New 3rd Street Promenade Banner Depicts City Officials as “Mount Drugsmore”
As With the Previous Placard, David White Is the Primary Subject of Ridicule
By Zach Armstrong
The longstanding “Santa Methica Is Not Safe” sign along the charter city’s signature shopping district has been replaced with a more creative, comedic one that upholds the same sentiment.
Along the 1300 block of Third Street Promenade, adjacent to the 2bella women’s clothing boutique, a new banner from John Alle and the Santa Monica Coalition depicts black-andwhite headshots of City Manager David White, L.A. City Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Director of Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Barbara Ferrer and City Councilmember Gleam Davis along an illustrated mountaintop. These four city officials constitute, as the poster proclaims in bold lettering between drawings of heroin needles and meth pipes, “Mount Drugsmore”.
As with the previous placard, White is the primary subject of ridicule. But whereas that one simply accused the city manager of supporting the controversial needle & meth pipe distribution program, this one makes an explicit demand that White should be fired from his post while other officials be held “accountable.”
Alle, owner of the building space and co-founder of the coalition, said that the sign will remain until either its demands are met, White resigns or he can lease the space; an effort he says is difficult in light of the promenade’s safety conditions.
The allusion to public officials creating some kind of drug-filled hellscape is a criticism of L.A. County’s needle exchange program in public parks and spaces; an effort that has provoked ire among citizens as a possible facilitation of drug use for the city’s transient population.
In an emailed statement in response to the new sign, Supervisor Horvath said “County partners with Venice Family Clinic to provide harm reduction services for up to three hours each week in Santa Monica. Through harm reduction and
other efforts, deaths among people experiencing homelessness held steady for the first time since 2015, as opposed to continual increases the County had historically seen.” Horvath added that since the County and the City of Santa Monica declared states of emergency on homelessness, there has been a 20% decrease in homelessness on the Westside.
A spokesperson with the L.A. County Department of Public Health said in an email, “Communities across Los Angeles County are currently facing the worst overdose crisis in our history, driven by the increasing presence of fentanyl and methamphetamine in our communities … Research shows harm reduction initiatives like syringe service programs save lives without increasing drug use and are cost-effective. Participants in these programs are more likely to seek treatment and reduce drug injections. LA County’s harm reduction programs currently reverse over 700 overdoses monthly. Last year, the County saw its first plateau in overdose deaths in a decade, a significant step forward in this
escalating crisis.”
In February, the SM Coalition filed a lawsuit against Ferrer, the Los Angeles County Health Department, and the Venice Family Clinic, alleging former Santa Monica mayors Sue Himmelrich and Gleam Davis, former City Manager Lane Dilg and White of covertly acknowledging and approving the program.
Two months later, the nonprofit organized a protest at Reed Park against the program. Santa Monica Mayor Phil Brock and Vice Mayor Negrete both spoke at the demonstration, with the ladder saying a mother said her son was hospitalized after stepping on one of the needles, and the former proclaiming “Stop the distribution of syringes and needles outside in our city!”
However, at the tailend of a meeting earlier this month, just weeks ahead of the recent poster swap, Santa Monica City Council unanimously supported a condemnation of the “Santa Methica” sign that was first placed at 1335 Third Street in December of 2022.
The item, raised by Mayor Brock, Vice
Mayor Negrete and Davis, requested City Attorney Doug Sloane create a resolution that both acknowledges First Amendment rights to free speech, while pointing out that some instances can cause harm “from expression that is false and/or counter to the public interest.”
During the meeting’s comment period, Andrew Thomas, CEO of Downtown Santa Monica Inc., described the banner as having generated “millions of negative media impressions” for the city.
In a prepared statement, White said that while he would implement policies adopted by city council, the syringe exchange program is initiated by a county contractor pursuant to state law. “The city plays no role,” he said. Alle countered that claim during his turn at comment period, saying that while city council can approve harm reduction or needle and glass pipe distribution in the city over the county, the mayor hasn’t used that authority. “There is no malice in the messaging on my building,” he said.
The Angelic Voice of Award-Winning Soprano
The Angelic Voice of Award-Winning Soprano Golda Zahra
Performing her debut role of Liu in Puccini’s Turandot her debut role of Liu in Puccini’s Turandot
AT WALT DISNEY CONCERT HALL
Friday, August 16th at 7:30pm CONCERT Friday, at 7:30pm
“A promising young opera singer.” -The Los Angeles Times
“Rising star of the opera world” -John Lavitt, Hollywood Times
Featuring Dream Orchestra conducted by Daniel Suk with 200 performers, Top Opera Soloists, Opera Choir of Los Angeles, and Han Opera Studio of China Conservatory of Music.
Featuring Dream Orchestra conducted by Daniel Suk with Top Opera Soloists, Choir of Los Angeles, Han Opera Studio of China of Music.
Civic Auditorium Set for Revitalization Talks
RPG Is Expected to Present a Timeframe for Council Consideration by 2025
The Santa Monica Civic Auditorium is poised for a potential rebirth following a unanimous vote by the Santa Monica City Council to enter negotiations with Revitalization Partners Group, LLC (RPG) to restore and operate the historic venue.
RPG is a consortium of experts in live entertainment, real estate development, finance, historic preservation, and public-private partnerships. The group includes Geyser Holdings, The Make Good Group, The Azoff Company, Oak View Group, and Live Nation.
Geyser Holdings, affiliated with the JH Snyder Company, has over 20 years of experience in estate acquisition, financing, and investment banking.
The Make Good Group consults on sustainability and social responsibility, with clients like the Philadelphia Eagles and Seattle Mariners. Tim Sexton, a principal at The Make Good Group, has a history with the Civic Auditorium as a production manager.
The Azoff Company is led by the former
Chairman and CEO of Ticketmaster and Live Nation, while the Oak View Group, under a public-private partnership with Seattle, invested over $850 million to develop Amazon’s Climate Pledge Arena. Live Nation, a Fortune 500 company, manages ticket sales for live entertainment internationally.
The city-owned auditorium, which closed in 2011 due to seismic issues, was once a leading entertainment venue, hosting concerts, Academy Award shows, community festivals, and trade shows. In 2023, the city designated the site as “surplus” through the Surplus Land Act, certified by the California Department of Housing and Community Development.
In December 2023, the city issued a request for Letters of Interest to redevelop the venue. Four firms submitted proposals, and in May, the City Council directed staff to negotiate with RPG.
RPG will conduct studies on historic preservation, seismic and structural engineering, ADA compliance, and acoustics to evaluate remediation, construction costs, and other considerations. The firm has agreed to pay the city an initial $350,000 to cover staff, consultant, and legal costs.
RPG is expected to present a comprehensive project scope and timeframe for council consideration by early 2025.
Santa Monica to Complete All-Gender Restrooms at Beach and Pier
The Initiative Is Supported by a $40,000 Grant
Santa Monica is set to complete the conversion of its beach and Pier restrooms to all-gender facilities this month, following successful upgrades at several city parks, the City announced.
The initiative is in partnership with the Santa Monica Pier Corporation and is supported by a $40,000 grant from Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors Chair Lindsey P. Horvath.
Santa Monica beaches and Pier, among the region’s top-visited destinations, will now offer restrooms accessible to all gender identities. This change also benefits those who need to assist someone of a different gender, such as caregivers or parents.
“Santa Monica embraces people of all gender identities. The all-gender signage is a significant advancement in our work to ensure our spaces are accessible to everyone,” said Deputy City Manager and LGBTQ+ Liaison Christopher Smith. “Everyone should
feel welcome while enjoying our beautiful Santa Monica beaches.”
Mayor Phil Brock added, “Santa Monica is known around the world as a welcoming place where anyone can be free to be themselves. As we take this meaningful step, I encourage everyone to enjoy our Pier and beach.”
Phase I of the project, expected to be completed by August, includes new door signage on existing restrooms. Phase 2, to be completed by spring 2025, will add new wayfinding signage.
Santa Monica’s commitment to equity and inclusion is longstanding. In 2023, the city council adopted an ordinance requiring all-gender, multi-stall public restrooms for new buildings and began converting existing restrooms. The initiative builds on 2022 legislation cosponsored by Santa Monica and West Hollywood to expand access to allgender facilities.
“The transition to all-gender restrooms on our beaches is a meaningful act of inclusion,” said Horvath. “This investment puts Santa Monica’s values into action and is part of their commitment to equality and creating a welcoming community for all.”
Santa Monica Police Adopt New Crime Reporting System
This Move Was Facilitated by the Smpd’s Recent Acquisition and Implementation of an Updated Computer-Aided Dispatch System
The Santa Monica Police Department has transitioned from the traditional Summary Reporting System (SRS) to the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), following a recommendation approved in 2015 by the Criminal Justice Information Services Division Advisory Policy Board (APB), as announced in a blog post by Lieutenant Erika Aklufi. This move was facilitated by the SMPD’s recent acquisition and implementation of an updated ComputerAided Dispatch System (CAD) and a Records Management System (RMS). The adoption of NIBRS will allow the SMPD to collect more detailed
crime data, providing a comprehensive overview of crime statistics within the city.
According to Aklufi, the new system provides greater specificity in reporting offenses, including all offenses within an incident, and considers more types of offenses. The system collects detailed information such as incident date and time, whether offenses were attempted or completed, expanded victim types, victim-offender relationships, demographic details, location data, property descriptions, drug types and quantities, suspected use of drugs or alcohol, involvement of gang activity, and use of computers in the commission of crimes.
“By implementing NIBRS data collection, the Santa Monica Police Department will gain increased insight into where crimes take place, what form it takes, and characteristics of victims and perpetrators.” the post stated.
“This information can be used to smartly deploy the resources we have and advocate for resources we need to address crime. This transition will also facilitate identifying common crime trends among similar jurisdictions, increasing opportunities for working with other agencies to develop proactive
strategies for addressing issues.
Additionally, the increased clarity in crime reporting that NIBRS offers will allow our community more access and information when voicing their needs,
concerns, and expectations to city leaders.”
For at least one year, SMPD will run both the SRS and
for comparison.
NIBRS methods sideby-side
Even After Improvements, Santa Monica Beach Still Ranks as L.A.’s Most Polluted
A New Report
Cites “Continuous Urban Activities” in the Area That Exacerbate Pollution
By Zach Armstrong
Water quality concerns continue to plague Santa Monica Beach.
In its 34th annual “Beach Report Card”, Heal the Bay assigned A to F letter grades to West Coast beaches based on estimated amounts of fecal pollution; a sign of contamination from sources such as human and animal waste. The report categorized the ten dirtiest beaches into its “Beach Bummers” list.
While the beach around the Santa Monica Pier slightly fell from its previous spot as the most polluted in California, and even after improvements including a new stormwater capture system and recent efforts to manage pollution from bird feces, the latest report ranked it once more among the most tainted on the coast (3rd) and the worst within Los Angeles County.
Heal the Bay cites “continuous urban
activities” in the area that exacerbate pollution as cause for the Pier’s ongoing quality issues, in addition to efforts of establishing bird deterrent netting being “ineffective or [having] not been adequately maintained.” Since 2013, Santa Monica Beach has consistently landed somewhere in the annual contamination scorecard’s ten lowestrated, except for years 2019 through 2021.
“The pier’s consistent appearance on the Beach Bummer list indicates ongoing challenges in controlling sources of pollution.” as stated in the report.
The last time Santa Monica was beat out as L.A. County’s most polluted beach was in 2021, when the nearadjacent Mother’s Beach in Marina del Rey took the cake. ‘Mother’s’ came in as the county’s second most polluted this year, while ranking as the 9th most adulterated on the coast overall.
“Mother’s Beach remains a Beach Bummer, primarily due to its enclosed geography within Marina Del Rey, which limits wave action and water circulation.” as stated in the report.
“This setup traps pollutants close to the shore, and despite several local water quality improvement efforts, the beach continues to struggle with high levels of bacterial pollution.”
San Diego County’s Tijuana River Mouth (previously ranked sixth, but surged in rankings due to “persistent sewage issues”) took the report’s top spot as the most polluted, while Playa Blanca of Baja California, Mexico came in at second place.
While 89% of California beaches received top marks for water quality between April and October of last year, that number dipped to 66% for results tested from November 2023 to March 2024; likely a result of five major storm events (known as atmospheric rivers) around that time which are know to overwhelm urban infrastructure, washing pollutants such as bacteria into the sea. These spills led to 38 million gallons of sewage into the ocean and coastal waterways, according to the report.
“Sewage spills, combined with extreme weather, underscore the urgent need for climate preparedness and investments in sewage infrastructure upgrades and enhancements in public notification protocols.” stated the report.
“Local officials are strongly urged to prioritize these investments to ensure the safety and well-being of all beachgoers and to protect the environmental health of California’s coastal ecosystems.”
L.A. County beaches’ scores largely reflected those of the state during the
Summer, with 81% earning A and B grades. However, Winter grades substantially declined, with just 37% of beaches getting A and B grades, which the report stated was “greatly impacted by this winter’s severe rainstorms.” The county also got its share of an uptick in rainfall, receiving 21 inches — 93% more than the historic average of 11 inches–while it experienced 185 sewage spills totaling approximately 9 million gallons, a dramatic rise from the 330,396 gallons reported last year.
Twelve California beaches achieved the report’s “Honor Roll” distinction–an improvement from the two that got it last year–when a beach receives an A+ grade through all conditions after being monitored weekly all year. Those immaculate swim spots were primarily found in Orange County.
48-Year-Old Costume Shop Set to Close
News Comes as the Store’s Legendary Owner Struggles With Pancreatic Cancer
By Zach Armstrong
After nearly half a century of costuming the Hollywood film industry in addition to anyone looking to spruce up for Halloween, Ursula’s Costumes in Santa Monica is closing its doors.
The store, located at 2516 Wilshire Blvd., offers a large array of rare and one-of-a-kind accessories and costumes including masks, hats, wigs, makeup, shoes and jewelry. Those store items are now on sale by as much as 50%.
According to NBC4, lasting impacts from the COVID-19 pandemic and Hollywood strikes, in addition to mounting competition from online retailers, are what led to the decision. The store is set to close after Halloween. Announcement of the imminent store closure comes as its owner, 90-yearold legendary costume designer Ursula Boschet, is struggling with serious illness.
“[Ursula] walks into her costume house every day at 9:00 a.m., caneassisted and troubled with pancreatic
cancer and age-related conditions.” stated a GoFundMe set up for Boschet’s needs. “It is time to close shop now; and there is a heavy financial burden that has taken hold … Closing costs of Ursula’s Costumes are not yet set, though gaining traction.”
That GoFundMe aims to raise $125,000 to resolve Boschet’s difficulties related to her health and closing her beloved business. That campaign can be found here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ help-ursula-boschet-overcome-healthand-financial-struggles?attribution_ id=sl:56736e54-7929-4b03-8f7af3471e43a7a4&lang=en_US&utm_ campaign=fp_sharesheet&utm_ medium=customer&utm_ source=facebook.
As detailed in a recent L.A. Times piece, Boschet was born in Germany in 1934, and has been tailoring since the age of 14. She moved out of her home country with her husband in 1957 to Canada where she worked at a sock factory. After settling in Los Angeles more than four years later, Boschet found herself working at theater productions and making costumes.
In 1976, after finishing her time working for Disney, Boschet launched a wardrobe mecca of her own.
Through the years since opening her West L.A. storefront, Boschet worked on various productions including the 1980s TV show “Cagney & Lacey” and the 1984 film “All of Me”.
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Food Water and Energy Part 3 of 4
SMa.r.t.
Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Our previous two S.M.a,r,t, articles talked about the seismic risks to the City from getting its three survival essentials: food, water, and energy shut down by the coming inevitable large earthquake. Specifically, last week (https://smmirror. com/2024/07/food-water-and-energypart-2-of-4//), we looked at the risk to our power supply from the San Andreas Fault, which can sever the long-distance
transmission lines that supply much of our external power supply. That risk is exacerbated during this time of increasing power demand as the City tries to absorb the massive rise in power demand from Sacramento’s required skyscrapers to house an unnecessary and unrealistic nominal 20% population rise.
The grim reality is that Sacramento has opened the floodgates to fill Santa Monica with skyscrapers, which developers are madly rushing in to fill in a feeding frenzy as if there was an infinite and uninterrupted supply of renters and power available. Unlike their 2-3 story cousins, these skyscrapers will become
unlivable in their first of many brownouts and power interruptions. Skyscrapers are only required to provide enough power to keep the hallway/stair lights on for about 2 hours to allow for evacuation, plus a uselessly small amount of additional photovoltaic supply, which, as previously stated, may not be accessible when SCE power is cut off. Because there is no way, with current technology, to provide enough photovoltaic power on the roof of buildings taller than three floors, these skyscrapers cannot operate all their systems (lights, air-conditioning, elevators, etc.) in a power outage, thus residents will become prisoners in these dark towers. Many seniors are not able to climb more than one or two flights of stairs, and even adults with small children or big grocery loads will not be able to climb the dozens of flights of stairs in skyscrapers, not to mention the extraction problem for any injured residents.
The City tries to get ready:
The City has tried to reduce its power demand and increase its power interruption survivability by requiring all NEW single-family homes to be net zero, meaning they can generate all their annual power needs on-site, usually through rooftop photovoltaic solar collectors. This does not mean these buildings don’t draw power from the grid at night. It just means that over the course of the year they generate enough power to cover both their immediate daytime needs and to give back to the grid the same amount of power they “borrowed” from the grid at night. That nighttime power usually comes from fossil fuel but that is offset by the “clean” surplus solar power they generated during
the day. Thus, these net zero buildings are not a net burden on the power load of the City nor to the pollution of the world, particularly if they can generate some additional power to recharge the increasingly common car batteries of their residents.
While this City requirement is an excellent first step, the problem is that these collectors, as previously discussed, are not required to function when SCE’s power is interrupted. That problem will be resolved in the near future with muchneeded switching improvements. But the real problem is that there are very few NEW single-family homes being built in our already built out City. Conversely, we face a tsunami of skyscrapers which will become a permanent energy and pollution millstone around our neck since they will not be net zero buildings. They will increase our power burden nominally 20% in the next 8 years without doing their fair share of renewable power generation or storage.
Some skyscrapers may try to buy the approximately 10% more expensive power from the Clean Power Alliance (CPA) instead of purchasing it from SCE. That Alliance uses renewable sources (primarily windmills and solar collector farms), most of which are in distant deserts, thus subject to increased transmission losses, to causing local environmental degradation, and also to increased seismic interruption risk since those sources are east of the San Andreas Fault. The residents and businesses of future skyscrapers may benevolently chose to buy this more expensive, riskier but cleaner power from the CPA, but they are not currently required to. Every new building in Santa Monica should be
to buy or produce its own power from renewable sources. Because of these limiting technical and political realities, skyscrapers will be environmentally obsolete the moment they are permitted: they will forever symbolize the triumph of greed over sustainability.
Requiring Net Zero:
The lesson here is that the City should require as many buildings as possible to be net zero. The State of California wants us to be fossil fuel free by 2045. This essentially means, at minimum, increasing renewable energy supply and storage by 4% each and every year for the next 20 years. While this sounds like a trivial number, remember it has to include all the projected power demand increases caused by the new electric car purchases. Currently, photovoltaic solar collectors, our cleanest local power source, are 20-25% efficient, meaning they convert about that low percentage of sunlight to power. Given typical power loads and rooftop areas, new 3-story buildings can be made net zero with existing off the shelf technology. As collector efficiencies increase, say to a not too distant 30%, and as power-generating windows and paints are invented and improved, fourstory buildings could be made net zero. Alternatively, these potential new power increases should be used first to recharge the batteries of electric cars and bicycles instead of making buildings taller. There is not a clear height limit with existing technology or likely to be achieved technologies to get to net zero. But its not likely to be achieved in the next 20 years for buildings higher than 6 or 8 stories as this would require an amazing 200 to 300% improvement in photovoltaic production efficiency.
Skyscrapers that are considered, for whatever misguided reason, inevitable and that cannot be made net zero should, however, be required to contribute additional storage capacity (e.g.,
batteries) to dampen peak loads and to increase the grid’s shutdown survivability. This is the least we should ask if we are to suffer their already numerous devastating impacts (gridlock, shading, power grid overload, loss of views, of wind, and of trees, etc.) This added local power storage, combined with switching improvements and protective solar access codes, would help buffer the City from a grid shutdown from a large earthquake or from the increasingly frequent brownouts. Thus, skyscrapers, while unsustainably increasing our power demand, could still mitigate their harm by helping our survivability through much-needed storage capacity. However, without those solar access codes and possible battery requirements, skyscrapers mindlessly increase the power hazards to our City, becoming a clear and increasingly present danger.
How close is the present danger?
It’s very easy given our dependence on fossil fuel, for cities to enter into what amounts to a heat doom loop. As global warming produced from the greenhouse gases of fossil fuel combustion increases, more fuel needs to be burned to run the air-conditioning that makes those cities habitable. That “extra” burned fossil fuel from power plants, in turn, increases both the local temperature and the global temperatures, further increasing the need for air-conditioning. This vicious circle accelerates, particularly without nighttime cooling (think Las Vegas), until air-conditioning is running full-time day and night as the peak temperatures, which air-conditioning eventually cannot shave, start to kill the vulnerable and those that cannot afford to pay for the airconditioning. Many cities (e.g., Bombay) and regions (e.g., the Middle East) are already near this doom loop, and ours is not free of risk. Our presence next to the thermally benign Pacific Ocean somewhat protects us, but perhaps not sufficiently
pollution and global warming is already considerably higher than that of periodic quakes. But our City faces both: known increasing seismic risk and massive global warming risks. Meanwhile, our City stumbles blindly forward with skyscrapers as the only answer to housing issues (real and imagined) while will fully ignoring the equally and more critical food, water, and energy considerations.
None of this is rocket science. Your average middle schooler could write this article, as could many of our regular readers. However, now the energy environment has changed dramatically because we are starting to solve, if the City had the courage to face, the significant energy problems and opportunities of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power and their storage challenges. Next week’s article, the last in this series will talk about those potential solutions.
By Mario Fonda-Bonardi AIA
for the 50-100-year life of the proposed skyscrapers. Therefore, any building, skyscraper, or otherwise that does not sustainably generate its own power drags us closer to the doom loop that the world is already experiencing. We should not go along willingly.
So here we are: in a global emergency: as global energy demand increases, burning increasingly depleted fossil fuel kill and will increasingly kill us with both pollution and global warming. The global daily death toll and suffering from
S.M.a.r.t Santa Monica Architects for a Responsible Tomorrow
Thane Roberts, Architect, Mario Fonda-Bonardi AIA, Robert H. Taylor AIA, Architect, Dan Jansenson, Architect & Building and Fire-Life Safety Commission, Samuel Tolkin Architect & Planning Commissioner, Michael Jolly, AIR-CRE Marie Standing. Jack Hillbrand AIA
For previous articles, see www. santamonicaarch.wordpress.com/writing
