By suggestion, I attended the March 4th ARB (Architectural Review Board) meeting that addressed the Gelson Lincoln Boulevard Project.  After the session, I came away with thoughts about the process that the state has initiated […]

Earlier this week, in the dark pre-dawn hours, a pair of thugs covered in masks and hoodies burst into the lobby of the 23-unit apartment building where I live, ran down the hallway, and quickly […]

FILM REVIEWTHE OSCAR LANDSCAPE 2024A Look at the Choices – Academy Awards – March 10, 2024, at 5:00 p.m. on ABC I believe there should never be contests for art, as a huge part of […]

Our beloved City is surrounded by many threats, from sea level rise to homelessness, to housing affordability, to cancerous overdevelopment, to  crime, to the four apocalyptic collapses: water supply, school population, municipal finances, and mobility […]

Our guest column this week is by SMCLC (the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City). SMCLC is a well-established group of concerned residents that have successfully been involved for many years in addressing and […]

Throughout history, from the ancient Romans and Assyrians to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, siege warfare has served as an effective weapon against municipalities resistant to conquest. Even with complete capitulation, conquered cities are subject […]

We are watching the sunset of our historical and cultural American dream of home ownership as we now are crossing over what was a welcome mat of opportunity to a lifetime of indentured tenancy for […]

“By Right” state housing laws that give developers, in certain projects, the ability to ignore codes ‘by right.’ Well, that is the lovable jargon developers have jumped in bed with at the State level to […]

Homelessness is a problem in California, and nowhere is this more evident than in our fair city, where the unhoused population has skyrocketed with the completion of the Expo Metro Line that tacitly offers free […]

Last week’s SMart article,  described two critical problems faced by our Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD): the declining enrollment and the tendency to inexorably increase the bond debt burden on the City’s businesses […]