By J.W. Petoria Santa Monica
I am a 20-plus year resident in Santa Monica and most my family has lived here since the 70’s. Since we live “north of Montana” we have felt relatively safe, but that has changed significantly over the past couple years and it’s getting worse daily. With the two recent murders I hope that something is going to be done about the safety of the tax paying residents of this city. I understand that the SMPD has a tough job. Whenever we call them to report an abandoned vehicle or transients wondering aimlessly or sleeping in our alley, they are very nice but they claim they can do nothing about it. There are very aggressive and rather scary looking “kids” living in (and running a nighttime business … use your imagination) an old black school bus in the 300 block of Fourth Street. How is this possible in this neighborhood? Why is it that people are allowed to live in their cars and school buses? Why are the same broken down commercial vehicles (a Jeep with a trailer full or garbage has been there for four weeks with nothing done about it, old tow trucks, broken down limo’s, etc.) there month after month? I can’t let my kids walk alone because we are afraid for their safety. It’s amazing to me that many Carlthorp School children have to walk past these vehicles to get to school and still nothing is done about it. Does a child need to be kidnapped or murdered? How many more homes need to get broken into before the city realizes this town has become a slum? I now have the privilege of removing graffiti from my house on a monthly basis, something I never thought I’d need to do. Being that this is a so-called exclusive area, one would think we should not have to live in fear for personal safety and theft/destruction of property. Santa Monica is known worldwide as a place that people can just live in the streets and be free, but what happened to the rights of the people that pay the taxes? It would be nice for SMPD and local government to at least pretend that they care abo
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 22, 2008. Read the original PDF.