This past week, Q-line asked: Who would you select as being Santa Monica’s person, or persons, of the year, having had the greatest impact on life in our city, for better or worse? Here are your responses: ✆ “First, I would give credit to the staff of the Santa Monica Daily Press for having the courage to print the facts, both good and bad, of what I refer to as the ‘Santa Monica situation.’ A ‘situation’ of constant confusion and controversy. Nothing gets past the eagle eyes of the Santa Monica Daily Press reporters. As far as selecting a person who has lent great personal impact on the City of Santa Monica this year is easy — no one.”! ✆ “The person I would select for the greatest positive impact would be Valerie Hiss for her idea to rid the city of dog poop and, most importantly, her action of paying for and putting up the bag dispensers. This is commendable. Those I would select for the worst impact would be the City Council for increasing density in the Mid-City area with huge new housing complexes going up at a dramatic rate. Shame on them. As if traffic and parking are not already bad enough.” ✆ “Person of the year has to be Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Johnson, for not having the testicular fortitude to give Mr. Weller the justice he deserved. Here’s a man who killed 10 people, hit 60 people and could not stop his car for two and half blocks. Yet, he’s partying like it’s 1899, because this judge does not have the testicular fortitude to see to it that Weller was at least given one night in jail.” ✆ “I think Kevin McKeown should be voted in as the person who has done the most for Santa Monica. I know, personally, he has helped us a lot and we’ve had problems with some situations in our neighborhood and the only person who helped us was Kevin McKeown. He should be mayor.” ✆ “Santa Monica’s person of the year has to be George Weller. Weller was completely successful in murdering 10 innocent people while fleeing the scene of a felony hit-and-run. Although his crimes took place years ago, this year seems to be luckiest for him and the saddest for our community. Of course, the judge who sentenced him to probation is running for second place for person of the year. Since when are the courts concerned with how much it costs to imprison murderers? No one has ever shown consideration from the bench for my tax dollars before.” ✆ “Kevin McKeown should definitely be named as person of the year in Santa Monica for 2006. Kevin is a person of principle, he’s not just a person on the right side politically or just a nice guy. He’s all those things. He is also a person of principle and was rewarded for that by some of the unprincipled people in Santa Monica in the election this year.” ✆ “First, individually would be the voted private property hating, it-takes-a-village socialist Denny Zane. What a blessing to Santa Monica, having his philosophy destroying the simple life and replacing it with big city government control. But the best group award goes to, and there are so many feeding at the public trough, is the City Council. What a terrific bunch of socialist morons! Each competing to gauge as much money from the taxpayers to fund their ever-expanding socialist agenda at the expense of shrinking democratic freedoms.” ✆ “An African American recently filed a lawsuit against the Community Corporation of Santa Monica for civil rights violations for denying him housing opportunities north of Wilshire. It’s clear the two people with the greatest impacts on the lives of minority residents of Santa Monica are the executive director of Community Corporation of Santa Monica and the head of Santa Monica Housing Division, who have engaged in a policy of civil rights violations by dumping the low-income housing in the Pico neighborhood and refusing to develop low-income housing north of Wilshire.” ✆ “(City Manager) Lamont Ewell would be a fine selection for the betterment of the City of Santa Monica. I think Lamont Ewell has done some excellent things to integrate the community better.” ✆ “I think the person who made the greatest impact on Santa Monica this year is the woman who runs the Bayside District for putting up those tacky Christmas trees and poinsettias that are half dead.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on December 16, 2006. Read the original PDF.