What Say You? School Nurses

School Nurses have long been a treasured resource in the Santa Monica/Malibu Schools.  School RN’s are professional nurses with extensive training specific to school nursing.  They are the first line of defense any time a student on campus needs help because of illness or injury.  School nurses have the professional training and expertise to make the decisions that can make the difference in how a child is treated, skills that are crucial in any urgent situation or emergency.  RN’s are trained and licensed to administer medications.  They are health educators for our students, staff and school families.  Historically, they have led the way on important health initiatives in the schools.  And, fortunately for Santa Monica, because of the continuity of their work, they know the students and their families personally and have, over and over, been the ones to notice and help when there are students with serious problems at school or at home.

Yet school nurses holding 5.6 ‘full-time equivalent’ positions were issued potential lay off notices at the School Board meeting of February 17, 2011 with one ‘no’ vote, from Board Member Mechur.  Board Member Leon Vasquez was not present.

Board Members who voted ‘yes’ emphasized that the potential layoff notices were being issued as a precautionary measure and would help the district maintain needed flexibility with its budget if the Governor’s proposal, as part of his plan to balance the budget, does not prevail in the proposed June elections.  And the District has convened a task force to study and make alternate recommendations to the Board about providing health care on our campuses. 

While the immediate problem is real, are we asking the right question? Are we addressing this problem at the right level?  Governor Brown’s proposed June election asking the voters for a five-year extension to continue current personal income and sales taxes, as well as the Vehicle License Fee rate comes with the promise that revenue from the sales tax and the vehicle license fee will be transferred directly to local governments and, the Governor states, “one area of state spending that will be spared from further cuts is kindergarten through 12th grade education.” 

The Governor’s spending plan assumes that all statutory changes to implement budget actions will be adopted by the legislature in March, allowing the necessary ballot measures to be put before the people at a June special election and that the measure will pass.  Without that we will see further cuts in K-12 education spending.

Senator Fran Pavley, with her long history in pubic education, believes “It’s imperative that we invest in our children and prepare them to compete in a global economy. We simply can’t afford to cut education any further.  I urge Californians to support Governor Brown’s proposal to maintain existing taxes for another five years in order to avoid catastrophic cuts– cuts that could result in a generation of students who would be deprived of the kind of quality education they deserve.”

Even if the tax extensions pass, Santa Monicans know that State funding will not be enough.  Our City does much to support our students.  City Manager Rod Gould said, “7.8 million dollars will go from the City to the School District this year and that number will go to 8 million dollars next fiscal year and that’s before Measure Y.  Measure Y funding is anticipated to add 5.5 million dollars to the school budget in the coming fiscal year.”

So why don’t we have the money to keep our treasured school nurses, our full faculty, our music programs, our sports programs.  In short, why can’t we be the school district we once were?

Is the issue that the problem is bigger than our City and bigger than our State? When persons as divergent as David Stockman, a director of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, and the filmmaker, Michael Moore, identify the growing wealth gap and bad economic policy as the issue, the issue becomes one of national priorities and national values. 

While we can’t opt out of being part of the national or state economy, we need to do everything we can to provide education here. Maybe we should be planning for the education we want and then focus on how to get there knowing, that at least in the immediate future, neither the Federal government nor the State government is going to support education in the way it once did in our Country.

We can hope for, and vote for, the Governor’s plan, but we know it is not sufficient to fund the schools our children need and deserve.  We may need to think differently, both about education and about funding.  We may need more support from other parts of our community.  But we need to do something.  Right now we’re not thinking big enough and it’s our children who need us to ‘think bigger.’

What Say You?

Hometown Hero: Student Mentors: Music and Meaning

Mayumi Kanagawa with Saint Anne Students     Photo Credit Robert Schaefer

Two students walked into music class at Saint Anne School in Santa Monica.  “They were bickering and calling each other names,” said Mayumi Kanagawa, a Crossroads student who is volunteering at Saint Anne School. 
“I taught them to play different lines of a song on their violins, and then had each play one line simultaneously.  When I told them that they'd just made harmony together, they couldn't help grinning.”

Kanagawa is a Music Major at the Elizabeth Mandell Music Institute at Crossroads School.  She, along with other music majors from Crossroads, in satisfaction of their community outreach requirement, work as mentors helping Saint Anne students as they learn to play a string instrument.

Inspiration for the music program comes from “El Sistema”, the Venezuelan success story that, for over 30 years, has reached children all over Venezuela, but especially in the poorest barrios, and has used music as the path to bring them out of the barrios and out of poverty.  Gustavo Dudamel, the conductor of the LA Philharmonic, is a product of El Sistema. He sees teaching classical music as a path to creating a more just social future and has continued the tradition in his work in Los Angeles.

The music program at Saint Anne’s is a part of the movement, inspired by El Sistema, to use music as a way to help children out of poverty and to create stronger and safer communities. The Belgian-born composer Jan Van der Roost said, “I think if all the countries in the world would do El Sistema, there would be a lot less problems and a lot more happiness.”

Saint Anne School started in 1908 with 55 children, to serve the large, migrant farm-worker families in the community. Migrant farm-workers from Mexico worked side by side with those from Oklahoma and the Southern states as their children studied together at Saint Anne School.

Maryann Cummins, a gifted musician and teacher, is the Director of the Elizabeth Mandell Music Institute at Crossroads (EMMI) and, among her other responsibilities, teaches music to the youngest of the children at Saint Anne School.  Cummins said, “When any of the music teachers or any student mentors come through the door the students surround us with hugs, love and happiness. They are hungry for music and the arts.  It feeds me to teach these students.” 

Third, fourth, and fifth grade students who want to study a string instrument, are mentored by EMMI students.  To be in the string program children must commit to working with the student mentors 4 days per week after school, in addition to their lessons during school taught by faculty provided by the Santa Monica Sol La Music Academy.  The violins and cellos they use are provided by donors and through fundraising.  All Saint Anne students study music.  If they decide not to learn to play an instrument then they are taught music through choral training.  And all students participate in the School's Christmas and Spring concerts.

Juan-Salvador Carrasco, a EMMI student, said of one child trying to learn to play the cello, “After a long struggle trying to teach one of my students a proper bowhold, one day everything I had been pestering him about finally clicked. It was amazing to witness his hand fall into the right mold, something I had often deemed impossible. Not only did I feel immensely satisfied, but it also made him feel proud to accomplish something so complex and intricate.”

Mentors take pride in their teaching and the Saint Anne students take pride in their learning.  Mentors for the music program are:  Elisa Abondolo, grade 6, age 11, violin; Seth Biagini, grade 12, age 17, cello; Juan-Salvador Carrasco, grade 12, age 16, cello; Sebastian Carrasco, grade 9, age 14, violin; Marina Chen, grade 12, age 17, violin; Mayumi Kanagawa, grade 11, age 16, violin; Maxwell Karmazyn, grade 11, age 17, violin; Esther Kim, grade 12, age 17, violin; Min-Jae Kim, grade 10, age 15, violin; Mackenzie Kugel, grade 8, age 13,violin; Alexzandra Morris, grade 10, age 16, violin; Avery Morris, grade 11, age 16, violin; Katrina Schaefer, grade 11, age 16, violin; Jeronimo Sexton, grade 11, age 16, cello; Chandler Yu, grade 10, age 15, violin.

El Sistema, as it is practiced at Saint Anne School is transforming life, both for the Crossroad mentors and the Saint Anne students.  One of the student mentors, Katrina Marie Schaefer, expressed the feelings of the entire group of mentors saying, “Music is an essential part of life, allowing an escape from the stresses of everyday routine. It stirs emotion and allows one to communicate with others, as it is a universal language.

What Say You? Construction City

“An unprecedented amount of excitement” was Council Member Kevin McKeown’s characterization of the number of development projects planned for construction over the next five to ten years in the Santa Monica.  His comment was made at the February 1, 2011 City Council meeting, one of two important meetings Santa Monicans held this week to discuss all the development proposals on the table.

McKeown’s comment was in direct response to the City Staff team motto, “BE EXCITED. BE PREPARED.” City staff presented Council with an overview report of the projects planned for construction in the downtown and civic center areas in the next 5 years: Colorado Avenue Esplanade from 4^th Street to Ocean Avenue; Freeway capping at Ocean Avenue; California Incline Replacement Project; Pier Bridge Replacement Project; Exposition Light Rail Downtown Station at 4^th and Colorado; Civic Center Parks; Civic Center Village Housing Project; Olympic Drive extension from Main Street to Ocean Avenue; Civic Auditorium renovation; Early Childhood Center at the Civic Center; Santa Monica High School new facilities; Parking Structure 6 re-build; Bike Centers in Parking structures 7 and 8; AMC Theater project; City-owned 4^th/5^th Street and Arizona site; and plans for the renovation of the Miramar Hotel, construction of the Shore Hotel and a proposed hotel at 710 Wilshire.

The LUCE anticipated and included all these projects, what the Council was being asked to review and discuss was the timing and management of the construction of the projects and the City staff proposals for management of the traffic impacts of the proposed projects.

Speaking at the “State of the City 2011 Santa Monica: Passport to Success” Chamber of Commerce meeting on January 27, 2011, at the Broad Stage, City Manager, Rod Gould, addressed these same issues with candor. “Although the General Plan protects 94% of town from more intensive 

development and only allows larger projects along certain transit corridors, these projects will be seen and felt as they are constructed.  There will be noise, dust, detours, and inconvenience, but the payoffs will be long lasting and allow the City to emerge stronger from this historic recession than when it went in.

“This year begins what is likely to be a period of transformative change in 

Santa Monica. Major public and private reinvestments will yield a more beautiful, livable, economically viable, environmentally healthy, and safe City.”

The City Staff report, presented at the February 1, 2011 Council Meeting underscores the message of ‘transformative change’.  “This exciting vision requires that implementation is carefully planned and managed.  The City has a host of unique and transformative opportunities that few cities are fortunate to have.  With the reality that a range of projects may be constructed in near proximity and within a close time frame, it is important to ensure that the act of ‘placemaking’ allows the ‘place’ to continue to function.  The City will focus on the details of implementation to ensure minimal disruption.”  The main portion of the Staff Report rightly focuses on planning for traffic and parking management during construction of the projects for the next five years to be co-ordinated by a City Staff team. 

City Council Member Pam O’Connor, speaking at the Council meeting, seemed to be expressing the feelings of the Council when she said, “I hope that the 2040 City Council will say that infrastructure improvements made by Council, Staff and the Community in the second decade of the 21^st Century are still serving us well.”  She went on to recognize the problems of traffic congestion due to this level of construction saying, “We have to realize that there may be problems and there may be whining, and I may be one of the whiners.”  I don’t think O’Connor will be alone in her traffic, parking and circulation concerns.

In his State of the City speech Gould said, “Our fair City is well positioned for civic advancement … due to its social, political and economic strengths including: smart, sophisticated, and engaged citizens who strongly support sustainable and progressive local government and a clear consensus

on the kind of City its residents expect and deserve, including issues of social equity, environmental stewardship, and economic vitality.”

So let’s get some of the “smart, sophisticated and engaged citizens” that Gould so well acknowledged to be part of the team that looks at the traffic and circulation problems that are inherent whenever there is construction.  We need to do more than to ‘manage’ traffic problems.  We need creative and fun ideas for alternatives to the car that make Santa Monica a more fun place to live, work, shop, dine and play. 

What didn’t get discussed, at either meeting, was whether or not this was the only, the right, or the best schedule for this quantity of concentrated construction.   Whether or not it is the right, the only, or the best schedule is something I hope will be taken to the neighborhood groups, as well as the Council, for discussion.

The projects are located in the downtown and Civic Center areas, but the traffic impacts will affect all residents and everyone who comes to the City.  It would be ironic indeed if, Santa Monicans started going out of the City to shop or dine because the traffic in Santa Monica made going to our own downtown unpalatable.

What Say You?

 

Hometown Hero: Tom Cleys

Tom Cleys               Photo credit Dennis Davis

The Santa Monica Conservancy held its annual meeting, January 23, 2011, at the historic Church in Ocean Park.  The sanctuary was filled, bringing together Santa Monicans of many interests and opinions, but with a shared commitment to historic preservation.

“The City of Santa Monica is a mix of historic architectural styles and new buildings. Our challenge is to respect the past and to build the city in a way that respects our history as we build the future,” said Tom Cleys, the founding president of the Conservancy.  “We need the new energy that comes from integrating the new with the old.”

Cleys helped to shepherd the Conservancy in its beginning years.  He served as president in 2002 and 2003 and has been the organization’s treasurer every year since.  “I was happy to be able to provide some leadership and to help solidify the organization in the beginning, but it is the energy and ideas of all involved that made it happen.”

Cleys had been living in West Los Angeles, but he wanted to replicate the sense of neighborhood he had experienced as a child.  “What I liked about Santa Monica was that people seemed to really care and so many people were so involved.”  His parents had set the example for him of what if meant to be part of a community.  “You live in a community, you want it to be a good community, and you work to make it a good community and to make a difference.”

He decided Santa Monica was the right place for him.  In 1998 he bought a two-bedroom, one-bath, 1926 bungalow on 23rd Street in Sunset Park.  He spent four years renovating the house, doing as much of the work as he could himself, but hiring plumbers, electricians, and other trades when he needed expert help.  He’s still working on the house and is currently restoring original windows.

“Rehabbing my own home was my one opportunity to do a rehabilitation project and it was a heck of a learning experience and added another 50 or more years of life to my 1926 bungalow,” Cleys said.

Cleys’ appreciation for historic buildings started in his childhood home of Chicago.  He grew up in a simple Queen Anne style house, originally built in the 1890s, in a neighborhood of old houses. Cleys remembers, “I grew up with the architecture in the neighborhood and I was fascinated with a beautiful building with a moss green, extraordinarily detailed, terra cotta façade.  As an adult, I went back to visit Chicago and saw the building had been landmarked. On the landmark plaque it listed Louis Sullivan as the architect.

“Chicago is a great city for architecture,” said Cleys. “We lived in a great neighborhood and we went downtown to great parks and great buildings.  I saw the John Hancock, the Sears, and the Standard Oil of Indiana Towers, being built.

“My view on architecture and good design is that it creates the stages for our lives. People may not know the architect, the architectural design style, or be educated in architecture, but they value well-designed, well-proportioned spaces. The job of the Conservancy is to help the community to understand what they intuitively know.”

When the 2011 Annual Conservancy meeting was over, Cleys helped to put away the chairs, to sweep the floor, and he talked with the people in the room while he was cleaning up.  He was happy with the meeting and the success of the Conservancy. 

“It will continue to be successful because it is a good fit with Santa Monica thinking and because there are so many good people committed to the Conservancy.  It is interesting to be here over time and see the success of the Conservancy and of the Santa Monica History Museum and the California Heritage Museum.  It bodes well for the future of historic preservation in Santa Monica.

“But there will always be people who think differently,” Cleys noted. “Yet I feel confident saying that the community as a whole has the right to keep historic buildings from being torn down by creating the opportunity for reasonable re-use and allowing owners to adapt and to upgrade, but with the integrity of the old structure and style.  It creates such an interesting environment for the entire city.  We’re a great city and we deserve great architecture.”

What Say You: Traffic City or Bicycle City ?

Photo by Linda Jassim    Bicycle Sharing in Paris

 Santa Monica’s iconic image is well deserved.   Is that image now in danger of being replaced with the image of an impassable downtown?   All too often the downtown scene is one of cars circling for parking places in the public garages, long waits at intersections, and extra time added for any car trip passing through the downtown.   Always, any proposed development is under considerable added scrutiny because of the traffic problems.

Enter the “Bicycle Salon.”   Santa Monica bicycle advocates, including City Council Member Kevin McKeown, got together at the studio of Arts Commission Member Linda Jassim and Planning Commission Member Gwynne Pugh to hear a presentation on the French VELIB  bike-sharing program and how it has transformed Paris.

VELIB (Velo Libre/Bike Freedom) had its Paris debut in 2007, with Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoe leading the way.  Ten thousand, identical, sturdy bicycles, were located in 750 automated rental stations throughout Paris.  The program has almost doubled the number of bicycles and stations in three years and the VELIB program is now the largest bicycle-sharing program in the world.

The VELIB system locates bike rental stations approximately 1,000 feet apart and there are about 15 bicycles at each station.  Fees vary, with yearly rates, weekly rates, and daily rates.  The basic fee of 5 euros (about $6.50) gets one into the system for a week.  Then rates are varied and are designed to encourage the use of the bikes for short trips within the city.  Reducing the number of short car trips was determined to be the way to bring the highest environmental benefit to the city. VELIB is designed as a traffic reduction program.

Here is how it works.  If you’re going to lunch, for example, you use your credit card to ‘unlock’ a bike from the nearest bike station, ride it to the restaurant, and dock it at a bike station near the restaurant.  If the ride is less than a half hour – which is almost always the case if you are going from place to place in Paris – there is no charge over the basic fee you have already paid.  After lunch, you go to the closest station and reverse the process, getting a new bike.  Again, if your return trip is less than a half hour, there is no additional fee.  The fee schedule is set to make it easier, more economical, and more fun to take the bike.

VELIB has proven successful in Paris.  The program has reduced traffic congestion. It has had environmental benefits, such as the reduced use of gasoline, reduction in car emissions, and limiting the land needed for parking.  Riders get the health benefits and the pleasure of seeing the city as they ride. To protect bike riders, Paris has carefully and cleverly implemented new rules and painted clear signage on the streets.  This has made bicycle riding safer in Paris than it had been before VELIB.

Paris may have the largest bicycle-sharing program, but bicycle-sharing programs have been implemented in more than 238.  Minneapolis, Minn.; Denver, Colo.; Washington D.C.; London, England; and Copenhagen, Denmark, are a few of the cities where you can find similar programs. 

Speaking to the Santa Monica City Planning Commission, Charles Gandy, the coordinator of the City of Long Beach Bicycle Program, told the Commission, “The City of Long Beach has publicly set itself the goal of being the most bike friendly city in America.”  Using mostly department of transportation grant monies, Long Beach has redesigned streets to create separated bike lines; used paint to create safe bike lines on shared streets; educated children and adults, public officials, police officers, transit officials, and business owners on bike usage and safety, as well as the advantages of cycling for the business districts, the environmental benefits, and the personal health and enjoyment benefits.

Santa Monica is proud to be a sustainable city.  But it lags behind hundreds of other cities when it comes to creating real opportunities for people to safely and easily use the bicycle as transportation.  Yet we know it is a viable way to reduce traffic congestion, reduce the need for parking spaces, improve air quality, benefit personal health, and have a good time while doing good.  In London all the bikes are blue.  The bikes in Paris are gray.  The bikes in Denver are red.  Santa Monica, what color will your bikes be?

Hometown Hero Cristyne Lawson, Dancer and Dean

Cristyne Lawson

“All I’ve ever wanted to do is dance,” said Cristyne Lawson, the recently retired Dean of the Dance Department at CalArts and a person who has danced with every icon of the American modern dance movement of the 20th century.

Cristyne Lawson’s great grandmother, Ary Shaw McReynolds, moved, with her daughter, Mary McReynolds Stout, and her son-in-law, Rev. Stout, to Santa Monica in 1908.  Rev. Stout had been asked to join Rev. Phillips at the CME Church on Fourth Street and Mrs. Stout would teach English at Prairie View College.

Ary Shaw McReynolds is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery on Pico Boulevard.  The family believed her to be of both African American and Native American heritage.  Also buried at Woodlawn are Lawson’s mother, father, sister, and uncle.

Her mother, Bernice Stout Lawson, grew up in Santa Monica and studied piano with the well-known teacher, Miss Lilias G. Hart. She went on to study music at the University of Southern California and to be a performing artist.

Lawson’s father, Hilliard Lawson, was the first black City Council member in Santa Monica.  He came to California after being thrown out of Vicksburg, Mississippi when his father died.  His mother went to work, as a cook, for the socially prominent Pasadena Jowitt family.  This was Cristyne Lawson’s first introduction to Deborah Jowitt, who became her friend, went on to be the Dance Critic for the Village Voice, and to write glowing reviews of Lawson dancing with Alvin Ailey.

Unlike her father’s racially hateful experiences in Mississippi, Lawson felt “at home in Santa Monica.” She reflected on her childhood saying,  “I have been really lucky. I wasn’t ostracized, as a child in Santa Monica for being black, as children were in so many places in America.  People put more into color than what’s there.

“I felt there was no place that I would rather be.  My friends and relatives all lived within easy walking distance.  I had a bicycle and could go everywhere in the city.  There were no parking lots and no parking meters. Can you imagine how wonderful it was to have the beach coming right up to the grass?

“In the Santa Monica black community, everyone used to go to CME Church, on Fourth Street in Ocean Park, for their social life,” said Lawson.  “Originally called the Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, as the country changed its ideas about race, it became known as the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

“I am who I am because my grandmother listened to everything I said and was interested in everything I did.  If I went to a movie, I could come home and act out every part and she would give me unending attention.

“My grandmother took me to Lincoln (Reed) Park for the dance program.  The woman who taught dance at the park was a Ruth St. Denis trained teacher.  I knew then that I wanted to be a dancer.”

Lawson went to Santa Monica High School (Samohi) and then on to Los Angeles High School where they had a dance program, headed by the Wigman dancer, Martha Krogman. In high school she performed with the school’s Orchesis Club and she performed in the movie “Carmen Jones,” starring Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte.

Accepted to Juilliard, she was a member of the first Juilliard Dance Company. “Coming from Santa Monica, I found New York unreal.  I had to adjust,” remembered Lawson. “I lived at the Dunbar Apartments in Harlem.  Juilliard was still at 125th Street at that time.”

Lawson took a break from Juilliard to go on a worldwide, six-month tour with the Graham Company.  She also worked on Broadway, where she and Alvin Ailey were lead dancers in  “Jamaica,” starring Lena Horne and Ricardo Montalban.  When home for the summer from her studies at Juilliard, she performed in the movie “Porgy and Bess.”

After graduation from Juilliard, she toured Europe with the Modern Jazz Quartet.  It was in Europe that she met her husband, Graham Smith, an Australian architect and a dancer.  They were married 19 years, and had two children.  

It was a telegram asking her to come and help start a new school in Buffalo, New York that brought her back to the states. “At the school, I was choreographing for my own company,  ‘Company of Man.’ We were dancers and film-makers and we made multi-media films.  I also choreographed a dance called ‘The Story of Christ in Vietnam.’ It was the most incredible moment.  We could not have lasted.  It was so completely consuming.”

She went on to become the dean of The Sharon Disney Lund School of Dance at CalArts.   “The school decided artists were the best people to run schools. They felt you had to have done it in order to teach it,” said Lawson.

“The problem with a school like CalArts, is you can have famous people come, but teaching can’t be about ‘you.’  One has to be able to bridge the gap between being an artist and doing one’s own work and at the same time give to the students.

“I’m really happy to be back in Santa Monica.  I’ve been all over the world, but I love Santa Monica. It has changed, but it hasn’t changed beyond recognition.  Ocean Park still has the same feel.”

What Say You? Big Changes Coming to Downtown

Big changes are coming to Santa Monica’s Downtown District. The Exposition Light Rail (Expo) is on schedule to open 2015.   The City has just completed a deal to secure the property between Fourth and Fifth Streets on Arizona, taking over the current sites of both Bank of America and Chase Bank.  The Civic Center Parks are on a fast track and are now in the public planning process.  Plans are being made for freeway capping adjacent to the Civic Center Parks. The California incline is scheduled for infrastructure improvement.  The Santa Monica Pier Bridge is scheduled for infrastructure improvement.  Santa Monica Place reopened August 2010 and is still evolving.  A new AMC Cineplex is planned for Fourth Street.  The City is about to start work on the Downtown Specific Plan, the document that will set the guidelines for the future of the downtown.

Expo is expected to bring thousands of people into Santa Monica’s downtown to shop, to eat, to play.  It is both hoped and expected that people who currently drive to Santa Monica will decide it is more convenient and more fun to take Expo and leave their cars at home.

 “Moving people in, through and around downtown, accommodating pedestrians, and encouraging bike riders are key concerns for downtown,” according to Kathleen Rawson, CEO of the Bayside District Corporation.  “Responding to issues of homelessness and taking care of homeless people used to be the highest ranked issue in the downtown community.  Now it’s parking and traffic.”

Downtown Santa Monica is a local, regional and international destination.  More than 60,000 people will come just to skate at the Ice Rink and thousands more will come to watch the skaters and to admire the decorative art.  Portraits of Hope, an internationally acclaimed non-profit that helps children deal with trauma through participation in public art, decorated the Ice Rink.

Events in the downtown are the responsibility of the Bayside District, as is the Ambassadors program.  Ambassadors, wearing logo shirts, greet visitors, answer questions about where to eat, give directions, escort employees to cars on late work nights, connect lost objects and owners, remove graffiti, and keep a record of all their interactions – over 170,000 in the past year. 

Santa Monica’s Police Chief Tim Jackman said, “Much credit goes to the Ambassadors for the decrease in the downtown homeless population.  Santa Monica’s homeless population is down about 23% citywide and over 27% in the downtown area.  The Ambassadors have done a good job of connecting homeless people to City Services.”

Councilman Bobby Shriver, a nationally recognized thinker and problem solver in the movement to ‘End Homelessness’ agrees, saying, “When it comes to addressing homelessness, Santa Monica is the regional leader.”

Bayside District is the public-private company responsible for planning and managing the downtown.  They are funded by a downtown property assessment, a portion of the business license fees, and revenues from special events, such as filming.  Bayside’s total annual budget is now approximately $5 million.

“Bayside gets $200,000 from the City for services through the Public Landscape Division for Promenade maintenance,” said Assistant City Manager Elaine Polachek, when asked about City support for Bayside. “Although the Ambassadors, may report problems more quickly than in other parts of the City, when it comes to ‘fixing potholes’ they go into the regular queue with the rest of the City.  The City benefits directly from business license fees, parking revenues and sales tax dollars.  We also benefit because the Promenade is a draw for tourists and the City relies on tourism for revenue.”

Given the importance of downtown and the scale of the planned new projects, City Staff is preparing for a Council study session to present an overview of all projects, recommendations on how to co-ordinate and manage the proposed projects, and recommendations for a process for public participation.  The study session will be held late January or early February 2011 at City Council.

The number and scale of the proposed projects brings us back to how are going to move people in, through and around downtown.  But it’s not people that create the slow moving traffic and the lack of parking spaces, it’s the cars they drive. Doing Expo right will get people from the Los Angeles region out of their cars and into Santa Monica by light rail.  Bayside District, working with the City, will need to create a welcoming environment, with fun and easy options for getting around town to change how everyone, visitors and locals, get through and around downtown.  

“It will take time to create an infrastructure for bicycles and time to change a general mind set,” Chief Jackman noted.  “But, during the City Manager’s talks with neighborhood groups, biking was a top issue and so our direction to create the infrastructure for bicyclists is clear.” 

The goal is to make the downtown work in a way that is good for the downtown, for our neighborhood business districts, and for the whole city.   The success of our goals will be measured by; the number of visitors, the ease of getting around town, financial benefits and even-handedness, and the use of planning and architecture to define the character of Santa Monica.   

With thanks to the Bayside District for starting Santa Monica’s ‘Buy Local’ program, let us remember the ‘Buy Local’ slogan, “Santa Monica First” and guide the changes to come without changing our core values.

What Say You?