With the new year comes new opportunities to go in a different direction.
So, this week's Q-Line question asks:
What do you think should be Santa Monica's resolutions for 2014 and why?
Here are your responses:
"The New Year's resolution for all of the citizens of Santa Monica should be to throw every last one of the pro-development City Council members out on their collective butts. Time is of the essence. Vote them out, and if they are not up for reelection, recall them. Every one of us needs to participate. This means you renters too. The air you breathe; the traffic you suffer with; the gas you are forced to waste; and the lack of safety you experience while driving, riding a bike and walking, were all created and made worse daily by pro-development government. It is way past time to end this insanity."
"To stop the land grab by greedy developers and council members. Take the 2010 LUCE that hasn't worked out well for residential neighborhoods off the table. Get rid of city officials who encourage greater height and density to our already congested city. Thank Robert Redford for his honesty. Residents annoyed as the city's destroyed? You bet we are."
"One resolution should be to get the main post office back to Fifth Street, especially now during the main construction of the Metro line. People are going to get hurt and maybe killed. I think lawsuits that will ensue from these cases will be more expensive than the cost of putting the post office back, at least temporarily."
"Santa Monica's resolution should be to tell the police department to start citing bicyclists for riding on sidewalks, for going the wrong way on one-way streets, for going through the red light, etc., etc., etc. I think this should be the number one resolution to make."
"For congestion from a cold you take medication and rest. You don't try to spread the virus. For a city under attack from congestion, a change at City Hall is imminent and forthcoming. Residents are looking for a breath of fresh air. Hopefully this will be a year of change. Maybe the LUCE that laid a rotten egg needs to take a break."
"Let's resolve to help the poor and the homeless to obtain sound sleep safely by donating generously folding, portable canvas picnic chairs. Secondly, we should resolve to also teach the poor and the homeless how to cook semolina pasta by putting steaming hot water from a sink faucet by putting it into a plastic container with a lid or even a large coffee cup with a plastic lid and a stopper in the steam hole."
"Santa Monicans working together to elect new City Council members who will seriously question the city's headlong rush into development and not just be a rubber stamp for every project developers want, that the residents overwhelmingly oppose, like the massive Hines project or the 20-plus story buildings Downtown."
"The good citizens of Santa Monica should resolve to remove each and every City Council member. Their goal should be to start anew in the direction of restoring our once lovely city to a more peaceful and charming beach town as it was meant to be."
"Santa Monica should vow to publicly investigate salaries and other run-away expenses in the budget."
"The north of Wilshire members of the City Council and the Planning Commission have been using the Pico Neighborhood as the dumping ground for every controversial social service project they don't want in their own neighborhood. Currently, to perpetuate the city's historically segregated housing patterns, they are pushing the developer of the Paper Mate site to build the low-income housing units on site. My hope for the new year is that these NIMBYs change and negotiate a development agreement that requires the low-income housing units to be built in their own neighborhood."
"Santa Monica should resolve to send all the drunken, smelly bums to Santa Monica Airport, fly them out of town, then close the airport permanently. Get rid of two problems at once."
"Resolutions should be: 1) Bring back every left turn lane pocket that has been obliterated. The lack of the pockets is causing congestion all over town. 2) The council has to stop allowing NMS and other developers to build all over the city. The buildings are not attractive, bring traffic congestion and add nothing good to the city. 3) The resolution for the citizens is to be vigilant in not voting the return of any present City Council member to office. They are all ruining the city with the decisions they have made."
"Stop spending money and mortgaging the city's future. Cut police and fire salaries and benefits. Make better use of city assets in generating income. Reduce the cost of living for current owner residents."
