City Hall is at it again. This time it’s a proposal by the Housing and Economic Development Department to raise rents for eateries offering outdoor dining service on public property throughout the city.
There’s a new scandal at the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. In October of 2008, the district initiated an investigation following a complaint that a teacher sexually harassed a 13-year-old female student in a ninth grade math class — a violation of SMMUSD policy 5145.
All of the votes cast in the Nov. 2 election have finally been counted and five-term City Councilman Bob Holbrook won re-election by 56 votes. Holbrook nudged out Ted Winterer for the third of three full-term seats.
With the holiday shopping season upon us, City Hall is pulling out all the stops to make sure we shop locally. It took nearly 10 years but it looks like the City Hall bureaucrats have finally realized that traffic Downtown is a mess and getting worse.
There’s still fallout from the November election. At issue is a series of political mailers from what was supposed to look like a Santa Monica citizens group: Santa Monicans for Quality Government.
It seems that a political activist can never escape political causes. I was in London, England, Halloween week — my first visit after nearly nine years.
The votes are in and there were a few surprises. I predicted that Measure Y, which will add another half cent to the city’s current 9.75 percent sales tax, would carry by 60 percent of the vote.
Tomorrow is election day; vote if you haven’t already. There are some important issues to be decided — like Measure Y. Should voters approve a permanent half-cent increase in the city’s sales tax? City Hall claims it needs the revenue.
Five out of seven seats on the City Council are open this election year. Three are full-term (four-year) seats. The front runner is Kevin McKeown, who is seeking his fourth term.
Regular readers know I think the current Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education has failed in its oversight and demonstrated an appalling lack of leadership in handling problems such as continual budget shortfalls.
One of the most interesting and contentious contests this election is the race for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education with Kelly Pye retiring and board chair Barry Snell, Ralph Mechur and the always controversial Oscar de la Torre seeking re-election.
Measure Y is a ballot measure that will permanently raise the current 9 3/4 percent sales tax on taxable items purchased, delivered or registered in Santa Monica one-half percent to 10 1/4 percent.
