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# Spark of Love Toy Drive So long, Mr. Martinez
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/spark-of-love-toy-drive-so-long-mr-martinez-editor/
- Published: 2008-01-16T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T17:59:38.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

*By Jeff Bender Santa Monica*

Good riddance to SMC’s provost in charge of planning, Marvin Martinez (“Moving up in the world,” page 3, Jan. 10). The residents of Santa Monica should rejoice the fact this idiot won’t be able to foist any more of his ill-conceived “plans” on the city. This is the man that told me in September that the corner of 20th and Pearl Street is not a residential area. It’s amazing to me how someone with a degree in urban planning can’t tell the difference between a residential and a commercial neighborhood.

One of SMC’s goals should be to try to mitigate the college’s impact on the nearby residents. Unfortunately, under Mr. Martinez’s leadership, SMC has never had more of a negative impact on their neighbors. Instead of plan-ning for SMC’s inter-campus shuttle buses to pick up and drop off the students at the site of the campus, as common sense would dictate, Mr. Martinez decided to use the neighbor’s residential street corners as SMC’s new shuttle bus depots. The result of this plan (the one Mr. Martinez seems most proud of) was a traffic and safety nightmare, the loss of more residential parking to the college, and the degradation of the nearby properties. In the eight years I’ve lived next to SMC I have never had to endure the type of impact that Mr. Martinez’s shuttle bus plans have caused my family and my tenants this past semester. Nobody should ever have to battle though a crowd of 50 loitering students to get to their home, no matter how close to the college they may live.

If the person who takes over as SMC’s provost in charge of planning has any regard for SMC’s neighbors it will be more than what was shown by Marvin Martinez. Good neighbors don’t bring convoys of buses and thousands of students over to the residences next door; they make accommodations for them at their ever-expanding campus. Don’t let the door hit your … ass on the way out of Santa Monica Marvie.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on January 16, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/011608.pdf?ref=smdp.com)