Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 343
I’m writing to voice my strong and unwavering support for Alex Fisch in this critically important upcoming election for City Council here in Culver City. The actions the next council takes on the issues we face as a city; homelessness and our housing crisis, climate change, mobility and transportation and more, will leave a lasting imprint on our city and I am proud to support Alex for another term on our council, to help our city continue to lead our region and state on these issues and m...
I feel the need to share that Dan O'Brien, candidate for City Council for Culver City is incredibly responsive and involved with his residents and business owners in Culver City. I felt the need to approach him via email about a month ago to see if he would help us with our new Culver City Cuisine located in 5660 Selmaraine Dr. Not only is located at an isolated/industrial zone, but struggles with a few areas for improvement such homelessness, lighting zones, cleanliness, etc. I was not sure...
We are currently experiencing a ‘spiral of silence’ in Culver City. It can and should be stopped. In 1974, Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann, a political scientist, coined the phrase ‘spiral of silence’ to describe a situation in which an individual’s willingness to express his or her opinion in public is a function of what he or she perceives the public opinion to be. More precisely, people who believe that they hold a minority viewpoint on a public issue will “remain in the background where their commu...
I decided not to run for Culver City Council this year for a few reasons. In the last election cycle for Culver City Council 2020, I received 2,163 votes which in previous off years would have been a very good showing. However, I was outspent by more than 15 to 1 by the winning candidates that year. I couldn’t compete against the money machines supporting their candidates of choice. I was told I was a “volatile” candidate and could not win. I asked a prominent Culver City resident why I was cons...
I feel compelled to canvass and support Dan O’Brien and Denice Renteria for the Culver City council race. They are the only candidates that can help turn the course of our city back into a safe community again. Never before have I felt so horrified by the actions of our current city council majority to let crime increase making our city unsafe. They have taken away the ability of our police to proactively police. Our community is filled with homeless encampments. Our downtown once beautiful i...
Dear Editor, A developer in Santa Monica is pushing through 4500 units of housing, and in Redondo Beach over 2300 units are proposed to replace the beachfront AES power plant, and for that reason (among many others) I will be voting for Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza for City Council. What happened in those towns? They failed to do what Culver City did under Alex Fisch and his colleagues Daniel Lee and Yasmine McMorrin. Thanks to those three Culver City passed a legitimate Housing Element and...
Dear Neighbors, If you have not already voted, I ask that you vote for Alex Fisch and Freddy Puza for City Council. Electing any of the other candidates will create a conservative majority on the Council which will slow or reverse environmental protection, workers' rights, regulations which have kept renters in their homes, and long-term strategies to address homelessness. Some of the other candidates may say things that superficially sound good on these issues, but they are backed by conservative elected officials and business groups who are...
Dear Editor, I am writing this letter to show my support for Dan O’Brien. For several years in the early 2000s, I worked with Dan on the Board of the Culver City Education Foundation, He was always open minded and dependable while serving on committees and fundraisers. Since leaving the CCEF, he has continued his strong support of the Culver City School District. As an adult leader in the Boys Scouts, he has worked with integrity and respect. Dan has always been listener and respectful to i...
Dear Editor, I am writing to submit an endorsement for Dan O’Brien’s bid to be elected to the Culver City Council. I have known Dan since 2014 through our sons local Scouts BSA Troop 108. My son had newly joined the troop and the current Scoutmaster had indicated that he would be stepping down and the future of the troop was in jeopardy unless another volunteer step up. At the time our unit had about 20 scouts with a significant number who would be aging out within 2 years. Dan stepped up and as...
While we do understand that MOVE planning considerations involved such artistic issues as to which pastel traffic paint color to choose, there was zero outreach to Arts District residents to inform us about the consequences of the MOVE traffic program before it went forward. Alex Fisch’s MOVE traffic scheme, with total lack of driver safety considerations, has created a horrible traffic mess for Arts District residents. The multi-colored lanes, plus the permanent traffic cone lane barriers a...
We are a youth-led campaign to lower Culver City’s voting age to 16 in municipal and school board elections Initial reactions to our movement are often immediate and negative. This is understandable; allowing youth empowerment is the way forward. Eighteen became the national voting age only relatively recently during the 1970s. It can change to fit the priorities and attitudes of our community and will ultimately lead to fairer elections that represent public interest. So, why should you s...
Dear Editor, Are We Prepared for the Mega-Drought? Let’s make sure we are by electing a local Culver City resident and water expert to represent us on the board of the West Basin water district: Sanjay Gaur. Southern California has a growing population of over 23 million people. If it we were to try to sustain itself without importing water, the population would have to be less than 500,000. How can Southern California sustain a population of 23 million with enough water for only 500,000? The a...
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...
