This article first appeared at the Healthy City Local. Recently I was in Bellingham, Washington, for a family event. In many ways, both historical and present-day, Bellingham is a lot like Santa Monica. Both cities were situated where railroads reached the sea…
Note from the editor of Next: The City Council will vote on how best to proceed in planning for the conversion of Santa Monica Airport into a park at tonight’s City Council meeting. Todd Flora will have a report later…
This article first appears at the Healthy City Local. In case you have lost the thread of these posts, let me reiterate that there are three factors that will affect the planning and construction of the park that will replace…
I suspect that many you reading this joined the 5,000 demonstrators who jammed Palisades Park on Saturday for the “No Kings” rally. Leaving aside the bigger issues like whether a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that…
The two posts I wrote last week about building a great park to replace Santa Monica Airport were gloomy, focusing as they did on problems with the planning process. Such issues, though, should not diminish the joy we should be…
This article first appeared at the Healthy City Local. As I discussed in my post on Monday, the process for planning the conversion of Santa Monica Airport into a park has produced three aspirational “scenarios.” While no one would expect or…
The following article first appeared on The Healthy City Local. Santa Monica Airport is set to close December 31, 2028, and the City’s process to reclaim the city-owned land at the airport and convert it to public use as a…
The following piece first appeared at The Healthy City Local. My feelings were sure wrong when I wrote on Election Day that they were telling me the election would go like 2012, not 2016. Just when polls were saying that the late…
The following article first appeared on The Healthy City Local. It is hard to break bad habits. One habit that is hard to break in Santa Monica is fearmongering about development. The latest instance comes from supporters of the “Safer…
The following article first appeared on The Healthy City Local. About a year ago, after seven years of litigation, the California Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in the case the Pico Neighborhood Association and Maria Loya brought under the…
The following post first appeared on The Healthy City Local. There has always been a dance between local and national politics, a dance that can appear to take place in a maze of funhouse mirrors. That’s how Santa Monica politics…
The following post first appeared at The Healthy City Local. I have been attending the endorsement conventions of Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR) for decades. I joined the organization nearly 40 years ago. Even after I had resigned from…
The following piece first appeared on The Healthy City Local. I was traveling in Italy earlier this month so thankfully I wasn’t around when the Santa Monica City Council had the mother of all nightmarish meetings. The meeting began the…
This is part three of a series on the recent ruling by the California Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act filed against the city. You can read our coverage of the arguments and ruling and parts one and two…
This post first appeared on The Healthy City Local. The next step in an analysis of the California Supreme Court’s decision in the California Voting Rights Act (CVRA) case the Pico Neighborhood Association brought against the City of Santa Monica…
