As Damien Newton covered recently, on October 7 Mayor Phil Brock and Councilmember Oscar de la Torre discussed their desire to enact a Project 2025 style purge of city staff. De la Torre said that this Night of the Long…
For a guy who loudly insists he’s a Democrat, Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock sure is surrounded by a weird number of Republicans. You don’t need to take my word for it—Brock proudly lists this information on his endorsements webpage…
The quotes in this article are taken from a January 2013 city staff report which recommended to city council that they should withdraw funding from the Pico Youth Family Center (PYFC). At the time, now-Councilmember Oscar de la Torre was…
In an article published on Friday, Santa Monica Daily Press editor Matt Hall repeats Oscar de la Torre’s false claims about what René Bobadilla said in his offer withdrawing his acceptance of the city manager position in June 2021. The…
Last night at the end of yet another very long council meeting, city council took a 4-3 vote ordering the city manager and the city attorney to break the law. This happened after minimal discussion on councilmember Oscar de la…
The Levine Act is a California law which came into effect on January 1, 2023 which makes it illegal for individuals and businesses to make donations to politicians in excess of $250 while “a proceeding involving a license, permit, or…
On Tuesday I went to Reed Park to observe the anti-needle-exchange rally hosted by the Santa Monica Coalition, co-founded by Pacific Palisades resident Jessica Rogers and Trump supporter John Alle, who also doesn’t live in Santa Monica. As noted in…
Santa Monica has seven officially recognized neighborhood groups. Despite their official recognition and city funding, most of these groups are known for not being representative of their neighborhoods–indeed, many residents don’t even know they exist. On Tuesday, February 6, Mayor…
Ahead of the July 25, 2023 city council meeting, Santa Monica city councilmembers Phil Brock and Oscar de la Torre placed a councilmember discussion item on the agenda “to assign unspent funds from the FY 2022-23 individual Councilmember travel budgets…
The Santa Monica Daily Press recently published an article by its editor Matthew Hall that had an eye-catching claim of an 8% vacancy rate in Santa Monica in the headline. Hall presents the information as though he did research that…
A video showing Malibu attorney Kevin Shenkman physically intimidating a Santa Monica resident who attempts to ask questions of city council candidate Armen Melkonians surfaced over the weekend, drawing concerns from many, including State Senator Ben Allen. In the video,…
The Santa Monicans for Change PAC was described in an October 3 Santa Monica Lookout article as a “slow-growth organization”, but they are in fact a far-right organization with major overlap with the local pro-Trump landlords association ACTION Apartments, and…
