October 7, 2026
What does it mean to be progressive?
Would a true progressive try to dismantle fifty years of successful coastal protection so developers could turn a shoreline open to everyone into luxury condos for the rich?
Would a true progressive craft that plan in secret, without telling the local community? Then try to push it through the state legislature before the public found out?
Would a true progressive ask the state to take control of local zoning so developers could override and silence the voices of the people who live there? And when, as anticipated, the consequences were catastrophic, would a true progressive look at those community members and say, “Our hands are tied. It’s all the state’s fault.”
Lana Negrete is the true progressive who opposed all these things.
Lana is our only Councilmember who works for residents. Not for developers. Not for the powerful. Not for special interests.
Every Councilmember, except Lana, voted to support giving the state control over our city’s zoning (SB79), enabling high-density development in family neighborhoods without giving those communities any say in the matter. When longtime residents of the Pico neighborhood—the first community targeted—tried to push back, those same Councilmembers told them, “Sorry. Nothing we can do.”
What they didn’t say was there’s nothing they could do because of the very legislation they pushed the state to pass!
Only Lana Negrete opposed this scheme in the first place.
When council lobbied Sacramento to carve out Santa Monica (and only Santa Monica!) from Coastal Commission protection, Lana fought back, opposing this attempt to let wealthy developers run wild along our coast.
When the county and our city secretly negotiated a deal to place a drug treatment facility in a family neighborhood—a facility that wouldn’t screen its residents for criminal histories—Lana exposed it. She made sure residents had a seat at the table, one our supposedly progressive county and local officials tried to deny them.
Far from fearing Santa Monicans’ input into decisions that affect their lives, Lana welcomes it. You know, democracy. Like what real progressives are supposed to believe in.
This is why we need Lana Negrete back on city council.
