WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 18, 2006
Volume 5, Issue 57
Santa Monica Daily Press A newspaper with issues
City Hall disputes its ‘mean’ streak
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NEWS OF THE WEIRD BY
CHUCK
SHEPARD
Former President Jimmy Carter told GQ magazine for a January article that he saw a UFO in 1969 in southwest Georgia as he was preparing to speak at a Lions Club meeting. He recalled that it was a bright light that got “closer and closer to us,” but then “changed color to blue,” then to red, then back to white, and then “receded into the distance.” However, he said, “I’ve never believed it came from Mars.” (In September, Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian minister of defense, asked Parliament to hold hearings on extraterrestrials. UFOs, he said, “are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head,” and he fears the U.S. military might get Earth involved in an intergalactic war.)
TODAY IN HISTORY Today is the 18th day of 2006. There are 347 days left in the year. On Jan. 18, 1912, English explorer Robert F. Scott and his expedition reached the South Pole, only to discover that Roald Amundsen had beaten them to it. (Scott and his party perished during the return trip.)
QUOTE OF THE DAY “Being in politics is like being a football coach. You have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it's important.”
EUGENE MCCARTHY US POLITICIAN (1916 - )
INDEX Horoscopes Let them dote, Aries
2
CITY HALL — Officials said a report ranking Santa Monica among the country’s “meanest” cities for criminalizing the homeless missed the mark, failing to recognize efforts underway here to help the down and out. That National Coalition for the Homeless — a nonprofit group whose mission is to end homelessness — issued a January report which ranks Santa Monica as the No. 9 “mean” U.S. city for the down and out to live, due to its anti-homeless laws. National news agencies like MSNBC have written about the NCH report, upsetting some local officials who contend the information in it is skewed and question the methodology of its findings. “It’s crazy,” Mayor Bob Holbrook said. “There’s so much misinformation about what Santa Monica’s doing in regards to homelessness that I can only question the intention of those who wrote the report. “If it were true, then why do so many homeless people move to Santa Monica?” Michael Stoops, executive director for the NCH, admitted there might have been some factual errors in the report. However, the NCH — which he
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Opinion Calling out Kennedy
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Commentary Iran doing the expected
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National Accused killer cites abuse
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Real Estate Strips tease
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MOVIEGUIDE The reel world
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Classifieds Ad space odyssey
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said is the nation’s oldest homeless advocacy group — stands by its rankings. “We’re glad that cities don’t want to be considered mean to the homeless,” Stoops said. “At the same time, we’re trying to put a
magnifying glass to anti-homeless laws, which these cities have. “Santa Monica may have great people and programs to address homelessness, but (none of the cities polled) can house all of their homeless.
“We’re trying to attract attention to a civil rights issue.” Stoops said the rankings are based on information gathered from 212 cities’ anti-homeless See MEAN STREAK, page 6
Plan to chase squirrels could be for the birds BY RYAN HYATT Daily Press Staff Writer
Snow & Surf Report Water temperature: 58°
Fabian Lewkowicz/Daily Press A group of students from Loyola Marymount calling themselves ‘Feed the Hungry, do just that during lunchtime at the Ocean Park Community Center’s Access Center on Colorado Avenue and Sixth Street. Each week, the group feeds the homeless in Santa Monica, which was recently named the ninth meanest city toward homeless people.
PALISADES PARK — Feed them, and they will come. So says City Hall, which is encouraging the public to stop feeding the ground squirrels in Palisades Park. Evidently, the feedings are spurring the ground squirrel population, which has once again exceeded safe proportions and needs to be suppressed, officials said. LA County has notified City Hall that Santa Monica’s ground squirrels will have to be drastical-
ly reduced by early 2006. To comply with the mandate, City Hall has two programs it is considering which may be effective, and also be preferred by the council and some residents, who have been critical of previous eradication methods. In particular, City Hall will likely allow groups to perform short-term and long-term population control measures. But animal rights groups are already taking issue with some aspect of the new program being See SQUIRRELS, page 7
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Fabian Lewkowicz/Daily Press (Top) County officials are requiring the local government to rid the Palisades Bluffs of ground squirrels, rodents that often carry diseases. (Inset) City officials may soon be mandated by the county to reinstitute traps like this one found last year at the park.
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