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# Letter: Congrats on the petitions
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/letter-congrats-on-the-petitions/
- Published: 2014-03-13T04:17:54.000Z
- Updated: 2024-12-03T21:31:19.000Z
- Author: Daniel Archuleta
- Tags: Letters, Opinion, city council, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2025-11-06 13:37

Editor:

Armen Melkonians, Kate Bransfield and the many folks who gathered signatures to put the Hines project up for a popular vote are to be congratulated for their giant victory. Imagine, collecting over 13,000 signatures in three weeks from a usually apathetic populace. I think this more than overshadows the "survey" of 500 voters at a cost of $32,000 that the city tried to spin as support for overdevelopment.

In a one-two punch, Diana Gordon and her group, Santa Monica Coalition for a Liveable City, just filed a lawsuit to stop the very same Hines project which would bring 7,000 new car trips a day to an already gridlocked area. It's great that residents are finally waking up to the fact that our out-of-touch City Council serves developers, not residents.

Harriet P. Epstein

Santa Monica