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# PNA election an ‘ambush’ not a takeover
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/pna-election-an-ambush-not-a-takeover-editor/
- Published: 2003-10-02T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T03:01:25.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Pico, #archive-import

*By Wes Terry Board member, PNA*

I couldn’t help but be compelled to write you in regard to the recent article about the Pico Neighborhood Association supposed “takeover.” While I applaud the newspaper for covering local neighborhood events, I was disturbed by the amount of inaccuracies that were in the article. Having been a PNA member and one who supervised the election process along with Jim Reis, we were privy to the exact number of people who were elected, as well as those who ran in the election. There were 15 people running for election and nine available seats on the board. Six of those nine seats were incumbents. To which nine of the members that got newly elected, only seven were on the “slate” of the Mothers For Justice.

Bernice Onofre and Marc Sanschagrin were both elected independently in the election. Obviously the members on the slate had an objective which they achieved in part and not in whole. In fact, two of the members that were originally on their flyers as candidates with-drew and were not even on the ballot. They say they were motivated by the Jalonnie Carter murder … if any of them had taken the time to attend the PNA meeting only three weeks prior to the assembly, they would have seen that the PNA had asked the police to attend the meeting to discuss the Jalonnie murder and what steps needed to be taken in the community. Second, the PNA had offered up a reward, plus a tips hotline to help in the investigation and the police asked that the PNA hold off ‘till they followed up some “hot” leads.

The PNA has always had an open door policy and any number of those people could have attended the meetings and voiced their concerns, and even could have joined the PNA board if they had just only asked. All they truly did was ambush a local neighborhood election and in fact, cheat others who honestly went out and put forth the effort to get elected legitimately. Furthermore, they plan on doing a survey to gauge neighborhood concerns — nothing new — it’s been an ongoing practice of the PNA for 23 years and one that not only sets the year’s agenda, but one that was just recently completed. All you have to do to get your concerns on the PNA agenda is just attend a public meeting that is well advertised.

The funny thing about this situation was that they stormed the building when the door was wide open. Both the chair and vice-chair had wanted to step down and even spoke loudly about having new members and others take over the reins of the PNA. We asked them to stay. I, as well as other members, went out to the community to encourage people to the assembly, as well as encouraged new board membership because Don Gray and Peter Tigler were ready to step down, as well as two other board members. We encouraged new memberships and new board members — all you have to do is ask. If John Woods (sic) would have spoken to either PNA chairperson he would have realized that all the grandstanding and posturing about “takeover” was just that, grandstanding. This was not the “community” looking for a change, it was a select group who front loaded the elections and presented an agenda that is identical to the present PNA agenda, if not incredibly similar.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 2, 2003.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/100203.pdf?ref=smdp.com)