Good news — the lawsuit filed by Palisades Beach property owners to stop city plans for a proposed public beach club at 415 Pacific Coast Highway has been resolved.
After a column (SMDP, July 10, 2006, page 4) about the lawsuit, I talked to one of the plaintiffs, Jonathan Ornstein. He said, “One reason the lawsuit was filed was because neighbors feared that the proposed club would attract vagrants and a criminal element to the neighborhood because of its inadequate security after hours.”
Has anyone noticed a theme here? Recently, residents on the 1500 block of Euclid St. and neighbors near the intersection of Montana Avenue and Euclid Street fought vest-pocket parks proposed by the city. Is something wrong when citizens don’t want parks because they know drunks and vagrants will take over — as already has happened with most of our larger green spaces?
Somehow, this all means nothing to City Hall where ignoring residents on “transients” problems has become high art.
Lori Emerson (SMDP, Sept. 11, page 4) referred to three City Council incumbents as “do nothings.” No, Lori, they’re doing as much as they can to welcome vagrants and maintain a costly but ineffective service system. It’s no accident, it’s deliberate City Hall policy actively promulgated by the entire City Council.
Case in point. Despite complaints, City Hall continues to ramp up services for transients. It just received yet another $804,000 from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to expand programs from two of Santa Monica’s largest homeless services agencies (SMDP, Sept. 19, page 1.) Our plethora of handouts and services, when coupled with forgiving judicial and jail systems that guarantee lawbreakers a free ride without sanctions is why Santa Monica is a vagrant’s paradise and other communities are not.
Our supermarkets and drug stores are gold mines for panhandlers. Emotional complaints of verbal and physical abuse directed at adults and children patronizing them have filled the letters to the editors pages of this newspaper for months.
The Sav-on Drugs/CVS on Lincoln Boulevard is an especially popular hunting ground. A neighborhood gang of vagrants intimidates everyone who passes by. After mooching enough change, they waltz inside and buy Steel Reserve 40s and other cheap hooch. At night, they camp out, smoke weed and get drunk on private loading docks or rear entrances of area businesses — usually with the property owners’ knowledge.
One disgusted neighborhood merchant told me, “the other businessmen give ‘em money and food.” That’s in addition to the drug stores and markets that ignore the bums who intimidate their customers and then sell them alcohol. No wonder there’s a problem.
The daily presence of thousands of vagrants, here — many with serious mental or physical illnesses, substance abuse histories and felony criminal records can’t be ignored — especially when they demand your change at the local Rite Aid, Sav-on Drugs/CVS or Vons. As for me, I avoid them all.
Our city government depends on outside grants and funding to support its array of homeless programs. City Hall’s homeless services staff grows by leaps and bounds and outside providers also are beefing up manpower with the infusion of money. Vagrancy is a growth industry here, employing hundreds and generating millions of dollars in funding awards and taxpayer handouts that help support City Hall’s expanding bureaucracy.
Then there’s that “regional approach” our City Council talks about all the time. A lot of it is coming our way via funding for even more programs, shelter beds and services. Why here? Because most other communities will, flat out, not participate and there’s nowhere else for the services to go.
It’s easy to say, “Toss City Council incumbents out,” but virtually none of the front-running challengers are for stepped-up enforcement, cutting off non-productive services and outright reducing the number of transients on our streets, either. One candidate, Mark McLellan, told me, “When it comes to ‘the homeless,’ voters don’t want to hear about it.”
Nevertheless, we keep re-electing politicians who continue to support the status quo regardless of how negatively it affects the rest of us. Knowing this, they ignore complaints and nasty letters. They think the tiger has no teeth and they keep rolling out the red carpet.
Unless you demand change and take action, it’s business as usual and you’ll get more of what you vote for. (Bill)
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 25, 2006. Read the original PDF.