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# City divided on area of greatest need
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-divided-on-area-of-greatest-need/
- Published: 2005-06-25T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T07:17:41.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Community, Pier, #archive-import, Homeless, Homelessness

This past week, Q-line asked: “Where do you think the city’s budget surplus should be spent?”

Here are your responses: ✆ “The major problems in the city is vagrancy and homelessness and the consequent filth, crime and disruption of the taxpayers’ quality of life. If these problems aren’t solved soon, the tourist trade will be lost, and people will be leaving the city. All that will be left will be a hobo town and skid-row inhabitants.” ✆ “I think the budget surplus should be best spent on taking care of the traffic, and fixing the potholes in this city. The traffic is tremendously bad. Another thing — we should not spend these millions on the homeless... They should do something, not just keep feeding them and feeding them and giving them money. No way to do that. We think something should be done. Every time I read a newspaper, all I read about is that everybody is against the homeless, except the City Council. The liberal City Council is the worst we’ve ever had, and something should be done. I read in the paper that someone wants to impeach them. I think that’s a very good idea — get rid of them all except Shriver. Then we might have a good City Council if we get a new one.” ✆ “Well, they could probably mess up the traffic more by tearing up every street and putting speed bumps on every block, and putting those planters in the middle of every street to narrow them, and put those curb extensions on the end of every street to prevent people from turning right on a red light. They could put more stop lights and signs up and make sure they’re not synchronized so that it takes even longer to drive through Santa Monica. They could give a trip to Hawaii to all the bums in Santa Monica — a one-way trip so that they can’t hitchhike back. Send them to Hawaii, and take the City Council with them.” ✆ “They’ll probably give it to the insatiable school district. The Malibu schools are always willing to accept Santa Monica’s charity. Maybe some of their kids haven’t been to Hawaii yet.” ✆ “As to the budget surplus, I think we should rent or purchase some buses and trucks, and pack up all the bums and freeloaders, and drive them out to the high desert, and pitch a tent city for them. And then, call in a sanitizing and cleaning squad to get the city back to livability. Then, invite the tourists in when we can guarantee them a clean and safe place to visit.” ✆ “My suggestion is that Santa Monica the buildings are all gray blocks with no character, you can see how depressing it is. There is a building on the corner of Sixth Street and Arizona Avenue that is a soft coral color and has beautiful landscaping, I think it has geraniums as well, but it’s so easy to do something like that to make this town look a little more colorful. It’s just gray, gray, gray.” ✆ “The City Council will just waste money on frivolous pet projects that give away millions to their worthless friends and relatives. Here’s a novel idea: Either give the money back to residents or use it to relieve homeowners’ tax burdens and their new outrageous utility rates.” ✆ “The city of Santa Monica should so something about the execrable nature of some of our sidewallks — no more humpin’ and a bumpin’ — even it out for all the money that city takes in taxes from we poor citizens” ✆ “How about giving the surplus back to the taxpayers? Hold on, our elit-ist leaders say the public is too stupid to spend its own money. Let’s pay down the city debt. No progressive city worth its liberal soul functions without a huge debt. Well, how about an emergency fund? Can’t do that either. It would bring out all of those nonprofit tax scam groups — you know, the usual suspects, Heal the Bay, Pico Youth Center, OPCC, Pier Restoration Community Corporation, and all the rest feeding at the public trough. I know, let’s buy one of those environmentally friendly green cars for everyone in the 2,400 lower income groups. And next year, with a bigger surplus, we can buy them a condo. This surplus is a gift from heaven. Now we can drop our bourgeois attitudes and belong to the common denominator: the proletarian. That way, we can all have a condo and an environmentally City Council-blessed car.” ✆ “The city of Santa Monica should consider refunding to those senior citizens who are over 65 years of age their portion of the Santa Monica City College parcel tax they are paying. The reason being is that a senior over 65 who owns a house or condo does not pay a parcel tax if they register. A senior over 65 who is renting an apartment is required to pay a parcel tax depending on the number of units in the apartment building. To set up a spatial elite group of 65-year-old seniors to have special tax privileges over seniors who rent does not set well with me.” ✆ “The homeless czar, as proposed by Councilman Shriver, is the best of the lot regarding the use of the budget surplus and how it should be spent. For too long, we have not had a coordinator to really take care of this major headache for the community. And one last thing, Councilman Shriver has been doing a terrific job to concentrate on the problem of the homeless, which has ruined the community.”

“The money should be put in better schools with professional counseling for kids that are out of control in gangs and have no parents guiding at home to teach them manners and respect. Programs for the mentally ill and a youth club with programmed activities and fun afterschool with professional security.”

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 25, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/062505.pdf?ref=smdp.com)