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THURSDAY
02.09.17 Volume 16 Issue 76
@smdailypress
@smdailypress
Santa Monica Daily Press
smdp.com
REPORT:
Love and devotion to Gray Whales
City failed to build enough affordable housing for third year in a row BY KATE CAGLE Daily Press Staff Writer
A new report shows the City of Santa Monica is struggling to meet its affordable housing quota, a ratio set by voters back in 1990 when they passed Proposition R, according to a new report released by the City. During the 2016 fiscal year, developers built seven new apartment buildings in the City. Prop R requires thirty percent of all new multi-family housing go to middle or lowincome households. With 175 brand new apartments open for rent in 2016, only 34 of them were below market-rate, or just 19 percent. This
Courtesy Photos
WHALE OF A TIME: Heal The Bay will celebrate Gray Whales this weekend.
MARINA ANDALON Daily Press Staff Writer
Love is all around the Santa Monica Pier. With Valentine’s Day around the corner, Heal the Bay’s Santa Monica Pier Aquarium will celebrate the love of the Pacific gray whale
this weekend. Heal the Bay is an environmental non-profit, dedicated to making the coastal waters of Greater Los Angeles safe, healthy and clean. “We are all about protecting the wildlife, especially when they are in the ocean,” said Heal the Bay Outreach Manager, Randi Parent. Heal the Bay Aquarium’s annual Whale of a Weekend takes place Feb. 11 and Feb. 12. This will be the twelfth year that the organization will host whale related activities that will be ongoing on both Sat. and Sun. from 12:30 - 5 p.m. Each winter Pacific gray whales complete one of the largest migrations of any species, traveling 10,000 to 14,000 miles round trip between the Artic seas and the warm lagoons of Baja California in Mexico. The migration takes the whales past the Santa Monica Pier, sometimes within viewing distance from the Pier’s west end observation deck. These whales can reach a length of 50 feet SEE LOVE PAGE 7
is the third year in a row the City has failed to meet the benchmark. Low-income is defined as someone making less than $48,650 a year. Moderate-income is defined as a single person making less than $54,450 per year. Developers have four options when constructing new buildings to help the City meet those goals. They may reserve units in new buildings for low-income households, build affordable housing somewhere else, pay a fee, or dedicate or sell land to the City or nonprofit housing providers. SEE HOUSING PAGE 3
California lawmakers Carbon tax push from introduce bills to former GOP officials help refugees faces uphill slog BY SOPHIA BOLLAG
BY MICHAEL BIESECKER & CATHERINE LUCEY
Associated Press
Associated Press
Amid nationwide legal battles over the president’s temporary refugee ban, California lawmakers are taking steps to make their state more welcoming to people fleeing war, persecution or disasters in their home countries. Assembly Democrats announced bills Wednesday to grant refugees in-state tuition at public colleges and provide money to school districts with large child refugee populations. The bills would also give refugees with Special Immigrant Visas who served the U.S. Armed Forces or State Department in Iraq or Afghanistan priority enrollment in public colleges and help them
A push by a group of senior Republican statesmen for a tax on carbon to help lessen the effects of climate change is already meeting entrenched opposition from within their own party. Former Secretary of State Jim Baker went to the White House on Wednesday to gain Trump administration support for the plan, which would place a new tax on oil, natural gas and coal and then use the proceeds to pay quarterly dividends to American taxpayers. They said the payments would amount to about $2,000 total each year for families.
SEE REFUGEES PAGE 7
SEE CARBON PAGE 6
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