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Santa Monica Daily Press TUESDAY, JUNE 23, 2015
PCB lawsuit clears district challenge Judge rejects dismissal request by SMMUSD in fight over chemical cleanup at Malibu schools
Volume 14 Issue 191
Oaks Initiative chopped down by legal questions
COUNCIL PREVIEW:
Anti-corruption law is currently unenforceable
Daily Press Staff Writer
BY MATTHEW HALL Editor-in-Chief
MALIBU The legal battle over chemicals at Malibu public schools rages on. A federal judge last week gave life to a lawsuit that seeks the removal of polychlorinated
CITYWIDE The Oaks Initiative, Santa Monica’s anti-corruption law, is currently inoperative due to a lack of lawyers willing or able to prosecute alleged violations. Voters passed the law to prohibit elected officials from profiting from their positions. The law prohibits elected officials from accepting employment, gifts or other
SEE SCHOOL PAGE 8
SEE OAKS PAGE 9
BY JEFFREY I. GOODMAN Daily Press Staff Writer
JUNETEENTH CELEBRATION
FOURTH OF JULY REMEMBRANCES SEE PAGE 4
37 appointments up for grabs BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON CITY HALL If all members of City
Council are present at Tuesday’s meeting, perhaps we’ll see the cogs turning on Santa Monica’s political machine. Aside from the $1.1 billion proposed biennial budget and final adoption of the Zoning Ordinance update, council will consider 37 appointments to city boards and commissions. Council has an unwritten rule that significant appointments are made only when all seven members of the body are present, so possible that the appointments might be delayed, but given the
weight of the budget and the Zoning Ordinance update, a full house is all the more likely. Some appointments are scheduled for boards you might not have known existed, like the Urban Forest Task Force, which needs seven new members but the biggest prizes are arguably the three seats up for grabs on the Planning Commission. Council recently appointed Carter Rubin to fill the threemonth vacancy left when Sue Himmelrich made the jump from the commission to council. Commissioners Jim Ries and Jason Parry are also at the ends of their terms. Ries is the longest current serv-
ing member of the commission, having been appointed back in 2007. Parry was appointed in 2009. Of late, the Planning Commission majority and council majority, which has the final say, have differed on certain key issues. During the debate over the Zoning Ordinance, for instance, the commission recommended that council keep a set of activity centers, which would have allowed taller and denser development around planned transit hubs, while council repeatedly stripped them from the document. Four of the seven current council members outright opposed the SEE COUNCIL PAGE 8
Matthew Hall editor@smdp.com
Residents gathered at Virginia Avenue Park for the City’s annual Juneteenth Celebration. The music, crafts, activities and educational programs were in memory of the freeing of the last slaves on June 19, 1865, more than 18 months after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
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