Teens Arrested in Stolen Car, Armed Robbery Suspect Caught in Santa Monica
Reports of Domestic Violence, Followup Arrest Tied to 7-Eleven Robbery
Also Included in Update
The Santa Monica Police Department made several arrests between September 28 and October 4, according to a weekly update released by the agency, including felony vehicle theft, domestic violence, and armed robbery cases.
Police said officers recovered a stolen vehicle from Lot 2S at 1670 Appian Way after the department’s SMART Center located the car and tracked it in coordination with aerial support from Sky1. Three teenage suspects found inside the vehicle were detained and taken into custody on suspicion of grand theft auto.
In an unrelated incident near Cloverfield Boulevard and Michigan Avenue, officers responded to a report of a man striking a woman while she was on the ground. Independent witnesses confirmed the assault, and the suspect was arrested on suspicion of domestic violence. Police later learned he had an active restraining order involving the victim.
Officers also conducted an investigative stop on a parked car near Appian Way and Arcadia Terrace and learned the vehicle had been reported stolen. A female passenger
was found with visible injuries allegedly inflicted by the driver, her boyfriend.
A search of the vehicle uncovered drug paraphernalia. The driver was arrested on suspicion of vehicle theft, domestic violence, and narcotics-related offenses.
Separately, at Neilson Way and Barnard
Way, officers arrested a suspect accused of using a handgun to rob a victim and take personal property. The suspect was located shortly afterward carrying the stolen items and an airsoft pistol concealed in his waistband.
Police also reported a follow-up enforcement action in connection with an
armed robbery at a
and Wilshire Boulevard. Using SMART Center technology, officers initiated a targeted traffic stop the following day and recovered a BB gun believed to have been used during the robbery. The suspects were detained without incident.
ICE Operations Reported in Santa Monica; Mayor Expresses Outrage
The mayor urged residents to stay vigilant and informed about
legal rights
Santa Monica Mayor Lana Negrete said she is “heartbroken” following reports that federal immigration agents detained individuals Friday morning at a Pico Boulevard car wash.
According to Negrete, the incident occurred around 10 a.m. at the Santa Monica Car Wash near Gilbert’s El Indio
restaurant. The mayor said between two and four people were reportedly taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
City officials are working to confirm details and to connect those affected and their families with local legal and social services, Negrete said.
“It appears ICE is conducting operations in Santa Monica today,” the Mayor wrote in a social media post. “These are our community members — our neighbors, our friends, our family. My heart is broken.”
The mayor urged residents to stay vigilant and to visit https://santamonica. gov for information about legal rights and available resources for immigrant residents.
7-Eleven near 7th Street
Malibu Declares Local Emergency as Wildfire Risk Intensifies
Local Order Allows Action Within One Day in High-Fire Zones
Malibu officials have declared a local emergency as wildfire risk intensifies across the Santa Monica Mountains, citing dangerously low vegetation moisture levels and an increased threat of fastmoving fires.
The City Council voted unanimously on September 29 to enact the emergency declaration after live fuel moisture readings fell below 65 percent, the threshold Malibu uses to trigger heightened wildfire response measures. A live fuel moisture level of 60 percent is classified as “critical,” when dry brush is most likely to ignite and spread fire rapidly.
City officials said the declaration is a public safety tool that allows Malibu to act more quickly in Very High Fire Hazard
Severity Zones, particularly by reducing the timeline for clearing encampments from multiple weeks to one day. Cooking flames and warming fires are among the leading ignition sources in encampments, and the city reports responding to more than 30 encampment-related fires since 2021.
The declaration shortens the amount of time from 48 hours to one day and the city has directed LASD deputies to remove people in encampments and arrest them if they refuse to leave, according to KTLA 5 News.
Even as the city accelerates removals in fire-sensitive areas, outreach remains part of the protocol. Malibu’s Homeless Outreach Team, operated by The People Concern, works alongside the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s HOST unit to connect unhoused residents with services, interim placements and relocation assistance before enforcement occurs.
“As we continue to recover from the most devastating fire in our City’s history, declaring a local emergency is an important
and proactive step to reduce wildfire risk and protect lives, homes, and our community,” said Malibu Mayor Marianne Riggins. “We are stepping up enforcement
if there is illegal activity, especially fires, but we lead with compassion. Our first priority is always getting people housed and connected to the resources they need.”
Dodgers Pep Rally Coming to Third Street Promenade Ahead
of World Series
The event will feature a live emcee leading cheers, a fan photo booth, and an 8-foot-tall Dodger Ball installation
As the Los Angeles Dodgers gear up for the 2025 World Series, Santa Monica is throwing its support behind the team with a first-ever public pep rally on the Third Street Promenade.
Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. and
the City of Santa Monica announced the “We Believe in Blue” rally will take place Thursday, Oct. 23, from 6 to 8 p.m. on the 1300 block of the Promenade, transforming the popular retail and entertainment district into a Dodgers-themed celebration.
The event will feature a live emcee leading cheers, a fan photo booth, and an 8-foot-tall Dodger Ball installation where fans can sign their names and take pictures. Attendees can also enjoy a beer garden in the Entertainment Zone and take part in giveaways and special promotions from local businesses.
Adding to the atmosphere, the skyline around the Promenade and the Santa Monica Pier’s iconic Ferris wheel will be illuminated in Dodger blue.
The rally kicks off a week-long celebration across Downtown Santa Monica during the World Series, with nightly lighting displays and continued fan engagement.
The Dodgers are set to begin their World Series run later this week.
Santa Monica Looks to Bounce Back Against Unbeaten Torrance After Tough Loss to Redondo Union
Santa Monica currently sits tied for second in the Pioneer League with Redondo Union (both 2–1), while Torrance leads the standings at 3–0
After a difficult 47–7 loss to Redondo Union, the Santa Monica High School Vikings will look to regroup as they host the undefeated Torrance Tartars in a key Pioneer League matchup Friday night at Corsair Field.
Santa Monica (5–3 overall, 2–1 league) dropped its first conference game of the season last week, while Torrance (8–0, 3–0) remains unbeaten and atop the standings. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m.
In last week’s defeat, the Vikings struggled to find rhythm on offense after scoring 42 points in their previous outing.
Senior quarterback Eliot Bingener has led the team this season with 12 passing touchdowns and a 61.7% completion rate, while senior wide receiver Payton Seals has been his top target, averaging 77.3 receiving yards per game and totaling six touchdowns, according to MaxPreps.
Sophomore Myles Lee has also been a reliable option through the air, averaging 52 receiving yards per game and scoring three total touchdowns. Junior running
back Saul Buendia leads the ground game with 45.2 rushing yards per contest, while senior Jaxon Lee adds 30.8 yards per game and two rushing touchdowns, according to MaxPreps.
Defensively, senior Jackson Nelson has anchored the secondary with 5.6 tackles per game and two interceptions. Linebacker Isaiah Fernandez follows with 4.5 tackles per game, and senior Justin Guzman adds 4.4.
The Vikings’ offense has averaged 23.6 points per game, compared to Torrance’s potent 36.9-point average. The Tartars have outscored opponents 295–125 this season and have yet to lose at home or on the road.
Santa Monica currently sits tied for second in the Pioneer League with Redondo Union (both 2–1), while Torrance leads the standings at 3–0.
to Urban Jungle
Immerse yourself in a sanctuary where nature’s tranquility meets the vibrancy of city life. Urban Jungle is more than a plant store it’s a communitycentered oasis bringing a lush slice of paradise to your urban lifestyle. Here, we passionately believe in the power of plants to transform spaces and elevate well-being.
Digital tickets for Friday’s game are available through GoFan.
Better is a state-of-the-art gym to build a stronger brain.
The FitBrainSM gym at Saint John’s is pioneering treatments in brain fitness by using innovative technology to gamify physical and cognitive tasks, improving mind-body connection and helping to prevent or slow down the effects of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Sessions at the FitBrain gym are tailored to each patient’s individual goals and have been shown to positively impact processing speed and executive functions, as well as enhance balance and mood. It’s just one of the many ways we treat you for the better.
Family Launches Fundraiser After Santa Monica ICE Detention
The fundraiser, started by Milton Ortiz, seeks $40K to help secure the release of his wife, Dolores, who he said was taken into custody by ICE
A Santa Monica family has launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for legal fees after a woman was detained by federal immigration agents last month in
an incident that has drawn concern from city officials.
The fundraiser, started by Milton Ortiz, seeks $40,000 to help secure the release of his wife, Dolores, who he said was taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Sept. 17 outside Gilbert’s El Indio restaurant on Pico Boulevard. As of Thursday, the campaign had raised $3,646 from more than two dozen donors.
“We were having breakfast and as we were leaving, ICE pulled up and had us blocked,” Ortiz wrote on the fundraising page. “Dolores is a great mother that helps our kids with homework. She’s been in the USA for more than 20 years and has a clean record. We want her back.”
Ortiz said his wife has played a central
role in their family’s life, helping their son — a Venice High School senior who hopes to attend Stanford University — prepare for college.
The reported detention occurred the same morning that Santa Monica Mayor Lana Negrete said multiple individuals were taken into custody by ICE agents at the nearby Santa Monica Car Wash, also next to Gilbert’s. The mayor called the incident “heartbreaking” and urged residents to stay informed about their legal rights.
City officials said they are working to
confirm details of the operation and to connect affected families with legal and social services.
The campaign can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/f/ reunite-dolores-with-her-loved-ones/ igs/s?attribution_id=sl:440cba43-f2c5494f-864e-12e1e3a4bdca&lang=en_ US&ts=1760909899&utm_campaign=fp_ sharesheet&utm_content=amp17_ td&utm_medium=customer&utm_ source=instagram_story.
- French/English MUST BE 2 YEARS BY DEC 31ST TO ENROLL POTTY-TRAINED NOT REQUIRED 8:00AM - 2:30PM Extended
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium: A Living Monument to Global Cultural Innovation
SM a.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium stands as more than a shuttered venue awaiting revival—it remains an active force in global performance architecture and cultural memory, its influence reverberating through concert halls from London to Tokyo even as its doors have been closed since 2012. This Auditorium isn't merely a building; it's a testament to midcentury civic ambition and is celebrated for its sophistication, embodying the Vitruvian ideal by combining structural integrity (firmitas), functional excellence (utilitas), and aesthetic delight (venustas).
The architectural icon, designed by 26-yearold architect Louis Naidorf with Welton Becket & Associates in 1958, transcends its physical boundaries. The sweeping, curved abstract brise soleil form rising over a glass curtain wall façade embodies a revolutionary approach to democratic cultural space that the world still emulates today. The building's ability to transform from intimate venue to grand civic space demonstrates a sophistication in design that no amount of new construction can replicate.
The Blueprint That Changed Performance Venues Worldwide
The Civic Auditorium's pioneering acoustic design, developed with UCLA’s acoustical physicist and Chancellor, Vern O. Knudsen, created a template that fundamentally altered how performance spaces were conceived globally. It introduced a rare degree of acoustic adaptability for a building of its size. Coupling Naidorf’s innovative "floating stage floor" (enabling both flat and sloped venues), retractable seating for 3,000 viewers, suspended ceiling panels over a column-free interior, Knudsen designed seamless sonic transitions between symphonic performances, spoken-word events, and amplified concerts.
This architectural DNA can be traced directly to renown venues that followed: the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall, London's Barbican Centre, and the refurbishment of Sydney Opera House Concert Hall, all bear the Civic's fingerprints, proving that a single space could serve multiple cultural functions without compromise. Seemingly an impossible concept before Naidorf’s Auditorium showed the world how to achieve it.
Knudsen implemented integrated spatial design to minimize acoustical vibration transfer to become the industry standards. Tokyo's Budokan and Amsterdam's Paradiso specifically emulated the Civic's approach to a natural sound balance, while Berlin's Philharmonie concert hall adopted its philosophy of treating hearing a performance via architectural materials inseparable from form. Even today, architects studying multipurpose venue design reference the Santa Monica Civic as the original model for acoustic flexibility.
The Concert That Invented Modern Music
Media
On October 28-29, 1964, The T.A.M.I. Show hosted an event that fundamentally transformed how the world experiences live music. Featuring legendary performances by James Brown alongside The Rolling Stones, The Beach Boys, The Supremes, and Marvin Gaye, pioneered multi-camera concert filming, live color editing, and a cutting-edge ‘electrono-vision’ technology.
This production, sixty-one years ago at the Civic, created the visual language still used today in every major concert broadcast, from Live Aid to MTV Unplugged to contemporary streaming concerts. The techniques developed became the global standard, influencing not just how concerts are filmed but how venues themselves are designed to accommodate both live audiences and broadcast requirements. Every time a concert is streamed worldwide today, it follows the blueprint created at Santa Monica’s Civic Auditorium.
A Continuing Cultural Force Despite Closure
The Civic's influence has paradoxically grown during its dormancy for 13 years. Contemporary venue designers study its adaptability as they grapple with postpandemic demands for flexible cultural spaces. Electronic music venues like London's Printworks and Berlin's Kraftwerk explicitly reference the Civic's ability to transform intimate experiences into immersive spectacles, inspired by performances that demonstrated how festival-scale production could work in compact indoor spaces.
The venue's role in launching global movements that exported David Bowie’s glam rock aesthetics worldwide to hosting eight consecutive Academy Awards ceremonies that defined entertainment glamour—continues to inform how cultural institutions position themselves as catalysts for artistic innovation rather than mere containers for performance.
The Stakes of Preservation in 2025
As Santa Monica faces state housing requirements with development lobbyist interests as pressures to demolish this landmark, the city stands at a critical juncture that will define its cultural identity for generations. The suggestion to destroy the Civic Auditorium as a housing solution represents a dangerous misunderstanding of urban vitality. Cities that cannibalize their cultural infrastructure for short-term gains—as New York learned with Penn Station and San Francisco discovered after gutting the Fillmore's jazz heritage— create spiritual voids within the citizenry that no amount of new construction can fill.
The environmental argument alone should give pause: the embodied carbon in the Civic's structure, if demolished, would generate emissions that decades of "green" building couldn't offset. But beyond environmental concerns lies a deeper truth: the Civic Auditorium generates the kind of cultural capital that makes cities worth living in.
The Choice Before Santa Monica
The city’s Conservancy steadfast opposition to demolition isn't obstructionism—it is wisdom born from understanding, with the Landmarks Commission, that great cities are
more than housing units and tax revenue. Santa Monica’s community groups understand how City Council members face immediate political demands, often overlooking how cities are repositories of collective memory, stages for public life, and expressions of communal values.
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium has served for 65 years as what urban theorist Ray Oldenburg would call a "third place"—neither home nor work, but a crucial space where community coheres and culture evolves. In our increasingly privatized and digitized age, such spaces become more, not less, essential to human flourishing.
The political and development maneuvering to demolish the Civic to resolve a housing crisis present a false choice. Barcelona's superblocks, Paris's layered density, Tokyo's vertical solutions—all demonstrate that cities can honor both heritage and growth. Housing alone, while necessary, cannot sustain a city's economic ecosystem. The Civic Auditorium isn't an encumbrance to Santa Monica's future; it's the foundation upon which a richer, more complete future can be built.
As the world watches Santa Monica decide the fate of this global cultural landmark, the question isn't whether the city can afford to preserve the Civic Auditorium. The question is whether any city that claims to value culture, innovation, and human connection can afford to destroy such an irreplaceable monument to collective creativity. The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium changed how the world experiences live performance, and deserves to be rejuvenated.
Recent Developments: City Council Vote
Early on October 15, 2025, the Santa Monica City Council voted 4-3 to end exclusive negotiations with Revitalization Partners Group (RPG) regarding their proposed $360 million, taxpayer-free restoration of the Civic Auditorium. RPG's vision included transforming the venue into an immersive digital theater. However, after lengthy discussions and six months of exclusive negotiation, the Council cited frustration that RPG’s concepts
required a delay of financial documentation and proforma business plans.
Fortunately, our Municipal Code enables the Council an option to reconsider this hasty vote within ten days of their October 15th decision, providing a window to reverse the decision, should new information or circumstances arise, such as we’ve outlined here.
Now it's time for Santa Monica and the City Council to show the world how a city can change to preserve what matters most.
By Jack Hillbrand AIA, Architect
S.M.a.r.t. Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Robert H. Taylor AIA, Architect; Dan Jansenson, Architect & Building and FireLife Safety Commission; Samuel Tolkin, Architect & Planning Commissioner; Mario Fonda-Bonardi AIA, Architect; Thane Roberts, Architect; Jack Hillbrand AIA, Landmarks Commission Architect; Phil Brock, former SM Mayor (Ret); Michael Jolly, AIRCRE; Matt Hoefler, Architect For previous articles see www. santamonicaarch.wordpress.com/writing
NOTICE OF PETITION TO ADMINISTER ESTATE OF Spencer Ian Miller
To all heirs, beneficiaries, creditors, contingent creditors, and persons who may otherwise be interested in the will or estate, or both, of: SPENCER IAN MILLER A Petition for Probate has been filed by Neil Miller in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Superior Court Case No. 25STPB09100 The Petition for Probate requests that Neil Miller be appointed as personal representative to administer the estate of the decedent.
The petition requests the decedent’s will and codicils, if any, be admitted to probate. The will and any codicils are available for examination in the file kept by the court.
The petition requests authority to administer the estate under the Independent Administration of Estates Act. The independent administration authority will be granted unless an interested person files an objection to the petition and shows good cause why the court should not grant the authority.
A hearing on the petition will be held in Los Angeles County Superior Court as follows: Date: October 17, 2025 Time: 8:30 am. Dept.: D9 The address of the court: 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012.
If you object to the granting of the petition, you should appear at the hearing and state your objections or file written objections with the court before the hearing. Your appearance may be in person or by your attorney.
If you are a creditor or a contingent creditor of the deceased, you must file your claim with the court and mail a copy to the personal representative appointed by the court within the later of either (1) four months from the date of first issuance of letters to a general personal representative, as defined in section 58(b) of the California Probate Code, or (2) 60 days from the date of mailing or personal delivery to you of a notice under section 9052 of the California Probate Code.
Other California statues and legal authority may affect your rights as a creditor. You may want to consult with an attorney knowledgeable in California law.
You may examine the file kept by the court. If you are a person interested in the estate, you may file with the court a Request for Special Notice (form DE-154) of the filing of an inventory and appraisal of estate assets or of any petition or account as provided in Probate Code section 1250. A Request for Special Notice form is available from the court clerk.
Petitioner Neil Miller/ Adam Grant Stonewood Law Group, PC 16133 Ventura Blvd. Ste. 700 Encino, CA. 91436
Published in the Santa Monica Mirror, 10/10/25, 10/17/25, 10/24/25
SANTA MONICA COLLEGE
SANTA MONICA COMMUNITY COLLEGE DISTRICT BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Dr. Nancy Greenstein, Chair; Dr. Sion Roy, Vice Chair; Dr. Luis Barrera Castañón; Anastasia Foster; Dr. Margaret Quiñones-Perez; Dr. Tom Peters; Rob Rader; Sophia Manavi, Student Trustee; Kathryn E. Jeffery, Ph.D., Superintendent/President Santa Monica College | 1900 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica, CA 90405 | smc.edu
Photo by Ed Gandara