascon wrote, "Large majorities [of victims of violent crime] support policies to shift resources away from incarceration and move toward prevention and rehabilitation." The problem is...
By Rep. Karen Bass Congresswoman, 30th Congressional District March 3, 2021 When I first saw the tape of Rodney King being beaten in the middle of the street on March 3, 1991, I was not horrified or surprised. I was hopeful. I believed that now, finally, the public would believe what Black and Latino activists had been saying: that police brutality is real and continues a long history of treating Black people like their lives do not matter, while simultaneously attempting to hide that reality in plain sight. Activists had fought for years to...
by Corva Corvax A Logical Opinion On Monday, the Los Angeles County Public Health Department released statistics regarding the demographics of those who have received the Covid-19 vaccine. Of all the doses given so far in Phase IA and for seniors over 65 years old, 25% were given to White residents, 25% to Latino residents, 18% to Asian, 17% to multi-racial and 3.5% to African Americans. According to the LAC DPH, these statistics "highlight a glaring inadequacy" in the vaccine roll-out process....
With the state sanctioning of voting by mail due to the pandemic and for the convenience of all currently registered voters. You are now able to fill out your ballot while sunning in your back yard, lying in bed, or even while sitting on your bathroom throne. Unfortunately, the sanctity of the polling booth has been lost. Be Careful What You Wish For Wanting to get more voter participation is quite commendable. But, with over 80% of our local electorate participating, it’s beginning to look like the cost of running future local city council c...
Dear Santa Monica Observer, There was an annoying helicopter hovering low above my SM residence for about an hour today. I assumed it was LAPD so checked SMPD twitter to see if there was any police activity. I was surprised to see no activity, however there was a tweet from SMPD announcing a new SMPD helicopter patrol to provide "situational awareness." Another tweet complaining about the noise gave the helicopter's call sign as N6605. I've supplied a link that gives N6605's flight path over SM as well as its flight log. It has apparently been...
By Jon Coupal the President of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association In August, the Fair Political Practices Commission imposed one of the largest fines in its history against Los Angeles County for using taxpayer funds to advocate for a ballot measure it had placed on the ballot. Measure H was a massive sales tax increase, ostensibly for homeless programs. That same illegal behavior resulted in a lawsuit by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. The $1.3 million fine imposed by the FPPC against a local government entity for campaign...
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...
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...
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 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...
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...
