The following piece first appeared on The Healthy City Local. I haven’t written here for a while. It’s easy for a little hiatus to become a long vacation, especially over the holidays, and especially, if you write a column about local…
The campaign that soundly defeated the no-growth Measure LV this past November has been given the “Honorable Mention” nod in the 2016 Streetsie Awards category of “Advocacy Organization of the Year.” The Streetsie Awards are meted out by Santa Monica…
This past year, Santa Monica continued to advance some very progressive policies aimed at sharing the city’s increasing prosperity with as wide a swath of residents, workers, and other members of the community as possible. Still, this year’s headlines also…
For a city its size, Santa Monica has a robust media ecosystem of locally-focused print and digital news publications. With a population just shy of 100,000, Santa Monica boasts several print papers and two exclusively online publications (this one included)…
The final vote counts for Santa Monica’s local elections are in, showing big wins for incumbents and an unambiguous rejection of the no-growth ballot initiative, Measure LV. The final tallies, which were officially certified by the office of the Los…
(Note : This article first appeared in the Healthy City Local. – DN) Shell-shocked after the presidential vote, I’ve been slow putting my thoughts together on the local election. In fact, when analyzing local elections it’s a good idea to…
With election day nearly a week behind us the dust is beginning to settle and a clearer picture of the political landscape at the national, state, and local levels is emerging. One thing is resoundingly clear from the outcome of…
Last night, the nation was shocked at the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. As more and more states turned red by a razor margin, the feeling among many progressives that I know, and the…
This article appeared yesterday in The Healthy City Local. Over the weekend my son Henry wrote a note to his Facebook friends explaining why he felt so personally threatened by the candidacy of Donald Trump. Henry, who is getting a…
Last Thursday, Santa Monica Next held a non-partisan pre-election party that featured a voter guide listing endorsements on local, regional and state-wide ballot measures from over a dozen advocacy and news organizations including the L.A. County Democratic Club, Santa Monica…
The following is a response from downtown community member Babak Mozaffari. For voters in California, the first look at this November’s ballot has often been accompanied by a sense of shock and horror. There are 17 state-wide measures, followed by…
Yesterday, Santa Monica Next covered the dueling legal opinions on Measure LV. Our conclusion was that at this point, it’s nearly impossible for anyone to say for certain what the full impacts of Measure LV would be, if it is…
As we finish up our review of the ballot measures there’s one measure we haven’t covered, Measure SM. SM has received scant media coverage, and a quick google search shows that it hasn’t even been mentioned in Santa Monica Next…
This is the ninth election season I’ve covered, either as editor of Streetsblog Los Angeles, co-editor of Streetsblog California and now as acting-editor of Santa Monica Next. Covering this race in Santa Monica has been one of the most disheartening experiences…
Last week, Residocracy co-founder and City Council candidate Armen Melkonians finally released a letter with a legal analysis claiming to debunk the position of Measure LV opponents that the anti-development measure would require a city-wide vote before someone could rebuild…
