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# Letter: Opposing hotel wage push, downtown housing and new library
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/053102-story/
- Published: 2002-05-31T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:18:38.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Downtown, #archive-import, Homeless

■ “I think this could be very controversial because I know the city won’t like this, but I think they should cut back on lawsuits and personal campaigns such as the one they are going to be doing in November to raise the wages of the hotel workers in downtown Santa Monica. It’s a noble thing but the hotels depicted even in the Santa Monica Daily Press have been much affected by the very shaky economy and the downturn in tourism. The hotels are suffering and have had to reduce their room rates. Why in the hell are we trying to increase their expenses by paying their workers more money? If anything they should encourage them to go back to school and qualify for higher paying jobs. My other point is they should stop spending so much money on high priced housing in downtown Santa Monica. I think it’s very good that they are building apartments downtown, however the rents start at $1,500 a month for a very small space. We already have a plethora of expensive apartments in Santa Monica. We don’t need any more.” ■ “I would like to advise the city to forget monies for the new Santa Monica Library. It is nothing but a rest stop for the homeless. The present library is sufficient.” ■ “That’s easy! Close the offices. Santa Monica taxpayers are tired of listening to answering machines and unable to talk to anyone anyway!” ■ “The city budget could appreciate a large savings of money by not flooding our city water with the toxic chemical fluoride. I understand this so-called program will be implemented at year end and will initially cost some $300,000\. Fluoride is toxic and should not be ingested. If a person wants to poison their body they should do it on their own. Sugar is the real health culprit.” ■ “Re-sell the traffic signals that the city seems to have put on every corner over the last couple of years. Then, terminate every city employee who has anything to do with the unbelievable mis-management of Santa Monica traffic.” ■ “Top of the list, I’d kill the plans for a new main library. It’s an unforgivable waste of money. If more space is really needed, an extension to the present library is all that should be considered. Second, cut the number of Big Blue Buses in half. From personal observation, I’d say 50 percent of them drive around empty. I cannot believe they carry 80,000 passengers a day as they claim. That’s almost the entire population of Santa Monica. Thirdly, street signage has gotten out of hand. The latest crop of signs tell us how to navigate the walk signals at intersections. Council, please note... we are not imbeciles.” ■ “The first thing the city might do is change its grandiose ideas for rebuilding the Santa Monica Public Library. The present library is perfectly adequate for current use, and in view of the financial crisis, they might reconsider the design and postpone any work on it. The other thing that the city ought to consider is its arrogance and hostile attitude towards its own residents that result in idiotic lawsuits. How much did they spend fighting a resident about a tree-house? And how much is it going to cost the city to defend itself against the Boathouse on the pier? The city should look into why it has these legal expenses defending itself against angry residents.” ■ “The first thing I would do is eliminate this foolish minimum wage law the city adopted last year which will cost the city several million dollars, depending upon how the businesses do and how many employees the city has.” ■ “I think they should reduce the number of lawyers. Also, the rent control board is too over bloated.” ■ “I oppose the redesigning of the Santa Monica Library. A while back Santa Monica Library made constructive changes to eliminate asbestos because of its harmful effect. The redesigning should not be a priority. Now it’s a time of shortage of funds. Affordable housing should be “the focus.” ■ “I have lived in this town for 40 years. I think you could cut the budget at least 5 percent by not feeding the homeless. The homeless that you feed are nothing but bums. I’ve talked to many of them in my time here and those guys are there because that is where they want to be. They don’t want to pay taxes; they don’t want to pay anything. They want to live off of the city. It would be minimal, but that is my opinion.” ■ “A very simple place to cut the budget is the remodeling of the library. It’s a fabulous building and I’ve been going there for years and years. It seems as though they’ve just remodeled it a few years ago! They want to build a new one? Shame on them!”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 31, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/053102.pdf?ref=smdp.com)