In about four weeks we will be voting on a school bond. This $485 million bond will cost over a billion dollars by the time the bond is retired in 30-40 years depending on how […]

Folks with little faith in California voters have won at least a partial victory this year. For decades, since the great Progressive (a tag worn a century ago mostly by moderate Republicans) Gov. Hiram Johnson […]

    After about a year of exposure to E-scooters, the City has approved a one year “study” involving up to 2000 scooters. The entire City: visitors, residents, workers, students, skaters and skateboarders, cyclists, drivers, and […]

I was lamenting the turn our beach town has taken in the last few years. Sadly, not for the better. Crime is up significantly. Homelessness seems to have increased, and from reading various comments made […]

By Thomas D. Elias For all three decades since Ronald Reagan left the presidency, California has been all but irrelevant at the top level of American politics. Sure, plenty of ultra-wealthy Californians are regularly among […]

As you may have heard, Santa Monica is currently planning to expand Memorial Park northward into the 3 acres formerly known as the Fisher lumber site currently being used as storage of City maintenance equipment […]

By Thomas D. Elias It’s almost fall, and college students are back on many campuses around California, with the rest due to return soon. College football is already going strong. One question many would rather […]

By Rick Cole City Manager When it comes to assets and liabilities, the City of Santa Monica has one of the strongest balance sheets among the 482 cities in California. We have consistently earned AAA […]

Fabric, Thread, and Glue – All great towns are held together not by the flashiness of their buildings and landscapes but by the people who inhabit them and the fabric of history they weave upon […]