By Carrie Ferguson SMASH principal
As the principal of Santa Monica Alternative School House (located at the corner of Ocean Park Boulevard and Fifth Street) I would like to express my support for (The Ocean Park Associations’) request for the funding of the Ocean Park Boulevard Greening Project.
The Los Amigos Campus (SMASH and John Muir Elementary School) educates and supports approximately 600 students and their families from pre-school to eighth grade. A change in Ocean Park Boulevard is desperately needed not just for the obvious aesthetic reasons, but for serious safety concerns. Every morning I open car doors and welcome students to their school day and every day I cringe at the sound of screeching tires along Ocean Park. I continually breathe a sigh of relief when the screech is not followed by the sound of impact. We have been lucky so far that no child, parent or community member has been hit by a speeding car coming down the hill but I do not want to trust in luck.
I urge you to consider the approval of funds for this much needed project. Let us not wait until a tragedy occurs for us to make the changes that are so obviously needed.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 16, 2008. Read the original PDF.