EASY HEADLINE
(Last week was Part 1.) Hard, complicated subject, this ruination of our once-fair City through reckless overdevelopment. But maybe not. I’ve tried to make it simpler for myself, and I pass those thoughts on to you. I hope they make you mad.
We get so bombarded with issues, and their many sides, and then spun wildly, and the outright lies, that our heads spin, we can’t really understand it without making it a second full-time job and who has time for that? (But the folks trying to hand you their golden schemes for your voted approval are getting paid to do it full time. Yes, we are greatly outnumbered and vastly outspent.)
We cry Enough! and retreat to our safe tribes. To whimper and endure. Where are our protectors? We are so discouraged that many who really care about doing the right thing don’t vote, and those who are passionately inflamed in their ignorance about who’s doing them wrong and taking over their city or country, do go to the polls.
How about if we get inflamed, in our knowledge and righteous anger? There’s plenty to be mad about, right here in Santa Monica. And then GO TO THE POLLS. Local voting is pretty anemic, and just a few more taking the trouble to vote can make a big difference.
When there’s tons of money to be made -- and there certainly is anywhere on a coast where the real estate is golden -- tons of money will be spent on misinformation and contributions to those in office or those running who will do their bidding. They will enlist the entrenched political forces and you will get misleading phone calls and flyers and postcards in your mailbox. You have to remember that. I’ll say it again because it is so important –
DON’T VOTE WITH A POSTCARD IN YOUR HAND!!
And don’t let your friends and neighbors. I know to some this will be shocking -- don’t vote for the candidates the teachers, fire and police unions endorse? The Sierra Club, the non-partisan League of Women Voters (not here, they’re not)? Nope. It’s a new landscape. Trust me on this, or ask me, or ask anyone else who is locally informed. I don’t have the space to go into that explanation right now, because I have to get to the point. (Good God yes, Charles, please do! -- I can hear the chorus…)
I think we have to rise above the emotions and loyalties and confusing cacophony and find the real source of our discontent. Who’s in charge?
The obvious answer is our City Council. Collectively. All seven. Beyond any personal lists each may have of their accomplishments, beyond any seemingly trustworthy organizations who may back them, you have to look at results.
Look around. Look at the crime, the traffic, the scooters, the homeless, the huge projects being built, the ones in the pipeline you won’t even have heard of until the massive groundbreaking, the pension debt threatening to bankrupt us, the bloated staff at enormous salaries, the public lands being practically given away to commercial investors instead of used for the residents who paid for them, the unaddressed corruption, the way our tax dollars are spent like Monopoly money -- the multi-million dollar bus benches and restrooms and district lawsuit fiascoes, a million for a City website and a million for Elizabeth Riel and 140 million for an office building, and more and more. What ties it all together?
There are many things out of our control that add to all these problems, but there is one place they all land, and that’s in City Hall, before our Council. No, they are not miracle workers, they are our neighbors, but they could have done so so so much better They have failed, and they must be held accountable. They have had their chance (some, for decades). They have made others wealthy and their own futures secure, but they have failed us.
THE BUCK SCOOTS AND STOPS THERE
Tough job? Then don’t take it on unless you are going to work for us. Us. We who live here and plan to remain here.
So many things people are upset about, and so many seemingly reasonable explanations, to diffuse anger, buy time. We all know things move at a glacial pace here. But that also means we’ll never catch up, without radical change.
I think there is one issue that the most residents are are up in arms about, and if there is anything about that issue that makes you angry, stay angry until November if that’s what it takes to get you to vote to change the bad path we’re on. Don’t let oopsies and take-backs by the City fool you. Remember how your City government acted in the scooter companies’ best interests, but not yours. Who’s benefiting from this?
The City is already trying to pretend they are on our side, with photo ops of scooter piles taken off the beach bike path, and a City Manager tsk-tsking at what a nuisance and problem they have become. Who knew, right?
Problem is, they could have stopped this on day one -- other cities did -- and they didn’t, and that makes them responsible for everything after that, including all the injuries so far. We fervently pray there is not a fatality but there have been some very close calls.
It’s typical of how this City Hall operates. Let’s try it, it sounds good for us, our image, and then if there are problems and enough people complain, we’ll come in and save the day.
I love the notion of the scooters. But not the wild west version our City has thrust upon us. No regulation until forced to it, way too late. Tired of being treated this way. No more.
QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Do you know anything about the people who have pulled papers so far to run for City Council? Maybe you should get a head start on that. We need three excellent candidates to defeat the incumbents, maybe seven if the district voting lawsuit goes the right way.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: “Fresh activity is the only means of overcoming adversity.”
“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.” --.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Charles Andrews has lived in Santa Monica for 32 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or rebuke to him at therealmrmusic@gmail.com
