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Volume 14 Issue 34
Santa Monica Daily Press We have you covered
THE WINGER BEGAN YESTERDAY ISSUE
Council moves lobbyist register forward BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
CITY HALL City Council wants you to know your lobbyists. After discussing some specific philosophical beliefs about the definition of lobbying, council voted unanimously to have city attorneys draft an ordinance requiring lobbyists to register with City Hall.
The attorneys will come back with a specific ordinance for council's approval, likely sometime next year. “This is done in virtually all cities of our size and particularly of our budget and it's not something that's meant to be punitive or meant to be anything other than transparent,” said Councilmember Sue Himmelrich who introduced the idea along with Mayor Pro Tempore Tony Vazquez.
Mayor Kevin McKeown noted the item seemed to have two components. One would be the ordinance requiring that lobbyists register with City Hall. “The other that I heard, was very interesting, would just be a policy decision,” he said, “that henceforth the records of who meets with whom in the Planning Department are transparently available to members of the public. I'm pretty sure records are already
kept - our people do keep logs - but I'm sure how easily accessible they are.” “Our schedules are currently public records,” responded City Manager Rod Gould. “We're asked for them regularly. There's nothing secret about who we meet with.” Himmelrich noted that a policy change SEE LOBBY PAGE 8
SANTA MONICA MENORAHS
Matthew Hall matt@smdp.com With many Santa Monican’s are celebrating Chanukah, menorahs are appearing all over the city. The holiday is also known as the Festival of Lights and the menorah is a central part of the tradition. One light is lit during each of the eight nights. A ninth light is present to act as a means of illumination or when used with traditional candles, as a means of lighting the other eight.
Santa Monica activists Council talks BBB and Expo praise release of Cuban Five BY DAVID MARK SIMPSON Daily Press Staff Writer
KELSEY FOWLER Daily Press Staff Writer
On the mantel in Jay Johnson and Rachel Sene's Santa Monica living room is a bucket filled with $1 buttons showing the faces of five men; next to it sits a stack of letters,
some more than 10 years old, written by the same men. The Cuban Five, as the men have come to be known, were first arrested in September 1998 in Miami. Recently, the remaining
Gary Limjap (310) 586-0339
SEE CUBA PAGE 9
CITYWIDE The train is coming but Big Blue Bus isn’t going to get all competitive about it. In fact, BBB officials are predicting a 14 percent increase in ridership after the opening of the Expo Light Rail. And in preparation for the coming train,
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SEE BBB PAGE 10
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BBB officials want to revamp the bus routes — eliminating redundancies between BBB, Metro, and Expo routes as well as beefing up bus connections to the rail stations. Here’s a summarized round-up of some of the proposed changes: Routes 4, 6, 13, 20 would be eliminated, with other buses and transportation services
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