> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Charity is a virtue, but residents gotta eat - URL: https://www.smdp.com/charity-is-a-virtue-but-residents-gotta-eat/ - Published: 2007-04-07T15:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T00:26:20.000Z - Author: Guest Author - Tags: Opinion, Pier, #archive-import, Homeless This week’s Q-Line question — submitted by a Daily Press reader — asked: Why do we \[the City of Santa Monica\] have a $442.6 million budget? Why do we support all of these expensive and questionable city charities? Here are your responses: “WHY, INDEED. THIS WASTED LARGESS has left the citizens of this community wanting badly. I guess it is because it makes the city’s administration look good in some eyes and generates grants of all kinds which keep the problems accelerating and brings more problematic people to this area for the handouts. It is a self-defeating system.” “ONE WOULD WONDER WHAT EXPEN- SIVE charities? The city budget renders down to a little over $1.2 million a day to operate the city of Santa Monica and provide the services and equipment for the following branches of the government: The police department, the city’s administrative staff, the city yard that includes trash collection, the Santa Monica Airport, the Blue Bus line, the pier and the schools, to name a few. This does not leave a heck of a lot of money for expensive charities. But, I think that those charities being referred to are those helping the less fortunate among us.” “ONCE AGAIN, A FOOLISH QUESTION. You are very right-wing and it’s disgusting.” “THE BUDGET OF THE CITY OF SANTA Monica needs to get its priorities straight. They spend too much money on bums. They spend too much money messing up traffic, building those stupid little things in the middle of the street to slow up traffic. They should start using it on the police to allow people to use the parks. What’s the point of having a park if you can’t use it because it’s full of bums and their garbage? As far as the amount of money the city budget has, they most likely waste it because everybody gets their cut. Each councilman has his own pet projects and probably gets a kickback or something like that. That’s why so much money is wasted.” “WHAT DO WE DO WITH ALL THAT money in the budget? I don’t know why we do that. Santa Monica likes the guise of being a green city, but there is not an inch of land left anywhere. They need to do something about the airport traffic and the noise. There are too many jets coming out of there. It is very annoying. Santa Monica has turned the other way when it comes to its citizens.” “THE ANSWER IS BECAUSE SANTA Monica knows how to use the government’s vouchers. It is not money from their pockets. It’s free money from the feds as handouts.” “IN REGARDS TO ALL THE ORGANIZA- TIONS in Santa Monica that are supposed to be providing all these benefits to the homeless — it’s a load of old hogwash. All these people who work for these organizations are making big bucks and they have CEOs. They run off to other countries like Israel to see about what they can do for the homeless. Why don’t they take that money and do something with it. It just goes on and on and on. It has been 20 years now with this homeless situation. Most of these people don’t come from Santa Monica. Something like 95 percent of them come from all around the United States. If you ask these people where they came from, they would say that they only came out here to get these services. It is time for the people of Santa Monica to stop donating to these organizations.” “SANTA MONICA ENJOYS A HUGE budget, thanks to taxpayers and local business revenue. Our city leaders are spending “other people’s money.” Unlike most families and businesses, they feel no need to question to value for money spent or spend money wisely. The charities they lavishly support are the same ones that puts the city’s leaders in office. One hand feeds the other.” “I KNOW IT’S IMPORTANT ABOUT THE socialization and edification of Santa Monica, but how about fixing up these freakin’ streets? I’m a disabled person and I was careening down Arizona Avenue today and I’ll tell you that there are too many pot holes on that road.” “THERE IS A CIRCUS IN TOWN. I LOVE those high-wire acrobats. What, that’s just the City Council balancing between taxing and spending the $442.26 million? How do I tax thee? Let me count the ways. The council uses every way possible to tax the rubes in this town then gives it away to the lazy community corporation, Blue Bus, bicycle gangs, pier, squirrels, bay, hotel owners and movie corporations. Wow, how about those cute dancing bears? No that’s just the Council tap dancing around every council-made issue: Traffic, parking, bums. Every problem in this town is a direct result of the almost psychotic desire to build everywhere. Well, how about the 27 clowns piling out of a little car? No, that’s the highly paid patronage jobs coming out of City Hall. Santa Monica will be the first bankrupt city to have a solar panel on every rooftop, a bum on every corner and every special interest group in Southern California. Thank you, City Council, for taking a charming beach town and turning it into a hideous, bloated extension of Los Angeles. Send in the clowns.” “I NEED TO KNOW WHICH ONES ARE expensive and what are affordable. It is kind of a vague question. It is something interesting to me, but it needs to be more tightly defined.” *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 7, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/040707.pdf?ref=smdp.com)