S A N TA M O N I C A
REFLECTING THE CONCERNS OF THE COMMUNITY smmirror.com
INSIDE
Teens Attacked, Robbed by Another Group on Expo PAGE 3
August 9 – 15, 2019 Volume XXII, Issue 3
6 Citizens, $4 Million in Budget Reductions City looking for members of the public for budget task force By S am C atanzaro The City of Santa Monica, anticipating a budget shortfall, is looking for six members of the public to serve on a task force to make recommendations for at least $4 million in reductions between 2020 and 2023. The 11-member Budget Task Force, comprised of six community members and five members from the city staff, will advise City Manager Rick Cole on options and priorities for addressing budget shortfalls over the coming six years.
Cole announced the task force in an August 5 blog post. According to the City Manager, Santa Monica's traditional ways of budgeting and economic and forecasting face challenges. Established revenue streams are growing at a slower rate due to macroeconomic changes while pension costs are projected to increase significantly to address statewide unfunded public pension liabilities. "Santa Monica is not immune to impacts from national and global economic trends," Cole said. "Santa Monica recognizes that profound technological, economic and demographic changes are reshaping our lives, affecting both the public and private sectors and rendering old ways of doing busi-
BUDGET see page 13
E-Scooters Not as Green as They Seem? Study reveals devices true environmental impact By Kai McNamee After taking Santa Monica and Los Angeles by storm, shared electric scooters were touted by many as a solution to the climate crisis. Bird and Lime, two of the largest producers of dockless e-scooters, both market their services as a way to reduce carbon emissions in urban settings — but a recent study shows that these devices aren’t as environmentally friendly as they might seem. A study recently published in Environmental Research Letters found that riding an electric scooter is more damaging to the environment than riding a bus or bicycle. The majority of the scooters’ greenhouse gas emissions, the pollutants responsible for global warming, come from the initial manufacture of scooters and the vehicles people use to collect and charge them. The study, conducted by North Carolina State University graduate student Joe Hollingsworth, noted that the average shared electric scooter produces the equivalent of 202 grams of carbon dioxide per passenger-mile. This measurement accounts for the carbon dioxide emissions associated with the manufacture, transport, collection and distribution. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), driving a typical automobile produce over 400 grams of carbon dioxide
per mile. Hollingsworth’s team surveyed 61 riders in Wake County, North Carolina and analyzed survey data published by the Portland Bureau of Transportation to determine the displacement effects of shared scooters. Hollingsworth’s team reported that 49 percent of riders would have biked or walked had e-scooters not been available and 11 percent would have taken a public bus. While riding a shared e-scooter might be more environmentally friendly than driving a car, the scooters produce over twice the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by a public bus, and more than 25 times the amount produced by a bicycle. Since Bird’s launch in 2017, the company has reported over ten million rides, claiming to have “prevented more than 12 million pounds of carbon emissions from being released into the air.” Lime has similarly tallied over ten million rides, reporting that 27 percent of those rides were to or from public transit hubs; in June alone, Lime boasted providing 15,000 free rides to help Europeans vote. The study found that environmental impact is dependent on the typical scooter’s lifespan, which Hollingsworth’s team estimated to be between 6 months and two years — scooters that last longer before replacement produce less per-mile emissions. According to Lime, their newest “Gen 3” scooter has an expected lifespan of one year; previous models were reported to last around six months. A
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According to a recent study, e-scooters may not be as environmentally friendly as they seem.
study conducted by Quartz found that Bird scooters in Louisville Kentucky have an average lifespan of less than a month. At the beginning of August, Bird announced “Bird Two,” an improved scooter model featuring 50 percent more battery life than the previous iterations and various anti-theft and anti-vandalism
TAX
Photo: Sam Catanzaro.
measures. In additional to suffering daily wear from regular use and charging, scooters are frequently vandalized. The viral Instagram account Bird Graveyard has over one hundred thousand follow-
SCOOTER, see page 4
Samuel Moses, CPA 100 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica
310.395.9922