Santa Monica Creates Film Office to Streamline
Permitting and Production Services
New Agency Will Take Over From FilmLA After More Than a Decade
Beginning September 1, 2025, film permit coordination in Santa Monica will shift to a new locally managed entity, Film Santa Monica, established by the Santa Monica Travel & Tourism Office in collaboration with the City of Santa Monica.
The change marks the end of a 12-year partnership with FilmLA, the nonprofit agency that has served as the city’s primary liaison to the film production community since 2013. During that time, FilmLA processed more than 7,000 permit applications and helped the city align with the California Film Commission’s Model Film Ordinance.
“We extend our sincere gratitude to FilmLA for their many years of dedication and support in advancing filming and production throughout our city. Their contributions have been invaluable,” the City of Santa Monica said in a statement.
“As we look to the future, we’re excited to welcome Film Santa Monica onboard to serve as the central hub for marketing and
permitting commercial filming in the city.”
FilmLA will continue handling all permit applications submitted on or before August 31, 2025, and will provide support services such as location checks, cost estimates, and general inquiries until that date.
After the transition, all new filming requests and permit applications must be directed to Film Santa Monica. A dedicated website, www.filmsantamonica.com, is currently in development and expected to launch soon.
For additional information, inquiries can be directed to Evan Edwards, Chief Operating Officer of Santa Monica Travel & Tourism, at eedwards@santamonica. com or by phone at (310) 319-6263.
Malibu Hires New City Manager: Ronda Perez to Lead as City Eyes Recovery and Rebuilding
Veteran Public Administrator
Ronda Perez Brings
Nearly 20 Years of Experience to
Malibu
The Malibu City Council has voted unanimously to appoint Ronda Perez as the city’s new City Manager, with her term set to begin August 25. Perez, a seasoned public administrator with nearly 20 years in local government, previously held leadership positions as City Manager in Palmdale and Assistant City Manager in Lancaster.
During her tenure in those roles, Perez led a range of high-impact initiatives, including securing state and federal infrastructure funding, expanding recreational programming, and negotiating the local transfer of highway ownership from Caltrans. She also played a key role in revitalizing downtown areas and advocating for sustainable urban development.
“I’m honored to join the Malibu team,” Perez said in a statement. “This community is unlike any other, and I am committed to advancing its recovery and supporting thoughtful, resilient redevelopment, while preserving its natural beauty and rural identity.”
Mayor Marianne Riggins praised Perez’s appointment, emphasizing the need for strong, stable leadership as Malibu continues its recovery from recent
wildfires. “Ronda brings the experience and vision needed to help guide our city through this next chapter,” Riggins said. “Her leadership will be vital in accelerating our rebuilding efforts while staying true to Malibu’s character.”
Perez holds a master’s degree from California State University, Long Beach and is recognized as a Credentialed Manager by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA). She is also a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Senior Executives in State and Local Government program.
The City Council will formally consider the terms of Perez’s employment contract during its next regular meeting on August 11. Details will be available on the city’s official website at MalibuCity.org/ AgendaCenter.
The council also extended its gratitude to
Interim City Manager Candace Bond, who was appointed in May and will conclude her service upon Perez’s arrival. Bond provided leadership during a critical phase of the city’s recovery and transition.
Santa Monica to Enter Mediation Over Ebony Beach Club Land Seizure
The decision follows a year-long investigation into White’s efforts to open the Ebony Beach Club—a nonprofit intended to provide a beachside gathering place for Black residents at a time when racial segregation limited their access to public spaces
The Santa Monica City Council voted
Tuesday to pursue mediation with the family of late Black entrepreneur Silas White, whose plans to establish the Ebony Beach Club in the 1950s were derailed by a city-led eminent domain action the family claims was racially motivated.
City staff will initiate mediation with White’s descendants to explore options for reparations or restitution. The city has offered to pay up to $15,000 for the process, which will be facilitated by a mediator of the family’s choosing.
The decision follows a year-long investigation into White’s efforts to open the Ebony Beach Club—a nonprofit intended to provide a beachside gathering place for Black residents at a time when racial segregation limited their access to public spaces. In 1957, White entered into a lease-to-purchase agreement for a parcel of land at 1811 Ocean Avenue, where the Viceroy Hotel now stands. A year later, the city condemned the property as part of a civic development project, and the club was never built.
According to city records, the club had attracted more than 400 interested members and had made initial investments
in improvements and marketing. However, a 1959 court ruling determined that White and his nonprofit held no legal claim to the land, which resulted in no compensation to the club or White.
White’s family first brought the claim to the city in March 2024, seeking either the return of the land or financial reparations. They cited parallels to the Bruce’s Beach case in Manhattan Beach, where land taken from a Black family nearly a century ago was returned following public outcry and legal review.
City officials say the case is emblematic of broader historic patterns of displacement and systemic inequities in Santa Monica’s redevelopment history. In 2021, the city issued a public apology for racially discriminatory land use practices, including the displacement of Black and Brown communities.
“This case is not just about a single parcel of land,” said city staff in a report to the council. “It reflects a larger pattern of harm that requires thoughtful consideration through a restorative justice lens.”
The decision to pursue mediation builds on the city’s broader reparative justice
Adult Great White Spotted Close to Shore in Santa Monica Waters
Shark Filmed Near Santa Monica Pier
Just 50 Yards From Shore
Rare footage of an adult great white shark swimming just 50 yards off the Santa Monica coast was captured last week by marine filmmaker Carlos Guana, challenging assumptions that only juvenile sharks frequent the Santa Monica Bay.
Known on YouTube as The Malibu Artist, Guana recorded the 15-foot shark on Thursday as it moved south toward the Santa Monica Pier. The video, taken by drone and shared with KTLA, shows the large shark cruising near a paddleboarder who appeared unaware of the animal’s presence.
Guana launched his drone after receiving reports of white sharks breaching or leaping from the water in the area. While the region is commonly recognized as a nursery for juvenile great whites, he said the sighting shows full-grown adults also inhabit these waters. He said, in an Instagram post, It’s a good reminder that we do live next to these apex predators daily. It’s a testament to just how rare a negative encounter with one can be.
Despite the shark’s proximity to swimmers and surfers, Guana stressed that shark attacks remain rare and that great whites tend to avoid human interaction
You can watch the footage here: https://youtu.be/ OIouq1TsVWY?si=AVMvu1j4vI_OyJQX
initiatives, including its newly formed Landback and Reparations Task Force, launched in April 2025. The task force is charged with investigating historical harms and proposing a formal reparations framework for Santa Monica.
While no final decision has been made on whether or how the city will offer restitution to the White family, city officials said the mediation is a necessary next step in acknowledging and addressing past injustices.
Wheeling Electrically v2.0
SMa.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Last month, the City Council unanimously backed the next phase of the East Pico and Broadway Bicycle Safety Projects. These will bring quick-build, long-needed, and protected bike lanes to key stretches of both streets.
This is a good moment to re-post, edited and rewritten, an article we published in these pages three years ago, and which continues to be relevant today:
The Electric Steed Cometh
On a bright Saturday morning in Dana Point, the kind of coastal town that sells serenity by the square foot, a curious thing was happening. The streets, the sidewalks, the marina—everything was teeming with electric bicycles. Not just a few. Hundreds. A grandmother with a golden retriever in the front basket, a guy who looked like he ran a crypto startup weaving past an Escalade, a father and daughter combo riding in matching helmets. All of them cruising on two wheels, propelled as much by lithium-ion batteries as by pedaling.
This wasn’t just a weekend scene. It was a signal.
E-bikes are the thing before the thing. And like most “next big things,” they don’t shout. They whisper. You almost miss them—until you start counting.
According to the New York Times, sales of e-bikes in the U.S. rose 145% from 2019 to 2020. That wasn’t a blip. It was twice the growth rate of traditional bike sales in the same period. The trend didn’t slow down post-pandemic. Last year, Americans bought nearly 900,000 e-bikes. This year, we’re on pace to cross the million-unit threshold. To put that in perspective, that’s more than the number of electric cars sold in the U.S. during that same stretch.
But here’s the thing that would make any venture capitalist sit up straight: for a growing slice of Americans, e-bikes are not just recreational toys or pandemic hobbies. They’re transportation. Real, everyday, goto-the-store transportation.
And yet, standing in the middle of Dana Point’s electric bicycle ecosystem, something else struck me.
Where were they in Santa Monica?
We’re the city of Big Blue Bus, of Metro Bikeshare, of the 15-Minute City dream. We’ve got protected bike lanes, a progressive planning commission, and a public image built partly on climateforward mobility.
So why does it seem like Dana Point, a place known more for yacht clubs than urbanism, is miles ahead? Santa Monica, our so-called model city, the pearl of progressive planning, the smug kombucha stand at a chili cook-off, has somehow missed the moment. It’s not that electric bikes are entirely absent here. You’ll see them occasionally: a dad hauling kids to school, a teen riding to practice, the occasional Metro Bikeshare zipping by.
But compared to Dana Point? It’s a whisper against a roar.
Let’s break it down.
There are four things you need to make e-bikes work as real transportation:
1. Somewhere safe to store it at home.
2. Somewhere safe to ride it.
3. Somewhere secure to park it at your destination.
4. A price point low enough to take the leap.
In the suburbs, people already have garages. They’re not dodging Uber drivers to cross the street. Their destination might be a park trail or a quiet cul-de-sac. The built-in infrastructure makes e-biking easier—even if it was never designed for it. Dana Point succeeds not through enlightenment, but through default. Wide suburban streets. Private garages. Calm traffic. It doesn’t try to be a biking city. It simply can be one.
Santa Monica tries. But try is not do. Try is politics. Try is grants and ribbons cut in front of half-finished projects. Try is a plan half-implemented and fading. Try locking an e-bike in the garage of a multifamily building, like mine, and you learn fast what a bolt cutter sounds like at 3 a.m. (Our building’s lost more than one bike to the underground garage bandits.)
Then there’s the street. Yes, we have protected lanes, some excellent, like the one on Colorado near Ocean, and others, well, not so much. Paint isn’t infrastructure. A confused driver in a crossover SUV doesn’t care if your bike lane has a green stripe or a “Yield to Bikes” sign. If the design is confusing, it’s dangerous.
Let’s call this what it is: an adoption bottleneck.
The people who could be riding are not. Not because they’re lazy. Not because they’re stubborn. But because they’re rational. They are not activists. They are not zealots. They are not interested in carbon footprints or Vision Zero or bike equity. They are interested in not getting hit by a Lexus while trying to get to Trader Joe’s. They are people with back pain. With kids. With groceries. With errands and dignity and too many things to do in too little time. This is the reality.
Reality is the man who won’t buy an e-bike because his apartment building has no safe place to store it. Reality is the woman who had her bike stolen from the “secured” garage three times. Reality is a mother who won’t ride with her child because the bike lane dissolves into traffic with the grace of a trap door.
E-bikes are different. They flatten hills. They shrink time. They make a 65-yearold with arthritis feel like a 30-year-old on a beach cruiser. In Norway, a study found e-bike riders traveled three times farther than they had on regular bikes, and replaced car trips in the process.
Here’s where it gets pungent: if you build a few really well-designed, truly protected lanes—just a few—the range and versatility of e-bikes means that riders will go out of their way to use them. E-bikes expand the radius of safety. One well-
placed protected path can serve an entire neighborhood and more. The return on infrastructure investment can be huge.
But the final boss in the e-bike game is parking. Not just at home. At the destination.
You can’t lock a $1,500 e-bike outside a strip mall and walk away in good faith. Most stores don’t offer secure racks. The city’s valet bike parking at Farmers Markets and events? Gone. Some downtown office buildings prohibit bikes entirely, like mine. So even if someone wanted to commute on an e-bike, they’d have nowhere to stash it.
This is death by a thousand frictions. We were supposed to be ahead. But we are not. We are behind Orange County, and if that doesn’t sting you just a little, you’re not paying attention.
The State of California, in a rare moment of lucidity, is offering financial help to buy e-bikes. We in Santa Monica should take the offer and run, before our supposed bike culture becomes yet another performative
gesture, another curious idea unridden. The electric steed has arrived. The only question is whether this city, in all its proud sophistication, will saddle up or sit it out. Meanwhile, in Dana Point, someone’s grandma just passed a Tesla.
Daniel Jansenson, Architect
For SMa.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Daniel Jansenson, Architect (former Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner); Robert H. Taylor, Architect AIA; Thane Roberts, Architect; Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Architect AIA (former Planning Commissioner); Sam Tolkin, Architect (former Planning Commissioner); Michael Jolly AIRCRE; Jack Hillbrand, Architect AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Phil Brock (former Mayor); Matt Hoefler, Architect NCARB
Retail and Dining Could be Coming to RAND’s
Santa Monica Headquarters
The changes aim to
revitalize
the underutilized property, which has seen reduced occupancy due to post-pandemic hybrid
work trends
The Santa Monica City Council approved an amended development agreement with the RAND Corporation on Tuesday, paving the way for new retail, dining, and office uses at its 326,170-squarefoot headquarters at 1776 Main St., while securing $5.5 million in community benefits, city officials said.
The updated agreement allows RAND’s existing building, constructed in 2004, to expand beyond its original “institutional office” designation to include general and creative offices, media production, limited life sciences research, retail shops, restaurants, convenience markets, banks, and personal services like salons. The changes aim to revitalize the underutilized property, which has seen reduced occupancy due to post-pandemic hybrid work trends, with only about 225 employees using the building daily, roughly 25% of its capacity.
“This agreement ensures RAND’s property remains a vibrant part of our civic center, supporting local businesses and community needs,” Mayor Lana Negrete said in a statement.
RAND will contribute $5.5 million to the city’s General Fund in two payments: $3.5 million upon agreement execution and $2 million within three years, triggered by events such as Coastal Commission approval or new property uses. Additional financial benefits include a 4.6% payment on the first property sale if exempt from the city’s Measure GS tax, and a right of first
offer for the city to lease unused parking spaces. RAND will also continue its annual $40,000 contribution to the Santa Monica Early Childhood Lab School through 2065 to support low-income families, extending a prior commitment.
The council also adopted an amendment to the Civic Center Specific Plan to align with the new uses, ensuring consistency with the city’s Land Use and Circulation Element goals for a mixed-use district. The project is exempt from further environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act, as it involves
no new construction or expansion of the existing building.
Originally approved in 2000, the development agreement restricted the site to institutional office use after RAND sold 11.3 acres to the city, now home to Tongva Park and the Civic Center Village Project. The new amendment extends the agreement’s term by 10 years to 2065 and removes leasing and transfer restrictions, allowing RAND to lease more than 15,000 square feet or sell the property to noninstitutional users.
Elvis Meets Oedipus at the Getty Villa in Fall Premiere of Oedipus the King, Mama!
Getty Villa Stages
Rock-Fueled
Oedipus Satire Under the Stars
The Getty Villa Museum will bring the myth of Oedipus to the stage this fall with a distinctly American twist: Oedipus the King, Mama!, a rock-infused retelling of Sophocles’ classic tragedy set to the music of Elvis Presley.
Presented in partnership with the longrunning Troubadour Theater Company, the production marks the 19th installment of the Villa’s annual Outdoor Classical Theater series. Performances run Thursday through Saturday evenings from September 4 through 27, with preview shows scheduled for August 28–30. All performances begin at 8 p.m. Tickets go on sale Monday, July 14.
First introduced during the Villa’s 2009
Theater Lab, the reimagined production returns under the direction of Troubadour’s artistic director Matt Walker. Combining Greek tragedy and rock-and-roll irreverence, the show follows Oedipus’ descent into doom with live music, choreography, and satirical flair. A live band backs the high-energy cast as Elvis hits fuel Oedipus’s unraveling in a story where fate meets hip-shaking spectacle.
The ensemble includes Walker as Oedipus, Beth Kennedy as Jocasta, Rick Batalla as Creon, and Cloie Taylor as the Shepherd, among others. The creative team features music direction by Benet Braun, choreography by Walker, set design by Evan Bartoletti, and costume design by Sharon McGunigle. Additional production roles include lighting by Bo Tindell, props by Matt Scott, and sound by Robert Ramirez.
An ASL-interpreted performance is scheduled for Thursday, September 18.
Tickets for preview performances are priced at $30. Thursday night
performances cost $45 ($40 for students and seniors), Friday shows are $50, and Saturday evenings are $55. Thursday is the only night that offers discounted rates for students and seniors. Tickets can be purchased online or by calling (310) 4407300.
The show is recommended for audiences ages 12 and older due to mature themes and content.
Known for its fast-paced, comedic adaptations, the Los Angeles-based Troubadour Theater Company, often called “the Troubies,”—has entertained local audiences since 1995. Their signature style blends commedia dell’arte with pop culture, slapstick, and music to deliver high-energy performances that bring new life to literary and theatrical classics.
