Dear Editor,
With the recent break-in of an 80 year old woman who was accosted by an unhinged vagrant, Phil Brock’s encounter with another vagrant in which Brock had his tail waxed by him all caught on video, plus the violent mugging and beating of John Alle by a deranged vagrant which Mr. Alle’s major injuries left him with four brain operations while the perp sits in jail having the powers-that-be decide whether or not he’s fit to stand trial...are just a few incidents at the tip of the iceberg of the constant crime in this city.
Brock states that we should plant trees for shade for people that don’t have air conditioning.
Where? Since this city is constantly being developed by carpet baggers that have turned it into an sea of cement and steel. The Earth can’t breathe when it’s covered up. Just keep thinking that, Johnny Appleseed.
Brock states that when the city closes the airport in 2028 it’ll be a park. That’s 227 acres that will take ten years to develop at a current cost of $2.2 billion dollars. Since the airport neighbors the existing cities of West LA, Mar Vista and Venice those residents are more likely to use to before Santa Monica residents do.
Gleam Davis has gone on record that a park could change and that affordable housing will be considered along the lines of the Gelson’s project.
I remember when I ran for city council in 2014 and 2020 and yes, I will be running again in 2024, that people were adamant saying, “it has to be a park. The city council says so!” Sure.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain and keep wearing those rose colored glasses. The money that the city has thrown away on the useless Legion and Good Guard security companies could have been better spent on hiring more police officers.
Brock’s master plan is to tear down the old Fisher Lumberyard where the city stores many of their vehicles and create more pickle ball courts instead of using the property for something more profitable as an indoor ice skating rink.
Brock also states that we should write our legislators with our demands against density and other problems. Really? Isn’t that why you were elected. We gripe to you and you gripe to the legislators. That’s your job. Why should we do your work for you?
We have a 40% vacancy of businesses on the Promenade, rampant drug and alcohol use in our parks as wells as a needle exchange program the city council could care less about adding to the problem of drug use and crime instead of stopping it, stores with shattered windows that cost the owners thousands of dollars. Just ask
Lana Negrete where her music store was broken into three times and the lowest crime of all, breaking into St Monica’s stealing from the collection boxes, stealing video equipment and trashing the interior of the church. None of the perps were ever caught. None of this was ever addressed by Brock, White or the city council.
Back in May 2021, the City Wi-Fi for the areas of Sunset Park, the Pico neighborhood and Montana Avenue areas were shut off. This was during the pandemic where people needed it the most; seniors, people who work from home, students and kids. When I investigated this, Joseph Cevetello, the man who was in charge of the city’s IT at the time said that it wasn’t for public, but when I stated that we had been using it for 10 years without any minor problems he stated that he knew of eight people using it in Cloverfield Park. Five minutes later, I get an email from Brock stating that he knew of eight people using the City Wi-Fi in Clover Park. Wow, what a coincidence that they knew the same eight people!
When I emailed Cevetello who ordered those shut downs in those areas if it was him or the city council I never received an answer. It’s a simple question and there should have been a simple answer.
When I asked Cevetello why the antennas were still up at 21st and 26th Street and why the public was shortchanged, he stated that they were going to take those antennas down. That was three years ago and they’re still there more or less functioning, but not for the public.
Cevetello left his position in 2023 and I emailed his temporary predecessor who didn’t have a clue. I petitioned city records to see what the problems were in May 2021 regarding work orders and discovered there was nothing there they could help me with. I found it strange that the city didn’t keep such important records.
They did refer me to the new IT tech, but I decided that I would look into this problem on my own since I never got a straight answer.
We have a population of 91, 105 people and there is a 10% tax on internet, television, satellite services that goes to the city that goes through the providers. The Los Angeles County has a population of 12, 598,000 and they pay a tax of 4.5% for the same service. This is a case of where less is more.
Draw your own conclusion.
Our city leaders need to be held accountable for they are the ones people have voted for. We give them our trust and they betray us giving the public ping-pong talk.They use a band-aid to heal a major injury filled with gangrene and tell us; children will sing, flowers will bloom and we all live in a Disney cartoon.
Whitney Bain, Santa Monica
