Santa Monica Daily Press, April 23, 2012

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MONDAY, APRIL 23, 2012

Volume 11 Issue 139

Santa Monica Daily Press

THINK LIKE A BOX OFFICE WINNER SEE PAGE 3

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THE CREATIVE COMMUNICATION ISSUE

Surviving 120 days of rest BY SAMANTHA MASUNAGA Special to the Daily Press

MID-CITY On a late December day, Jessica

Homes West, the company that builds and installs the units. If City Hall doesn’t move to use it before the contract expires, the cash reverts back to state coffers under the byzantine rules that the Legislature developed when it dissolved redevelopment agencies statewide in February, and Santa Monica loses 44 potential very low- and low-income housing units. Those are units City Hall can ill-afford to pass up. A recent report to the City Council on Santa Monica’s affordable housing needs indicated that the city will have to create

Fisher was rushed to the Santa MonicaUCLA Medical Center in a panic. Her doctor had discovered cervical incompetency during a routine ultrasound, a find that could have endangered the lives of her twins, if left untreated. She was only 19 weeks pregnant. Fisher underwent a cerclage procedure to stitch up her prematurely opening cervix and was placed on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. She delivered two healthy babies, Ella Madison and Ethan Tate, via Caesarian section surgery Saturday. But it is the 120 days in between that set her story apart. Over the course of four months, her bland hospital room was transformed into a den for all seasons. In one corner, gold metallic streamers spelled out “Happy New Year’s!” while red heart decorations marked Valentine’s Day. Orchids in the windowsills and a large canvas portrait of her wedding day added a home-y taste. A rack of baby clothes — one side pink and the other blue — gave her hope to continue her time in the hospital, Fisher said. “It was such a shock to the system,” she said of the cervical discovery. “Bed rest is really hard to do because it’s just very isolating.” The extended stay was made even more difficult because of its clash with her previous lifestyle. Fisher and her husband, Brett, were constantly active and the couple loved to run outdoors or go to see theater plays. They had even planned a trip to Las Vegas and a Mexican cruise to celebrate Fisher’s 30th birthday, which came five days after she was admitted to the hospital. Fisher urged her husband to take his mother on the cruise instead, to prevent the tickets from going to waste. To deal with the stress of being constantly cooped up inside, her husband suggested she start a blog to chronicle the experience and keep family in the know about her

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ALL IN

Brandon Wise brandonw@smdp.com Men and women enter into the water during the annual Santa Monica Pier Paddleboard Race on Saturday morning.

Use it or lose it Housing Commission strives to keep options open on affordable housing ASHLEY ARCHIBALD Daily Press Staff Writer

DOWNTOWN City Hall is one step closer to opening up new low-income rental units at the Mountain View Mobile Home Park after a unanimous vote by the Housing Commission Thursday recommended to move ahead with a plan to purchase new units at the site. The decision came over protestations of some residents of the privately-owned Village Trailer Park, for whom the presence of city-owned Mountain View has become a threat because it is one of the potential places they will be relocated should the

owners of Village Trailer Park succeed in closing the facility as planned. Though current residents of Village Trailer Park are shortlisted as potential renters for the new units, the vote was more about preserving an ever-dwindling number of resources to expand the amount of affordable housing in Santa Monica, said Chloe Edwards Bird, vice chair of the Housing Commission. The City Council set aside over $9 million from its now-defunct Redevelopment Agency in 2010 as part of a three-prong plan to finance sustainable units at Mountain View. Much of that money is wrapped up in a contract with Golden

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100 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1800Santa Monica 90401


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