ICE Apprehends Santa Monica College Student Off-Campus
This apprehension comes amid heightened ICE activity in Southern California, where federal agents have targeted major cities including Los Angeles
Santa Monica College confirmed that one of its students was apprehended by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement off-campus in West Los Angeles near the student’s residence.
The college, through its Federal Action Impact Analysis Team and senior administration, clarified that no federal
immigration enforcement activity has occurred on any SMC campus. The student was subsequently deported but is reported to be physically safe and intends to seek legal counsel.
The incident, highlighted by social media posts, has raised concerns among the college community, particularly for undocumented students and those from mixed-status families. SMC reiterated its commitment to fostering an inclusive environment where all students can pursue their educational goals regardless of immigration status.
The college directed individuals to its Federal Immigration Response Enforcement webpage, a one-page flyer detailing actions to take if immigration officials appear on campus, the Dream Resource Center, and additional immigration resources for support.
This apprehension comes amid heightened ICE activity in Southern California, where federal agents have targeted major cities including Los Angeles as part of a broader crackdown on illegal
immigration during President Donald Trump’s second term.
Protests supporting immigrant communities have been held across
the region, reflecting ongoing tensions following the lifting of restrictions on ICE operations at sensitive locations like schools.
Santa Monica City Council Approves Outdoor Drinking Zone on Third Street Promenade
New “Entertainment Zone” Will Allow Alcohol Consumption in Public Spaces
If you have ever wished to have a cocktail or a beer while you are at Santa Monica’s iconic Third Street Promenade, while enjoying the plaza, soon you will be able to do so, provided that you follow the area’s guidelines.
On Tuesday night, the Santa Monica City Council unanimously approved a motion that would designate the 1200-1400 blocks of the Third Street Promenade, between Wilshire Boulevard and Broadway, as an “Entertainment Zone” where guests to the area would be able to consume alcoholic beverages on public streets, sidewalks, or public rights-of-way so long as certain rules are followed.
Senate Bill 969, which was signed into law on September 28, 2024, allows municipalities to establish such areas under
their jurisdiction and require that five rules be followed.
You must be 21+ and wear an official wristband to enjoy alcoholic drinks to-go.
Only alcoholic drinks purchased from participating businesses are allowed.
Alcohol taken to-go must be in a nonglass, non-metal container.
Finish your drink before exploring another bar, restaurant, or shop.
Enjoy your alcoholic beverages within the Entertainment Zone boundaries.
During the program’s rollout period, starting in June, drinking in the Entertainment Zone will launch officially from Friday through Sunday from 6:00 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. at the Pride on the Promenade event scheduled for June 21.
The Santa Monica Police Department and Downtown Santa Monica’s private security will patrol and monitor the area to ensure things go smoothly. Signs will be posted informing visitors of the rules and regulations that must be followed, and the same signs are required to be posted at each participating business. The details of the signage, wristbands, and cups are still being discussed before the launch of the program.
“The new Entertainment Zone will provide a unique way for visitors to experience the iconic Third Street Promenade that caters to the new trends in shopping and dining,” Mayor Lana Negrete said. “It is an example of the many ways Santa Monica is thinking creatively about our economic growth, and I’m excited to see more residents and visitors
supporting our downtown businesses while responsibly enjoying the Entertainment Zone.”
John Alle, co-founder of the Santa Monica Coalition, who opposes the initiative, said, “There aren’t enough security or enough staff members to protect our buildings. My building is boarded up, part of it because storefronts are smashed and are empty. It’s unsafe.”
City to Issue Solicitations for Affordable Housing Development at Bergamot Station Arts Center
Proposals must prioritize maximizing affordable housing units while also considering potential artist housing and the preservation of current tenants
The City of Santa Monica is set to issue solicitations by the end of June for the development of affordable housing at two city-owned properties, including the Bergamot Station Arts Center at 2500 Olympic Blvd., following a directive from the City Council on Feb. 25, 2025. The second site, known as 4th/5th/Arizona, encompasses 1333 4th St. and 1324 5th St. Both properties have been declared surplus land under California’s Surplus Land Act
to facilitate affordable housing projects aligned with the city’s Housing Element obligations.
The solicitations, to be released on June 30, will be distributed to developers registered with the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and posted on HCD’s website. Proposals for the Bergamot Station Arts Center must prioritize maximizing affordable housing units while also considering potential artist housing and the preservation of current uses and tenants. For 4th/5th/Arizona, the focus will include revenue-generating options such as market-rate apartments, a hotel, or other commercial ventures. Both sites will require proposals to incorporate community benefit uses.
The city will enter a 90-day negotiation period with responding developers. If no proposals meet the criteria, Santa Monica will initiate a request for proposal process outside the standard surplus land procedure. Following council selection of a development team, staff will draft an Exclusive Negotiating Agreement, to be signed by the city manager and the chosen team, outlining the scope and timeline for
community outreach to gather public input on design and community uses. A final development proposal is expected to return to the City Council for approval in the first quarter of 2026.
The Surplus Land Act mandates that public land not used for city business be prioritized for purposes like affordable housing when made available for sale or development. Designating these sites as surplus allows the city to explore additional revenue-generating uses alongside
affordable housing to sustain the projects. Community meetings scheduled for Thursday, May 15, at 6-7:30 p.m. at City Council Chambers (a special Housing Commission meeting), and Thursday, May 22, at 6-7:30 p.m. at Santa Monica Main Library (601 Santa Monica Blvd.) will provide details on the Surplus Land Act process, the selection of these sites, and prioritized proposal elements beyond affordable housing, concluding with a Q&A session
Palisades Couple Files Lawsuit Against California FAIR Plan, Other Major Insurers
The
Jungwirths purchased a FAIR Plan policy after struggling to find other home insurance options.
Scott and Lissette Jungwirth, a Pacific Palisades couple, filed a lawsuit Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the California FAIR Plan Association (CFPA) and several major insurers, alleging bad faith, breach of contract, and violations of state insurance laws following the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires.
The couple seeks a court order to compel CFPA, the state’s insurer of last resort, to release claims-related documents, including photographs and narrative reports from a field adjuster who inspected their fire-damaged home.
The Jungwirths, who moved to Pacific Palisades last June with their three-yearold daughter, purchased a FAIR Plan policy after struggling to find other home insurance options. On January 7, 2025, they fled their home as wildfires spread, witnessing flames and smoke engulfing the area, the suit claims. Though their house survived, it was contaminated with soot, ash, and toxic substances like heavy metals, lead, and cyanide, rendering it uninhabitable, according to testing by a professional hygienist. The couple has since relocated between hotels, Airbnbs,
friends’ homes, and relatives’ residences while awaiting insurance support.
The lawsuit claims CFPA failed to thoroughly investigate the damage, delayed payments, and refused to provide requested claims documents despite multiple requests since March 2025. This refusal, the suit argues, violates California Insurance Code, which mandates insurers to share such documents within 15 days of a request. The couple cites a January 6, 2025, Fresno Superior Court ruling in Ortega v. California FAIR Plan Association, which ordered CFPA to release similar documents to another policyholder, as precedent. CFPA’s ongoing noncompliance, they assert, affects thousands of policyholders statewide.
The complaint also accuses CFPA of systematically underpaying wildfire claims, a practice the California Department of Insurance (DOI) deemed illegal in 2021 and 2022. The DOI found CFPA’s 2017 policy revision, which limited coverage to “permanent physical changes,” unlawfully restricted smoke damage claims. Despite DOI directives to revise the policy, CFPA has continued the practice, the lawsuit alleges.
Named defendants include State Farm General Insurance Company, CSAA Insurance Exchange, and other major insurers that fund and control CFPA. The Jungwirths seek declaratory judgment, public injunctive relief to enforce document disclosure for all policyholders, and damages for unpaid benefits, emotional distress, and legal costs. They have demanded a jury trial.
GOLDA ZAHRA
“The Rising Star of the Opera World” -Hollywood Times
“Truly Talented” – Jazz Legend Kenny Burrell
SMO (So Many Options) Part 3: “Pie in the Sky”
SMa.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
SMO: Fantasy, Fact, and the Fog of Wishful Thinking
By someone who read the fine print Every few months, a headline appears in Santa Monica promising that the airport—Santa Monica Airport (SMO)— will shut down by the end of 2028. Visions of a “Great Park” are fed into the public imagination, and wishful activists celebrate what they see as a done deal. But it’s not a done deal. It’s a classic case of hopeful messaging overtaking economic and ideological reality. A very big “pie in the sky” for the ‘true’ believers to blindly drool over.
In 2014, 15,000 (roughly only 16% of the total residents) voted for measure LC, which granted the City Council the right to decide the future of the airport; it was not a vote to close the airport. It was a vote that now gives the City Council the authority, without additional voter approval, to regulate use of the airport, and is effective Jan 1, 2029, per the 2017 FAA Consent Decree. Yet that hasn’t stopped local media and advocacy groups from repeatedly claiming that, per Measure LC, SMO will close on Dec. 31, 2028, and a “great park” will be built on the land. That is a fiction—satisfying fiction to some, but fiction nonetheless.
The Myth of 2028
In 2014, Measure LC amended the city charter, via Section 640, giving the City Council the authority to regulate SMO as an operating airport, or to close the airport— but only after a council vote takes place. That means as few as four of the seven members, i.e., a simple council majority, will make that decision. No public vote. No town hall. No public presentations. Just four people may decide the future of the land. That’s not a mandate to close, as they can just as easily decide to continue airport operations - that’s discretion. And it matters. Because, with two more voting cycles, you will have an opportunity to say who will be on the council to support your choice.
The Fine Print No One Likes to Read
Following LC, in 2017, the city signed the Consent Decree with the FAA. This was a legally binding agreement, not a feelgood resolution. And it said plainly “… after December 31, 2028, the Parties agree that the City may, in its sole discretion at any time on or after January 1, 2029, cease to operate the Airport as an airport and may close the Airport…”. The City is obligated to operate the Airport through December 31, 2028, AFTER WHICH date the City MAY decide to close the Airport. Note the word “MAY.” Not “will,” not “shall, and certainly not “must.”
Following the 2017 Consent Decree, the then city council issued a ‘resolution’ stating it was their desire to close SMO. A resolution is not a binding law, but rather a wish list by the then city council members, none of whom are still on the council.
Nonetheless, in January 2025, eight years later, the city attorney’s office issued a ‘memo’ that stated the council resolution of 2017, in their interpretation, was the only vote necessary to seal the closure date of midnight Dec 31, 2028.
Key Milestones:
• 2014-11-04: Measure LC passes— grants the Santa Monica City Council the authority to decide the airport’s future without requiring a public vote.
Now, section 640 of the City Charter.
• 2017-01-27: The City signs a Consent Decree with the FAA, committing to operate SMO through December 31, 2028. After that, the City may choose to close it.
• 2017-02-28: The City Council issues a non-binding Resolution 11026 expressing intent to close the airport.
• 2025-01-28: The city attorney’s office interprets the 2017 resolution as a binding decision despite the Consent Decree’s plain language stating closure is optional after 2028.
The city attorney’s backdating the decision, thereby eliminating a final public forum wherein the residents can express their NOW preferences, given the many State development mandates since 2014, seems counter to the Consent Decree, which is a legal binding document, stating that SMO will stay open … through December 31, 2028, AFTER WHICH DATE the city MAY decide… Although not an attorney, after reviewing the documents, I am struggling to understand the logic behind the city attorney’s interpretation. Specifically, I don’t see how it wouldn’t be the council in place as of
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midnight on or after January 1, 2029, that has the responsibility to decide the future of air operations on the land.
However, if he is deemed correct, and the 2017 vote by the council will set the future of SMO, then it is also correct the current, or a new, council can vote again, any time between now and then, prior to midnight Dec 31, 2028, and support, by a new resolution, that on Jan 1, 2029 the airport will continue to operate. There are two more election cycles before 2029, so you, the anti-over-development voters, need to do everything possible to vote out the incumbents and elect new council members that will stop the development devastation our town is collapsing under. Have you driven down Lincoln or Wilshire lately? Your vote to maintain SMO as an airport can stop the thousands of housing units and development that will, in fact, occur with potential closure.
To Summarize: despite council’s open hostility to new businesses locating at the airport:
• $275.2 million in economic output in 2011
• $187.5 million generated directly onsite and in local venues
• ($391.2 million today, inflationadjusted)
Most importantly, though, are the new state housing mandates that will over-ride city decisions should in fact SMO cease to operate as an airport. The Surplus Lands Act (SLA) and the Regional Housing Needs Assessment (RHNA) will impose an onerous number of housing units on the land. Already, there have been discussions in the council chambers of a minimum of 3000 ‘affordable’ units, which by all standards to date represent as little as 10% of the market rate units needed built by a developer for their economic feasibility. That would be 30,000 market-rate units. There was also discussion of the need
The council has already been presented with the economic reality that the city is broke and hinging on the verge of bankruptcy, and selling/leasing the land for development might help bail it out. There is irony here, too, as the city has chosen over the last ten years to slowly strangle airport operations, and the economic machine it actually was, and can be again. Per the City’s go-to economic advisors, HR&A, in a 2011 analysis, they reported “The airport Campus supported $275.2 million in total annual economic output in the City’s economy, of which $187.5 million occurred directly on-site and in local visitor venues”. Adjusted for inflation, that is $391.2 million that city policy has dismissed or diminished in its ideological goal of shuttering this economic engine that is SMO.
for, at minimum, half the airport land set aside for low-income housing, and Santa Monica College is anxious to build student housing there. So there can be little doubt that, since LC passed, it was obvious there would never be a large park created with closure, and that there would indeed be maximum development.
The Politics of Magical Thinking
So why does the myth of the 2028 airport closure persist? Partly because it’s politically convenient. It allows officials to avoid tough conversations about competing land-use priorities. It soothes residents with visions of green space. And it conveniently sidelines the fact that closure is far from automatic—and not guaranteed, while, at the same time, closure will almost certainly result in extensive housing development, which in turn will require commercial/ retail/market, etc. support, as well as new streets for access, emergency, and private vehicles, not to mention water, sewers, etc.
This is a classic case of magical thinking triumphing over policy literacy. It’s the local government equivalent of what we see occurring at the national level, promising a tax cut that pays for itself. You might want to keep an eye on the council chambers— and the city’s budget - as the temptation to sell off the land to help rectify 15-20 years of fiscal mismanagement is no doubt great. For those of you that think SMO land will
Annual Film Awards Show Leaving Santa Monica for Hollywood
The move marks a major shift for the iconic awards show, long known for its laid-back, seaside atmosphere that distinguished it
from the traditional awards circuit
After decades on the Santa Monica beachfront, the Film Independent Spirit Awards will relocate to the Hollywood Palladium in 2026, organizers announced.
The move marks a major shift for the iconic awards show, long known for its laidback, seaside atmosphere that distinguished it from the traditional awards circuit. The 41st annual ceremony is set for Sunday, Feb. 15, 2026, at the historic Hollywood
Santa Monica Cashier
Cited for Selling Alcohol to Minor
The ABC is conducting compliance
The Santa Monica Police Department cited a retail clerk at Bristol Farms, located at 3105 Wilshire Blvd, for selling alcohol to a minor during a Minor Decoy Operation on May 7. Detectives supervised a minor who attempted to purchase alcohol from nine retail licensees in the city, resulting in
one violation.
Clerks found guilty of selling to minors face a minimum fine of $250 and/or 24 to 32 hours of community service for a first offense. The Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) will also take administrative action against the business’s license, which could include fines, suspension, or permanent revocation.
The ABC is conducting these compliance checks statewide to limit minors’ access to alcohol, citing higher rates of drunken driving fatalities among those under 21 compared to the general adult population.
become a ‘great park’, be careful what you wish for. It just might bite you in the ass. Because here’s the truth: SMO has so many options. Closure is just one. And in a city where real estate is measured in gold, the future will likely be shaped not just by ideals—but by incentives, not ‘pie in the sky’. Maintaining SMO as an operating, economically viable airport is the only rational option. Remember, with two more voting cycles, you will have an opportunity to say who will be on the council to support your choice. The opportunity remains to preserve a valuable asset that provides jobs, economic value, and regional aviation access, with thoughtful planning—not assumptions dressed as certainty. Choose wisely.
Bob Taylor, AIA
For SMa.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Dan Jansenson, Architect, Building & Fire-Life Safety Commissioner; Robert H. Taylor, Architect AIA; Thane Roberts, Architect; Mario Fonda-Bonardi, Architect AIA (ex-Planning Commissioner); Sam Tolkin, Architect, Planning Commissioner; Michael Jolly AIR-CRE; Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Matt Hoefler, Architect AIA
For previous articles, see www. santamonicaarch.wordpress.com/writing
venue, which first opened in 1940 on the former Paramount lot.
Film Independent, the nonprofit behind the Spirit Awards, cited ongoing renovations in Santa Monica as part of the reason for the change. While no timeline has been given for a potential return, organizers emphasized the need to reimagine the show amid a period of growth.
“This move represents our continued evolution,” said Shawn Davis, executive producer of the Spirit Awards. “But we remain committed to celebrating fearless independent voices.”
Santa Monica has hosted the Spirit Awards for over 35 years, often in a beachfront tent just one day before the Oscars. Its relaxed vibe, casual dress code, and strong indie ethos made it a hallmark of the awards season.
The 2025 ceremony, hosted by Aidy Bryant, honored Anora, Baby Reindeer, and ShÕgun among others. Whether the Spirit Awards will return to Santa Monica after renovations remains uncertain.
“Minor Decoy operations hold accountable those who sell alcohol to minors,” said ABC Director Joseph McCullough. “Keeping alcohol away from youth is a priority.” Initiated by local law enforcement across California since the 1980s, the program initially saw violation rates of
40 to 50 percent among retailers. Routine checks have since reduced this to as low as 10 percent or less in some areas. The California Supreme Court upheld the use of underage decoys as a legitimate enforcement tool in a unanimous 1994 ruling. checks statewide
