CITY HALL — After 34 years of public service, City Manager P. Lamont Ewell — who is widely credited with improving customer service in City Hall — plans to resign from his post at the end of the year. Ewell made the announcement Wednesday to give the City Council ample time to conduct a nationwide search for his successor.... Read more →

I am so happy my mother was able to campaign for me in my first race for public office when I ran for City Council in 2004. She loved campaigning here. Door to door, the phone bank, the events. She called them all “teas” because that’s what they called them in Boston in the ‘40s and ‘50s when her brother Jack ran... Read more →

<i>Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing series that tracks the city’s expenditures appearing on upcoming Santa Monica City Council consent agendas. Consent agenda items are routinely passed by the City Council with little or no discussion from elected officials or the public. However, many of the items have been... Read more →

DOUGLAS PARK — The Santa Monica Community Maintenance Department is conferring this week to find an alternative to the removal of one of the tallest trees here. The decision comes in response to a surge in public outrage against the proposed tree removal. The tree, an Australian bunya bunya, is known for dropping heavy, bowling... Read more →

LINCOLN BOULEVARD — An unsightly stretch of Highway 1 that has long been thought of needing a little TLC could soon be in the hands of City Hall. City officials have renewed discussions with the California Department of Transportation — better known as Caltrans — about relinquishing the state’s control of a 1.2 mile... Read more →

16TH STREET — For the past 27 years, the Education Foundation of Santa Monica & Malibu has been one of the school district’s biggest donors, buying new library books, paying for dance instruction and providing academic enrichment grants to teachers. Now the nonprofit organization is directing its focus outside the... Read more →

Dear EarthTalk I haven’t heard much of late about big oil spills like the infamous Exxon Valdez. Has the industry cleaned up its act, or do the media just not report them? Olivia G. via e-mail In the wake of 1989’s massive Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska’s Prince William Sound, when 11 million gallons of oil befouled some... Read more →

BROADWAY — Now even puppets are unemployed. After more than a dozen years entertaining Santa Monica’s children and their families, the Santa Monica Puppetry Center is closing its doors, the latest casualty of the slumping economy. Steve Meltzer, the founder of the center and a skilled puppeteer who worked on the cult... Read more →

SM LIBRARY — As officials with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plan for a subway extension to Santa Monica, one of the questions it will face is whether the western part of L.A. County will have the demand to support two public transit infrastructures, the other being light rail. Included in the proposal for the Westside... Read more →

CITY HALL — Terry O’Day, an environmental activist who helped lead a campaign to defeat an anti-development measure last fall, resigned from the Planning Commission on Thursday citing a need to focus more attention on his family and career. The one-time City Council candidate and married father of two young children submitted his... Read more →