This past week, Q-line asked: “What do you want your elected leaders to change in Santa Monica? What policies need to created? What are the city’s issues?” Here are your responses: ✆ “If this city is to survive we need to look to the basics. Get rid of the bums, free-loaders, con artists and criminals that have destroyed the quality of life in this city. We need to repair the sidewalk, alleys and potholes. We need the overgrowth stopped and the beach and the ocean water cleaned up. Forget the frills, first things first.” ✆ “The leaders in Santa Monica need to change the housing policy. We don’t need any more of these big box, ghetto Hilton low-income affordable housing projects. We need middle-income housing properties, properties that people could own. Things to keep people here that are already here, not bring new people into the area. We need to rethink this and not take any more federal money. Look at the example of the Habitat for Humanity project which is only open to Santa Monica residents. That’s the kind of things we need. Housing should replace people who were kicked out of their apartments, not to attract more people here. Repel Proposition R.” ✆ “Politicians and municipal bureaucrats wave in the wind propelled by federal, state and county governments. Laws regulate their actions. I personally measure a city by how clean it is. I enjoy green lawns, trimmed trees, repaired pot holes and steam-cleaned sidewalks.” ✆ “I want to City Hall to stop hiking taxes and fees. With nearly a half billion dollar yearly budget and a good $60 million in general fund earthquake recovery money, they do not need to suck us for more. Truth is they tax us so they have oodles of money for their social agenda. A good example is council issue Prop B. It’s a phony a bill that allows them to sneak off with millions.” ✆ “What should be done is simple. They should do something about the bums running around town. They should do something about the gangs. They should do something about too much development going on. They should do something about traffic. They should do something about all these chain stores that sell all this junk nobody needs.” ✆ “The elected officials should change the status quo. For instance, more and more apartments going up on our streets. More and more cars jammed into a already over-trafficked mess. They should quit having agencies aid the transient problem. Sobriety must be a requirement for help. They should take back our parks and streets for the citizens who support them.” ✆ “I want Santa Monica to stop subsidizing the Malibu schools. Very few people on earth are as well able to pay for their own school system as the citizens of Malibu. And in fact, this combined district is not even a legal arrangement. The school districts by law have to have contiguous borders which Santa Monica and Malibu clearly do not.” ✆ “What we need are leaders that won’t get engage in the phony environmentalism of the current council. We got an even lower grade on our environmental report card than last year. But this council put the phony scam Proposition Z on the ballot and want open the pier to commercial fishing and cruise ships. How messed up is that?” ✆ “I would like to see my elected leaders change the bathrooms at the Santa Monica Pier. They are the ones on the left as you enter the pier, just beyond the carousel. They are a disgrace. They’re filthy. They’re old and wide open. They don’t have any doors on the commodes. It’s so bad I surprised no one on the City Council has spent some money to bring them up to the 21 century. They are awful.” ✆ “I would like to see the city of Santa Monica change its policy on the city-owned and operated Community Corporation so as to allow Santa Monica residents only qualify for housing provided by Community Corp. And quit importing others from Los Angeles County and make it available to locals stop taking state funding and allow the city of Santa Monica their own housing.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 30, 2006. Read the original PDF.