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# City Hall anti-business offerings need new menu
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/city-hall-anti-business-offerings-need-new-menu-editor/
- Published: 2004-10-12T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T05:16:56.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Montana, #archive-import

*Kerry’s international policy outdated*

*By Zina Markevicius Santa Monica*

Santa Monica’s unique and eclectic culture should be treasured and nurtured. But thanks to the dinosaurs on the City Hall, the opposite has happened. Local, independent stores are leaving and big chains have moved in for good. Look around any street in the city — Main Street, the Promenade, Montana Avenue — and you’ll see fewer independents and more chains. The bureaucratic and obstructionist City Council has driven independents and small businesses out of the city by making new business per- Are we in a time warp? This is not 1991, when terrorism was a Mideast problem and we could turn our backs. Wake up, Mr. Kerry, this is 2004\. We are fighting for the lives of innocent civilians who go to work, take their kids to school, and are hated simply because they are American.

This is not the time to give dictators, terrorists and murderers the benefit of the doubt, and the WMD debate is a red herring.

Let us engage in a real discussion of how best to protect ourselves from attack, here and now in the post 9/11 world.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 12, 2004.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/101204.pdf?ref=smdp.com)