On Thursday night the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education reviewed the district’s gift giving policy. The issue is how gifts and donations to the district should be placed into one pot and distributed among schools based on some sort of “need” formula that has yet to be de
There was quite a lively and lengthy discussion about Santa Monica City Council election financing during last Tuesday’s council meeting. At issue was a proposed raise of the maximum allowable individual campaign contribution to City Council candidates to $400 from the current $250 and adding an ind
A few important things happened in Santa Monica while I was chasing street art in London. The first was the City Council’s adoption of design recommendations from the architects of the new City Hall Town Square, while rejecting suggestions from the Landmarks Commission that would have retained many
City Hall doesn’t like to hear from the people — or troubled spirits — when they’re unhappy. After all, Santa Monica is supposed to be about happy people in a happy place.
My Oct. 10 column about keeping the debate on the future of Santa Monica Airport civil (“Flying high and nasty,” My Write) generated some lively discussion.
The latest school fundraising controversy centers around new mechanisms the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District is considering to insure that lower achieving schools obtain a more equal share of the fundraising pie.
It seems that the major local "Issue of the Moment" is future operations at Santa Monica Airport. SMO, as it’s known to aviators, has its detractors. Anti-airport rhetoric and feelings increased dramatically after an unnamed novice pilot in a rented Cessna 172 crashed shortly after taking off from S
Item 3R on the consent calendar for last Tuesday’s City Council meeting was one of those small expenditures (if you can call spending over a half million dollars “small”) that’s easily overlooked.
Some City Hall politicians and Expo Light Rail cheerleaders received a rude awakening a couple weeks ago when Rick Thorpe, CEO of Metro’s Expo (Phase 2) Construction Authority told City Council that much of the Colorado Avenue alignment of the Expo Light Rail may be fenced for safety reasons.
The local race for the California Assembly became a lot more interesting last week when Betsy Butler (D-53) from Marina del Rey officially announced her run in the newly redrawn 50th Assembly District.
Last week, I wrote about City Councilman Bob Holbrook’s theory that "deep-pocketed" aviation interests may enter local politics and back pro-Santa Monica Airport candidates for City Council pledged to keep SMO open and even expand it as an aviation center.
Someone has been conducting a telephone poll about local issues over the last few weeks. Nobody seems to know exactly who is behind the survey. Pollsters have been asking general questions like, “Where do you get local news?” Participants are asked to rate the job City Hall is doing and grade City C
