News about local politics in Santa Monica.
In my post last week I wrote about certain aspects of John Hueston’s report to the Santa Monica City Council on the Elizabeth Riel firing and the Oaks Initiative. Last Tuesday evening Hueston presented his report to the council. There…
[pullquote align=left] Residocracy wants to reduce traffic—the time price of accessing Santa Monica—by limiting the number of people who live here. That’s like trying to reduce the cost of the box seats behind home plate by reducing the number of…
Last fall I wrote a series of five articles (which start here) about the firing of Elizabeth Riel by the City of Santa Monica, in which I analyzed the documents and depositions that came to light after the City agreed…
Last week, the Santa Monica Daily Press reported that the Santa Monica Community College Board of Trustees is considering its own ballot initiative to be placed on the fall ballot. The $295 million bond measure would pay for on-campus upgrades…
There has been a lot of discussion about a meme we posted last week as part of our editorial encouraging Santa Monica residents not to sign the petition to put the LUVE proposal on this fall’s ballot. In the meme, a Donald…
At the moment, there is a group of committed no-growth activists circulating a petition to put an initiative on the ballot that would effectively make it impossible to build anything over two or three stories by requiring a popular vote…
The conservative no-growth group, Residocracy, has begun gathering signatures to put an initiative on the November ballot that would require nearly all new projects taller than 32 feet to be approved by a popular vote. The group, whose opposition to…
This piece originally ran in The Healthy City Local. Good jobs and good housing are the goals of progressive economic policies, and both are on the agenda of the Santa Monica City Council tomorrow night. Good jobs, because the council will…
This piece originally ran on Frank Gruber’s blog, The Healthy City Local. My intention a month ago when I wrote my fourth installment of “Riel Politics,” my series of posts on the firing of Elizabeth Riel, was to wrap up the…
Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights, the single most influential political organization in town, ousted one of its original activists — and a member of more than 40 years — from the organization’s steering committee Sunday, citing real estate development as…
Last week I ended my chronology of the firing of Elizabeth Riel by concluding, “there is no evidence from the record that [City Manager Rod] Gould made his decision [to fire Riel] on orders from [then Mayor Pam] O’Connor or…
The Santa Monica City Council will vote on an ordinance Tuesday that would raise the city-wide minimum wage to $15 an hour by July 1, 2020 for most businesses. As proposed, Santa Monica’s new living wage ordinance would mirror Los…
This week, the Santa Monica Jaycees have a panel on women in politics, the future of the Santa Monica Pier is up for discussion, there will be a family-friendly story time in Tongva Park, and the Housing Commission continues its…
No, this isn’t an out-of-season April Fools joke. The conservative no-growth group, Residocracy, has decided that virtually every project in Santa Monica going forward should be approved by the voters. The group, whose opposition to the Bergamot Transit Village project…
Santa Monica Next sat down to talk with Rick Cole, who took the reins as Santa Monica’s city manager on June 29 after leaving his post at L.A. City Hall as deputy mayor in charge of budget and innovation. The Pasadena…
