City Manager Oliver Chi has been on the job in Santa Monica for just over three months and in that short time he’s learned enough to envision an entirely new Santa Monica. One built on business friendly permitting, large events, enhanced safety, targeting causes of local homelessness and reducing government micromanagement.
It’s a plan that is more than just confident, it’s more than simply bold, it’s audacious but it’s more than that.
This plan doesn’t come from someone who just thinks they’re right or someone who is willing to gamble. It comes from someone who isn’t willing to have their vision workshopped into mediocrity by never ending discussions about people’s feelings and fears. It’s a plan for someone who isn’t ashamed to recognize reality and adapt to it. It’s brazen and it’s vitally needed right now.
This document is the strongest articulation for a vision of the city that we’ve seen in decades and there will be plenty of time to quibble over details, but right now, there has never been a more important time to get on board with this kind of action.
The plan isn’t shocking just for its scope, but also for saying out loud concepts that have either been quietly ignored by City leadership up to this point, or sometimes outright ridiculed. The city needs more police, more security services and a focus on public safety. Residents who have been calling for that for years have been derided in many an online forum as have the rare city leader who dares to say the city’s reputation for safety is in the (sometimes literal based on the sanitation of streets near the shelter) toilet.
Chi’s plan acknowledges that Santa Monica’s approach to homelessness is causing economic decline and begins to say something we’ve known for years: Santa Monica is drawing homelessness from all over the county into its economic heart. Just how willing the Council will be to follow that thread through is still up in the air but at least someone is finally talking about the insanity of locating a large shelter and service center in Downtown Santa Monica.
The economic development ideas are no less daring.
Large scale entertainment events ended in Santa Monica for many reasons, including an arrogance by the City at large. City Hall thought people should pay through the nose for the privilege of being here and many residents adopted a “locals only” attitude towards visitors. Bringing back the City’s reputation as the fun part of LA will require an attitude adjustment for many, both staff and residents alike. Extending the Entertainment Zone will unleash a flood of armchair experts eager to argue about its safety and discussion of a beach gondola will subject the city to ridicule. That doesn’t mean any of them are actually bad ideas.
To willingly wade into that mess in pursuit of these big goals requires big cojones. It also carries big risks.
Chaos at the Federal level can undo everything he’s working for, petty Councilmembers may feel undermined by the presence of actual vision for the city and the city’s established special interests will no doubt want their pound of flesh before they sign on.
We said before that the Chi Train had left the station and it turns out it’s an express, bypassing the political miasma that bogs down progress. This is the most exciting, valuable, interesting and fundamentally hopeful plan for Santa Monica that we’ve seen in decades and we should all be invested in its success.