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WHAT’S UP WESTSIDE ..................PAGE 2 LUNCH & LEARN ............................PAGE 3 SNIDE WORLD OF SPORTS ..........PAGE 4 LETTER TO THE EDITOR ..............PAGE 5 MYSTERY REVEALED ....................PAGE 9
MONDAY
03.06.17 Volume 16 Issue 97
@smdailypress
Twilight Concert Series to return this summer with fewer events BY KATE CAGLE Daily Press Staff Writer
The popular Twilight Concert Series will return in June with an abbreviated schedule as an effort to cut back on the exponential costs of the Santa Monica summer series. Instead of ten concerts there will be eight and they will start earlier, in June instead of July, to compete less with the busy tourist season when City resources are already strained. “From the standpoint of the crowd, we are still committed to amazing talent, fun activities, and the same iconic summer tradition
we’ve always had,” Executive director Jay Farrand said in an email to the Daily Press confirming the shorter schedule. The artists themselves have not yet been booked for the series but Farrand says “the talent and format will remain the same.” Organizers got a late start booking bands after on-going discussions with the City put an emphasis on a need to save money. Organizers lament that the cost of policing the 32-year-old event has soared beyond the cost of actually producing the free concert SEE TWILIGHT PAGE 6
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Santa Monica Daily Press
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Too late to turn the tide on Santa Monica salaries BY KATE CAGLE Daily Press Staff Writer
About twenty minutes into the late night meeting, Councilmember Sue Himmelrich finally made a statement everyone could agree on. “I feel as if every time I come into this room, everyone is so angry,” she said. The crowd of about thirty activists and members of the North of Montana Neighborhood Association mumbled and nodded in approval. The laundry list of
complaints during the Thursday night meeting ran the gamut: perceived over-development of the City, tourists, staff incompetence and government waste. Himmelrich kept trying to bring the room back to the topic at hand: city salaries. “We can’t go back. This is our situation today,” said the councilwoman. “We cannot do wholesale firing of entire departments and we can’t roll back pensions.” The size of Santa Monica’s city staff and their pay, cushioned with generous retirement packages,
medical care and lengthy vacations days have roused more than just envy from the room of mostly retirees. There is genuine anger among concern. The City’s various pension plans have a combined unfunded long-term liability of about $387 million. “We do everything we can to lower our pension costs,” the City’s director of finance Gigi Decavalles-Hughes said in the crowded community room of the SEE SALARIES PAGE 6
Morgan Genser
SMC VOLLEYBALL The Santa Monica College mens volleyball team hosted Pierce College in a non-conference volleyball match last week and won in 3 games by scores of (29-27, 25-19, 25-18) to improve their record to 7-1. Pictured are Vecas Lewin watching as teammate Dane Pieper jumps in the air to spike the volleyball, Trenton Sellers from Pierce and teammate Max Petuhov trying to block the spike of Andrew Dalmada and Brenton Scott from Pierce College spiking the volleyball in front of teammate Trenton Sellers as Vecas Lewin jumps to block
Gary Limjap (310) 586-0339 In today’s real estate climate ...
Experience counts! garylimjap@gmail.com www.garylimjap.com
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