(Photo from Santa Monica Press Release.)
Santa Monica is looking for support from the Venice Neighborhood Council and Venetians to sign a petition for Santa Monica’s revitalization of the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.
Santa Monica wants to make the auditorium into a Performing Arts/Cultural District but adding a dual purpose, two-surface ice arena and soccer field on top of the Civic Auditorium.
Santa Monica sent an “interest in supporting” letter to members of the Venice Neighborhood Council with a petition.
Ivan Spiegel, who is Parliamentarian for the Venice Neighborhood Council, was recipient of the request. His personal response, as a Venetian, was a flat “No” with reasons.
By Ivan Spiegel
I received your email and petition because I am on the Board mailing list for the Venice Neighborhood Council. I am responding as an individual and the opinions expressed here do not in any way reflect the thinking of the VNC Board or any of its members.
First of all I applaud your efforts to bring recreational venues to your community. I actually coached and refereed youth soccer in Santa Monica twenty years ago when my son was that age and your sports programs were top-notch.
While I know that you are not personally responsible for what follows, I feel that when you ask for support from the Venice community for this project there are some things about Santa Monica that you must be made aware of…
Santa Monica has not been a very good neighbor. In fact, your city’s proprietorial behavior has been downright atrocious. In most of our dealings with your city government we have only been told about what is best for Santa Monica. To wit…
For years we have been petitioning your city to change the flight patterns from Santa Monica airport. Planes take off and turn over Venice. Santa Monica gets the revenues and Venice gets the noise, pollution, and crashes. All efforts to modify this have failed.
Santa Monica has been phasing out its homeless services and pushing these unfortunate individuals out over your borders and into our community. As an example, there used to be a pickup spot to the Winter Shelter in Santa Monica but it has been discontinued. This has resulted in a disproportionate number of individuals having to come into Venice to receive basic services. If you want further proof, just read the signs about no parking of over-size vehicles (a euphemism for people whose only home is their car) that have been posted on every street along your borders. Where do you think they’re going to go?
The proprietary behavior even extends to little things like the use of Santa Monica’s dog parks and libraries. Your dog parks can only be used by Santa Monica residents. There is now a charge for the use of Santa Monica libraries by non-residents – $25 per year for a library card. No other library that I know of in LA County charges for the “privilege” of reading. You even have to show proof-of-residence to drop off electronic waste within your borders.
And then there’s the Expo Line that all west siders have waited decades for. Santa Monica lobbied hard to get the Expo line to terminate in downtown Santa Monica. This will be a windfall for Santa Monica businesses and residents. You will be able to drive to the train stations, get out of your car, and ride all over the county. Except, now that it’s almost ready to open we find out that there is not going to be any parking in Santa Monica (except for a few spaces by Santa Monica College). The light rail is supposed to be for everyone, not just Santa Monicans. There is no way that this is just an oversight. Your city doesn’t want more traffic downtown so the rest of us are just screwed.
As I said above, I think you’re trying to do a good thing and none of this is directly your fault, but before I can support it, I’d like to know what guarantees we can have that non-Santa Monica residents will have access to the facilities and not be charged extra for using them. And how much will we have to pay to park? Wait, I can drive from Venice to Culver City, park my car for free, and take the Expo Line to the Civic Center.
In short, to take a page from your City’s historically non-neighborly behavior, What’s In It For Us?
Ivan Spiegel
40-year Venice resident
It is completely shocking that a train system was built in Los Angeles without parking on the Santa Monica end. Thank you for printing Ivan’s letter. I learned quite a bit from it.
And then there’s the Expo Line that all west siders have waited decades for. Santa Monica lobbied hard to get the Expo line to terminate in downtown Santa Monica. This will be a windfall for Santa Monica businesses and residents. You will be able to drive to the train stations, get out of your car, and ride all over the county. Except, now that it’s almost ready to open we find out that there is not going to be any parking in Santa Monica (except for a few spaces by Santa Monica College). The light rail is supposed to be for everyone, not just Santa Monicans. There is no way that this is just an oversight. Your city doesn’t want more traffic downtown so the rest of us are just screwed.
Ivan listed the many ways in which Santa Monica has exploited its neighboring L.A. communities. From library fees and dog park fees for non-residents, to flight paths out of SMO over Venice, etc. I would like to add another. Santa Monica has not provided staging areas for trucks involved in its building projects. There is a regulation that trucks can not come into Santa Monica early in the morning. This leaves them to line up on Lincoln Boulevard waiting to be radioed that it is their turn to proceed to the buiding site. We have had huge dirt truck haulers lined up on Lincoln for blocks and blocks. Their diesel engines are kept running for hours every day whenever a large project is being built in Santa Monica. The fumes are blown into our neighborhoods, and we know the health risks associated with diesel fuel. I don’t see why Santa Monica even wants support from Venice, since they always do what they want. I know that there will be no relief from the added traffic through Venice this sports complex will bring, as there is none from their other projects in Santa Monica.
I say NO to giving support to them for anything until they clean up their act.
Santa Monica. RIGHT ON! They are the snobbiest community, and I don’t know what high horse of self righteousness they think they are on! After excluding nearby residents from Everything that is otherwise public and recreational, likely anywhere else in the COUNTRY, they exclude, they charge, they take care of themselves. They have become one of the most selfish communities on the westside. And now they are appealing to us to support them when they push us all out, and yes, fly over our homes and crash into our parks and golf courses. …..Their sense of entitlement is so incredibly obnoxious. And I grew up in part in Santa Monica, having always lived in the Marina, I went to Saint Monicas, and the public library for FREE….public is PUBLIC. Yet they can go to any surrounding community to any park, any library, any park and recreation sports program or after school program, yet the reverse is not true at all. Your child cant go to after school care at Virginia park unless they are a SM resident…..so the “gated community/exclusion” factor even extends to children. What gall to seek support from our Venice! Let them unlock the gates to these other venue then they can EARN our support! what is next? Charging non residents of Santa Monica for beach access? I bet they would if they could, they must not be allowed to by the costal commission or they’d be all over that!
Ivan makes some salient points about how policies of the city of Santa Monica have had a negative impact on Venice and other surrounding communities. One he didn’t mention concerns the gridlocked traffic to and from Santa Monica at rush hour on Lincoln Blvd. and other north/south thoroughfares. This is a direct result of policies that have made Santa Monica a major employment center on the Westside, with the development of office parks, tech centers, shopping and entertainment venues, and other businesses that have greatly increased the city’s tax revenue as well as the influx of people from outside the city. While this can be seen as a benefit for Venice and other L.A. areas in terms of employment opportunities, it has made the traffic situation insufferable without any requirement for mitigation. At the same time, that tax revenue that many L.A. residents contribute to in one way or another has allowed Santa Monica to make streetscape and other infrastructure improvements that we in Venice and elsewhere can only dream about. And finally, to add insult to injury, Santa Monica prohibits those big dirt-hauling trucks from staging in that city when they’re going to major construction projects there, so they sit idling on Lincoln Blvd. here in Venice, taking up parking space and spewing diesel pollutants into the air that you and I and our children have to breathe.
Dennis,
Totally agree on the trucks. They often park in red zones. I aggressively call parking enforcement on them everytime I see them in red zones. As a result, they have stopped parking near me on Amoroso. I would encourage you to call parking enforcement every day you see them. They actually pick-up, unlike the police! (probably because the city can make money on tickets). If enough people call and complain everytime they show-up, parking enforcement will eventually get on it. I also called Bonin’s office and Nancy there was good about also calling parking enforcement. The truth of LA is the squeaky wheel gets the grease, provde you squeak loudly and relentlessly.
Totally agree. Santa Monica is the WORST hypocritical neighbor you could imagine. They tout themselves as a “green” city but then push all their airport pollution onto Venice. They claim to be all about social justice, implemented programs that encouraged “travelers” to flock to the area from all over the country, and then once they realized the consequences, shut their borders and pushed most of them to Venice. I personally avoid spending money in Santa Monica if at all possible and frankly, Los Angeles should just bulldoze roads leading into Santa Monica until they behave.