In addition to all the excitement surrounding the new appointees to the Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. board in Thursday’s meeting, the other big agenda item up for discussion was regarding the future of security firm Legion after six months of deployment patrolling the Third Street Promenade and Downtown district.
And while a vote was ultimately passed unanimously 11-0 (Board Member Leo Pustilnikov was absent and Vice Chair Julia Ladd left the meeting before the vote was taken) to extend the pilot program to June 30, 2025, the majority of discussion disappeared down a budget-related rabbit hole rather than focussing on the benefits of the program.
This item was supposed to be discussed last month, but that meeting suffered from a number of issues ultimately preventing any kind of vote. Firstly, an unannounced presentation from Lt. Leyva of the Santa Monica Police Department supposedly relating to the work of the Legion Corporation took up nearly an hour of the board’s time. Then an already thin-on-the-ground attendance became even more meager as board members deserted the meeting and one just disappeared entirely. Consequently, a quorum was lost and the evening’s proceedings resulted in little forward progress.
In essence, the process to extend the Downtown security pilot program consists of two elements; firstly DTSM determines to actually extend the program and then Santa Monica City Council amends the DTSM service agreement.
Two options were presented to the board to extend the Legion Private Security Pilot Program. The first was that DTSM aligns the private security contract with the Management District Plan (MDP) and the second was that DTSM amends the MDP via a City Council resolution.
Staff recommended that not only should the program be extended, but that the program contract be aligned with the MDP. Staff also recommended that Santa Monica City Council be asked to amend the DTSM services agreement to permit the extension of the program and that $994,000 — the cost of extending the program to June 30, 2025 — be drawn from DTSM reserves to fund the program. Finally, it was also recommended that the Audit and Finance Committee be directed to begin drafting the DSTM FY25/26 budget in January 2025 with regular updates be provided to the board.
"The first step would be for this board to determine whether or not to extend the downtown security program. If we do make that determination, we need to let the city know that we want to extend the program and we do seek to amend our services agreement. This has to be done at least 120 days prior to December 1, 2024," said DTSM CEO Andrew Thomas, adding, "One hundred and twenty days prior is August 1. So we've got to move quickly."
"The program is very popular," Thomas continued. "Our security officers have logged thousands and thousands of incidents in their reporting. We heard from Lieutenant Jerry Leyva, the downtown Services Unit for Santa Monica Police Department that the police like the program. And we've heard from our businesses that they liked the program too," he said.
In the six month period since Legion began operating, they’ve observed nearly 1,500 individual instances of drug use. As such, they’ve identified many who are suffering from an overdose and by acting quickly and effectively, together with calling emergency services, Legion has saved lives.
Thomas gave a very succinct presentation explaining the different options and ultimately expressed his confidence that there were a number of possibilities to allocate funding to the program. However, conversation strayed a number of times to the expense of Promenade lighting, holiday decor and even the cost of cleaning the parking lot bathrooms. But once all the extraneous exposition had been cut through, it was clear that support for the program was overwhelming.
Barbara Tenzer spoke during the public input section on agenda items and said, "I'm here representing 15 property owners on the Third Street Promenade, some on Second Street, also the owner of this building, they just want to know that it's very important to them that you extend the security pilot program, however you decide to do it."
City-appointed Board Member and Assistant City Manager Susan Cline said, "As someone who has had a lot of trauma around budget cuts, we've been doing it at the City for many years now [and] we're still not out of the woods, II appreciate the conversation around the struggle to find resources to do the basics and provide basic services, so I fully appreciate the support for the program … and it'd be great to move that forward."
After considerable discussion, Board Member Lucian Tudor made the motion, seconded by Board Member Luke Cain, to support the extension of the Downtown private security program and ask the City of Santa Monica to amend the DTSM services agreement to extend said pilot program at DTSM’s option.
Also, to direct the Audit and Finance Committee to conduct a thorough review of the FY24/25 budget and identify areas where other services can be restructured, reduced, or cut in order to reallocate funds to the Downtown private security program and to return to the DTSM Board in September 2024 with a funding recommendation. Finally to survey Downtown businesses and property owners to determine their views on the Downtown private security program, and whether it should be extended.
There will now be a summer break through August and the next DTSM board meeting won’t be until Thursday, September 26.
scott.snowden@smdp.com
