PRESS and OP-ED

Dirty Tricks, Santa Monica Style
SMDispatch 10/27/08
The blizzard of puffery, flummery, lies, deceptions and doubletalk that has engulfed Santa Monica voters this fall hit a new low Thursday with the appearance of a “guest column” in the Santa Monica Daily Press by Terry O’Day and Judy Abdo, the co-chairs of “Save Our City” (SOC). ... read

Pro T forces Rally for Two Days Straight
SM Daily Press
SM Dispatch

Foes of Santa Monica development cap measure donate $730,000
LA Times 10/24/08

Much of the money aimed at defeating Measure T, which would limit expansion of hotels, offices and retail space to 75,000 square feet a year for 15 years, has been raised by developers -- some based as far away as New York, Houston and Chicago. ... read

Wild Speculation
surfsantamonica.com
"...the fact is the claim that Prop T would devastate our schools is false and irresponsible." ... read

SM Daily Press 10/121/08
The truth is, “the less commercial development increases, the less traffic will increase.” It’s a no-brainer. ... read

City: No answers, more questions
smdispatch.com 10/15/08
there is some evidence, according to T proponents, that the City failed to collect some $45 million in developer fees ... read

Hunt for study comes up short
SM Daily Press 10/14/08
A nearly three-week-long search into the fate of a 1990s study that would’ve brought in millions of dollars in traffic mitigation fees has ended with little information and some speculation on what actually happened. ... read

Councilmember Bobby Shriver Supports Prop T
surfsantamonica.com
“The most important results of T will be what we will never see: huge buildings and more gridlocked traffic.” ... read

Save Our City Won't
smdispatch.com 10/10/08
Clearly, “Save Our City,” its curious cadre of elected and appointed officials, City Hall and the developers are only interested in maintaining absolute control of Santa Monica’s destiny. Nothing is beneath them. They will say anything to have their way, including using our children and the schools as pawns. ... read

Major Developers Bankroll Prop T opposition
surfsantamonica.com
"Most of the money has come from five national developers who have each given to date between $45,000 and $50,000" ... read

Measure T creates rift within CEPS membership
SM Daily Press 10/4/08
“Despite contentions of the developers funding the campaign against it, you must know that [Measure] T will not harm our schools. And everyone knows the argument here is nothing more than a scare tactic.” ... read

Councilmember Kevin McKeown states why Santa Monica needs Prop T
SM Daily Press 10/4/08
"Despite years of work on a new Land Use and Circulation Element (LUCE), and consistent concern from residents about traffic and continued development beyond the capacity of our transportation infrastructure, the LUCE still places no limits on cumulative commercial development. Prop. T augments LUCE by providing that desperately needed limit".... read

Kuehl logic is faulty
surfsantamonica.com 10/2/08
"Following Senator Kuehl's argument, allowing the City Council to continue approving more large office projects, such as the Lantana Entertainment expansion on Olympic (2,000 additional daily car trips), the Lionsgate project on Colorado (2,000 additional daily car trips), the Village Trailer Park project on Colorado (2,000 additional daily car trips) will somehow reduce traffic congestion in our community". ... read

SM Daily Press asks: "Have Downtown construction projects impacted your life and how?" ... read

CITY DROPS BALL ON $45 MIL!!?
Information unearthed shows City failed to collect $45 million in development fees. ... read ... and read

Prop T launches SaveOurDevelopers.com
SM Mirror 9/18/08
This new website sets the record straight and addresses developer scare-mongering by providing residents with quick and truthful answers to the lies being spread about Proposition T. ... read

She said, He said, We say
SM Dispatch 9/16/08
RIFT is a “threat?” To whom? In what way?” ... read

Following the Money
SM Daily Press 9/8/08
SM Daily Press shines light on developer money trying to defeat Prop T ... read

When the Elite Speak, Who Listens?
SM Dispatch 9/1/08
...But the Elite didn’t declare war on SMCLC until it proposed the Residents’ Initiative to Fight Traffic (RIFT), and quickly collected more than enough signatures to qualify it for placement on the November ballot.... read

Don't Blame Santa Monica Shoppers
LA Times 8/22/08
The suggestion that Santa Monica is exacerbating Los Angeles' traffic nightmare by expanding retail space while neglecting housing is simply not accurate.... read

Save Our City kicks off disinformation campaign
SM Daily Press
SOC claims RIFT won’t reduce traffic because it only caps commercial development. However, what they ignore is the basic fact that with less development, there’s less traffic. ... read

Thorns In the Townscape
SM Dspatch 7/22/08
We need an honest, independent appraisal of the effects several decades of over-development and drumbeating have had on residents’ quality of life and their iconic beach town....read

LUCE Will Not Offset Negative Consequences of Development...read
SM Mirror 7/17/08
[FYI: LUCE – Land Use and Circulation Element / A city planning document currently being revised]

LUCE Update
SM Daily Press 7/14/08
Jeffrey Tumlin, a principal in Nelson\Nygaard, the land use and traffic management consultant told council that “no new net peak vehicle trips” was a stated LUCE goal. “The transportation system is running up against the peak capacity limitations of our ability to move cars through it. So, we can’t
accommodate more peak period trips, so let's not plan to.”... read

Study finds local air pollution bad for kids
USC Children's Health Study
Residential traffic exposure is linked to deficits in lung function growth and increased school absences. ... read

Santa Monica: The Gridlock Wars Are Here
LA Weekly 7/9/08
The city is an inaccessible moat. Residents are going batty... read

Don't Trivialize RIFT
SM Dispatch 7/3/08
"...There’s a force gathering in this city — an anger, and a determination. Residents are sick of telling the City they want to keep the beach town feel of Santa Monica; tired of telling the city they want a low skyline and don’t want density; tired of telling the city that traffic is the number one problem..." read

All Politics, All the Time
SM Dispatch 6/27/08
As City officials – elected and appointed – have already expressed their opposition to RIFT, (the analysis) should be an interesting demonstration of municipal objectivity. But irony is wasted on City Hall. Tuesday night, objectivity had clearly left the building, as City Council members Ken Genser, Bob Holbrook and, Pam O’Connor and Mayor Pro Tem Richard Bloom and their hired guns seemed bent on demonstrating their bias at every turn. (Mayor Herb Katz and Councilman Bobby Shriver were absent, and Council McKeown favors RIFT)....read

Growth Could End Careers
SM Daily Press 6/23/08
"... Nobody I know wants taller buildings and greater density let alone changes to streets that would exacerbate already horrendous traffic. But, our politicians flat out refuse to get the message."... read

PART 4
How you, a Southland driver, can make my commute better
LA Times 6/11/08
"We're not going to clear up congestion with alternatives," said David Roper, retired operations chief for the California Department of Transportation's Los Angeles division, "because the thing that's going to drive people to alternatives . . . is congestion." ... read

PART 3
Cargo has LA traffic to a crawl.
LA Times 6/10/08
The volume of cargo, which has tripled in the last two decades, is forecast to almost triple again in the next 20 years. ... read

PART 2
When approving developments, local officials have sidestepped laws meant to limit the effects on traffic.
LA Times 6/9/08
Water Garden, approved in 1988, provides a case study of how developments pass through loopholes in state laws. ... read

PART 1
L.A.'s commuters can't even go nowhere fast
LA Times 6/8/08
We then tracked down as many drivers as we could -- running their plates through the Department of Motor Vehicles -- to find out what their stories might say about how we live, in a way that statistics alone cannot. ...read

Traffic-Fighting Initiative Qualifies for Fall Ballot
SM Daily Press 5/20/08
"If we had 20 weeks we would've had 20,000 signatures and that is as many signatures as we need to win.”...read

Anti-Development Initiative Headed for Ballot
Lookout News 5/20/08
“Finally, residents will get to vote on a real solution that will reduce the growth in cars coming into our city”... read

The People Speak; the Council Pouts
SM Dispatch 5/5/08
"... like the residents’ initiative in 1973 that blocked a Council decision to demolish the Santa Monica Pier and a 1989 initiative that forbid the construction of more hotels on the beach, this latest initiative is a perfect demonstration of democracy at work."... read

Chamber Contributes to Gridlock
SM Daily Press 5/5/08
"If the Chamber has a better plan for reducing Santa Monica’s traffic and controlling the commercial development that has run rampant for the past 25 years, then I’d like to see it." ... read

Council Votes to Study RIFT
LookOut News 5/1/08
“It’s kind of a hoot that this council is asking the residents if they did a massive economic study," McKeown said. “I hope you will soberly see the desire of the residents of the City to get some answers.”... read

RIFT Petition Qualifies for Ballot
SM Mirror 5/1/07
“Over 100 residents gathered signatures as part of an historic movement to give residents the right to control and pace future development and related traffic impacts in Santa Monica.” ...read

Development Draws Criticism
SM Daily Press 4/25/08
"...(Jerry's Liquor development) has already created some buzz among neighbors, some of whom have expressed disappointment that a development of this size could take place in their corner of the city."..."Concerns like Kay’s is what sparked the Resident’s Initiative to Fight Traffic," ...read

Members Dop Off John Hancocks at City Hall
SM Daily Press 4/24/08
“We found that residents, in overwhelming numbers, agree with us that development and traffic in our city is ‘out of control’”...read

BottleNeck Blog
LA Times 4/24/08
"The vote could out to be a turning point in the years-old growth battles of the Westside". ...read

Signatures In for "Anti-Traffic" Initiative
LookOut News 4/24/08
"..proponents of an initiative that would limit commercial development in Santa Monica submitted nearly twice as many signatures as needed to qualify the measure for the November ballot." ...read

RIFT Headed for Ballot
SM Dispatch 4/23/08
"Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City turned in 10,295 signatures, or nearly twice the number needed, in support of a ballot measure to the City Clerk's office". ...read

OP-ED
SM Dispatch 4/21/08
"The contemporary American bureaucracy – at all levels --- has gone off the rails, and taken democracy with it. In our case, It has turned our beloved and iconic beach town into a “regional commercial hub” and traffic jam." ... read

OP-ED
Can't trust city on development?
SM Daily Press 4/7/08
"... the people are taking control where city government has refused to intervene." ... read

Touting Smart Growth
SM Daily Press 4/7/08
"But here’s the reality: All commercial development doesn’t necessarily generate net revenues
to the city once the cost of providing new services required by a project is subtracted from gross
revenues. ...read

Chamber Board Vs SMCLC Measure
SM Dispatch 4/1/08
The Chamber board voted to oppose RIFT based upon its belief that RIFT will not reduce traffic congestion but, instead, risks exacerbating the problem...read

Progress: Santa Monica Style
SM Dispatch 3/20/08
In 1994, the City of Santa Monica adopted a “Sustainable City Plan.” which it described as “a visionary plan for the community’s future.” ...read

LA Council Rejects Project Based on Traffic
LA Times 3/20/08
"This project (Las Lomas) would have put 15,000 cars a day in an already heavily impacted area," said City Councilman Greig Smith, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley. "The people of L.A. said we can't take that anymore. We're tired of it."... read

OP-ED
It's Hard to Trust City Hall on Development
SM Daily Press 3/11/08
Plans Change. And judging from past City Hall actions, plans change to allow more development ... read

OP-ED
A Vital Measure
SM Dispatch 3/7/08
We don’t know precisely when City Hall decided that it knew better than Santa Monica residents and stopped listening to us, but it was some time ago, and we are now all suffering the multiple consequences of a series of wrong turns made, over our protests, by City Hall. ...read

OP-ED
City Hall on Train to Nowhere
SM Dispatch 3/3/08
Surely, by now, we should have some sense of the place that is presumably taking shape on the computer screens in the Plannng Department – how it will differ from what is here now, how it will express our past, while eliminating the more horrific mistakes of the past, to what extent it will attempt to anticipate the future, what existing problems it will solve, and what new problems it will create, and so on.
To this point, it does none of those things, because it’s less a plan than a plan for a plan.
... read

Finally, the Masses are Roused by Rampant Development
LA Times 3/2/08
Steve Lopez
"Developers' money," Roy Disney declared with an icy glare, "is like heroin to politicians." ... read

Development Plans Upset Neighbors
LA Times 2/28/08
Jennifer Oldham
""I've been warning people to wake up, there's a new philosophy and a new direction being advocated by the leadership of the city at all levels," said Los Angeles County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, because all the city cares about right now is negotiating with developers and their agents."... read

Residents Sign Petition to Fight Traffic Growth
SM Mirror 2/21/08
Some Santa Monica residents are so fed up with the City’s traffic congestion that they are gathering signatures on a petition for a November ballot measure that would reduce future traffic growth by cutting future commercial development in half... read

OP-ED
SM Daily Press 2/11/08
Due to the fact that the city hasn’t adequately responded to citizen’s calls for limiting development and mitigating traffic now, RIFT deserves your signature to qualify it for a citywide referendum this fall. Power to the people. Yeah!... read

Signatures Please
SM Daily Press 2/5/08
Here are a few examples of the ways in which city policies have failed to manage traffic... read

Proponents of Development Initiative to Hit Streets Tuesday
The LookOut News 2/4/08
Volunteers for the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City will be gathering signatures to place on the November ballot an initiative that would limit future non-residential development... read

Just in Time – RIFT
SM Dispatch 1/18/08
For the entire life of this country, its destiny, as well as the individual destinies of its cities, counties and states has been determined at the ballot box, by the votes of the people... read

Coalition Wants to Limit Development
SM Daily Press 1/18/08
A group of residents concerned about the growing density and accompanying traffic in the city have filed a notice... read

Building to Halt
SM Daily Press 1/5/08
The impetus for the initiative can be attributed to the fact that after City Hall adopted the 1984 General Plan, the projections for new commercial growth had been exceeded by 1990... read