Main Street, Santa Monica, July 4, 2019

                                                           (photo: John Gabree)

Talk about mixed messages

"Do you have a story to share about Santa Monica, California?" asks an ad promoting tourism to Santa Monica. "Perhaps it’s about your first visit or something memorable you experienced. Submit it for a chance to win an electric bike."

Motorized vehicles are prohibited on the municipal bike path, but

let's make one a prize for happy stories about the city. anyway

Here's what the City's code says:

"3.12.550 Bike-path and beach promenade. "(a) It shall be unlawful to ride a bicycle or to coast in any vehicle upon the Beach Promenade; bicycle riding shall be permitted along the beach bike-path, within the City limits and in those areas where the Promenade constitutes a portion of the bikeway and are otherwise permitted by sign. All persons riding bicycles on the bike-path shall comply with all lawful signs and directional markings, including, but not limited to, painted, directional arrows, bike-path route boundaries, and signs designating permissible travel lanes. "(b) It shall be unlawful to operate a pedicab upon the beach bike-path.

"3.12.560 Prohibited vehicles. "In the area where bicycle riding is permitted by Section 3.12.550, no vehicle of any type shall be permitted except unicycles, bicycles, bicycles with training wheels, wheelchairs, and single-person tricycles operated by a person eighteen years of age or older."

The City, despite its recent move against Bird scooters and their ilk, is seriously deficient in its maintenance of the bike path. Segways, Vespas, etc., are routine. Signage is confusing when it isn't wrong, misleading or absent. No effort whatsoever is made to control pedestrians and dogs. And pedicabs routinely troll for customers along the bike path, blocking traffic when people get on and off.

It's a tribute to the City's pr flacks that it has a reputation as pro-bicycle and pro-pedestrian.

Priorities

"The City Council feels a need for speed when it comes to substantially shortening the runway at Santa Monica Airport." -- Today's paper.

This is the same city council that, in 30 years and counting, has not been able to deliver a commissioned stop sign to Main Street between Hill and Ashland.

And where are those promised parklets, by the way?

The appearance of corruption is as corrosive to public trust as actual corruption.

Or, what is there about a seat on the Santa Monica City Council that makes it worth $173,762.98 to Sue Himmelrich?

Corollary: Is it time for local campaign finance reform?

The rest of the story: More than $1 million spent on council race (Santa Monica Daily Press).

Planning tool

Santa Monica has introduced an online interactive tool to evaluate various options for the future of the Civic Auditorium. Anyone interested in the costs and benefits of public investment in amenities such as parks, theaters, restaurants, retail spaces, offices, hotels, parking, etc., can get a better understanding through playing with the options. Plus, it's possible that you will help influence the outcome of the Civic Auditorium development process. The tool will be available through February 14th.

Go to the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium website.

City to Parkers: "You can't say we didn't warn you."

Santa Monica municipal signage is too often confusing, obscure or absent. Except, of course, when it comes to parking.

                                                           (photo: John Gabree)

Santa Monica: Roll back executive pay

The hiring of a replacement for exiting city manager Rod Gould provides Santa Monica with the chance to begin -- at the top -- the difficult but necessary task of reducing the outrageous salaries paid at upper levels of city staff.  

Gould's annual haul -- at least $352,889 -- beggars the imagination. For comparison, the compensation paid the mayor of the City of New York -- you know, with its $70 billion budget and its 325,000 employees -- is $225,000, and the People get to do the hiring! In 2012, Governor Jerry Brown took home $165,288  -- it shouldn't require a sacrifice to go from running the City of Santa Monica to governing the State of

California. Even limiting comparison to other charter cities, Santa Monica's salary schedule is out of whack: the city manager in Culver City, for example, tops out at $256,139.00 and Newport Beach's at $282,318.00. The National League of Cities latest figures (for 2009 -- five years ago, so inflation may have pushed some numbers higher; but, also, not reflecting the implosion and stagnation of the economy since) show the national average remuneration for chief administration officer/city manager as $106,408 and, by way of comparison, for chief law enforcement official as $82,015, in stark contrast to pay in Santa Monica for jobs like city attorney -- $294,878 -- and assistant city attorney -- $295,243, or assistant city manager -- $283,312 (not to mention a police sergeant racking up $293,264 with overtime). While the League of Cities averages include municipalities in areas of the country that have lower costs of living than west Los Angeles, they also include towns that are much bigger, much more problem-riddled, and much less pleasant and prestigious to work in. 

Typically, when a city bureaucracy tries to lower its costs of doing business, it begins by cutting services, reducing staff or getting lower-level employees to accept less in pay and benefits. With the change of administration, Santa Monica has a unique opportunity: reducing the burden of staffing at the executive level is -- economically, politically, morally -- the right thing to do.

What about Santa Monica?

Okay, since you asked:

Although the campaign against Pam O'Connor has been so extreme and unfair as to almost make you want to vote for her in protest, I intend to cast ballots tomorrow for Frank Gruber, Mike Feinstein and Richard McKinnon. I decided against a protest vote for O'Connor for the same reason I wouldn't vote for Kevin McKeown: I think the council will benefit from some new blood. Gruber and McKinnon in their service on the planning commission -- and Gruber in his writing -- have demonstrated they can bring both experience and reasonableness to the council chamber. While Feinstein is not exactly new blood, during his previous council tenancy he showed a capacity to learn from experience, and his time away from city government has given him the opportunity to reflect on policy decisions past and future.

As far as the local measures, my votes will be no, no, no, no and no.

With all the spending for and against measures D and LC, you'd think they actually mean something. They don't. Santa Monica's agreement with the FAA expires at the end of June. When the smoke clears from the current battle, the City will still need to negotiate with the FAA and it is the federal agency that will have the final say in what changes there will be at the airport. While both measures are pointless, D has the added negative of challenging the idea of representative government; elected officials and city staff negotiating with the Feds have disadvantages enough without having their authority undermined further. The likelihood that the FAA will agree to close Santa Monica Airport is close to nil. (As an aside, current FAA rules have two interesting side effects: the presence of the airport forces planes flying to LAX to approach at a higher altitude, cutting noise; and take-off and landing regulations near Clover Field limit building heights.)

Measures H and HH would raise the city’s real estate transfer tax for commercial and non-commercial parcels selling for $1 million or more -- that's pretty much everything in Santa Monica -- from $3 per $1,000 of sales price to $9 per $1,000. We need more affordable housing in Santa Monica, but we need to find a less regressive way to pay for it. Meanwhile, measure FS would take the local rent control department's current maximum annual registration fee of $174.96 per controlled rental unit to $288 (reality check: Los Angeles' rent control stabilization fee is $67.83 per unit), 50% of which a landlord can (and any rational landlord will) pass on to tenants. The effect of all three measures would be to make Santa Monica an even more expensive place to live.

The War: W.Hollywood Council Unanimously Adopts Resolution in Support of the Impeachment of President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney

[While under normal circumstances I agree that the Santa Monica city council should stick to local issues and not spend its time on resolutions to save the redwoods or nuke the whales, these are not normal times. The very active local peace movement should follow up West Hollywood's action and get the Santa Monica council to go on record in support of the impeachment of Bush and Cheney for their various crimes, although the best reason to get rid of them is to prevent future debacles, like attacking Iran (according to press reports -- see, Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iraq -- the Vice has talked the Little President into war with Iran as soon as a pretext can be manufactured). - jg]

West Hollywood makes history in becoming the first city in Southern California to pass an impeachment resolution (press release)

"The City of West Hollywood was the first City to oppose the war in Iraq, as it was obvious that the United States was being dragged into a war under false pretenses," said West Hollywood Mayor John Duran. "Now the truth is out. Our President and Vice President misled the country and failed the American people, and for those reasons they should be impeached," he continued.

"The time has come to call for impeachment," said West Hollywood Councilmember Abbe Land. "Bush and Cheney lied to Congress and the American public on the justifications for the Iraq war, conducted illegal wiretaps of American citizens and violated the Geneva Convention by torturing prisoners of war. The U.S. Constitution provides a mechanism to hold them accountable. West Hollywood is proud to add its voice to the growing movement across the nation in calling for a full investigation to be undertaken by the U.S. Congress," she continued.

The proposed resolution states that President George W. Bush and Vice President Richard Cheney have repeatedly violated the U.S. Constitution and other laws of the United States. Other impeachable actions cited in the Impeachment Resolution include:

• Stripping Americans of their constitutional rights;
• Ordering and authorizing the U.S. Attorney General to override judicial order for the release of detainees;
• Directing the National Security Agency to spy on Americans; and
• Misguiding Congress and the country on false intelligence in order to lead the United States into war.

The West Hollywood City Council has consistently opposed the policies of the Bush/Cheney administration and in 2004 passed a resolution opposing military actions in Iraq, one of the first cities in the country to do so. A resolution was also passed condemning the USA PATRIOT Act, due to its infringement upon civil liberties. A resolution was also passed in support of California Senate Bill 924, a bill that would place an advisory measure on the February 5, 2008 presidential primary ballot calling for an immediate and orderly withdrawal of U.S. forces from the Iraq War.

For more information, please contact Hernan Molina, Deputy to West Hollywood Mayor John Duran or Lisa Belsanti, Deputy to West Hollywood Councilmember Abbe Land at 323-848-6460.

Second thoughts: Municipal Wi-Fi Easier Said Than Done

As you know if you've tried to use it, wi-fi access in Santa Monica is hit or miss. Instead of organizing wi-fi around the excess bandwidth of major users -- businesses such as Yahoo, Google, Sony; educational institutions such as SMCC; government entities such as the city itself -- Santa Monica is planning to hire a private service provider to build a system over the next few years (why it should take "years" to provide service to 8.3 square miles of flat terrain is a topic for another time).

According to reports, instead of contracting with a big player like Earthlink or a civic-minded company like Google, the city plans to hire AzulStar, a little Michigan-based company specializing in municipal access, to create a seamless city-wide network of hotspots.

According to AzulStar’s website, the company has built four city-wide systems to date, in such major metropolitan areas as Grand Haven, Michigan and Rio Rancho, New Mexico.

Although touted as a free service, in reality, relatively slow, advertising-supported public access will be available to residents and tourists for free, but they will be asked to pay for faster ad-free service. Businesses will required to pay for access separately, which will require the creation of some sort of enforcement mechanism to keep companies from logging on to the slower but costless version.

Any city-wide plan will be a big advance over the patchwork of public hotspots, now numbering 11 and growing, including City Hall, the Third Street Promenade, the Pier and Virginia Avenue Park, that make current access so spotty (at the end of May, three more parks -- Reed, Cloverfield, and the new park at the airport -- were scheduled to be on line).

A city-wide system will also enable the City of Santa Monica to tie all municipal services together on one wireless network.

Some of the problems with using a private company to provide a public service (instead of relying on a municipally owned system or a city-wide cooperative, two methods widely used in other parts of the world), as well as some of the technical difficulties particularly irksome to commercial providers, are outlined in an article published this week by The Economist (2007-05-25).

Long before Walt Disney built his theme park in Anaheim, this savvy little city 30 miles south of Los Angeles was deploying cutting-edge technology to improve its citizens’ lot and upstage neighbouring communities. It was one of the first cities in America to build its own electricity grid -- to illuminate its streets and lure late-night shoppers from nearby towns.

The innovation continued. Before most had even heard of the internet, Anaheim had networked the city with fat communications piping, so residents could have a variety of cable TV providers and telephone companies to choose from, while local utilities could automate their meter reading and businesses could provide all manner of online services. Now the city is in the process of blanketing itself with a wireless broadband network.

Anaheim is not the only city turning itself into a giant Wi-Fi hotspot. No fewer than 175 municipalities and metropolitan regions in America are building community-wide networks. A similar number are in the planning stage. But having blazed the trail in network services, Anaheim is the municipality that other cities are watching the closest -- all the more so because the company rolling out its wireless network is Earthlink.

Once the loudest booster of municipal Wi-Fi and still the biggest in the business, Earthlink is having second thoughts. Having turned in a $30m loss for its most recent quarter, Earthlink now says it is “re-evaluating its position in the muni-Wi-Fi market." The announcement has sent shivers through city halls across America.

Like Anaheim, most municipalities installing wireless networks are not paying for the privilege, but relying on providers like Earthlink to foot the bill. Having won the right to supply Wi-Fi services to a municipality, most companies expected to recoup the investment though subscriptions and advertising.

Neither revenue stream has lived up to expectation. Originally, Earthlink thought it would be in clover if 20-25% of households signed up for its wireless internet service. It now realises it will be lucky to get 15%. And without the eyeballs, advertisers have been slow to come aboard.

The trouble is that too many cities' schemes were half-baked to start with. In some cities, such as Philadelphia, the mission was to offer cheap (or even free) internet connections to the poor. In others, such as Anaheim, a more pragmatic, market-driven approach was adopted. Elsewhere, populist mayors and city councils pandered to voters with promises of universal internet access. In almost all cases, however, the reigning philosophy was “build it and they will come."

What no one seems to have bargained for was that, while Wi-Fi technology works perfectly well over short distances within a home, coffee shop or airport, it doesn’t work all that well outside. Wi-Fi’s popularity stems from its use of the unlicensed, 2.4 gigahertz part of the radio spectrum. But being unfettered by licences and regulations means that there are many PCs jostling for access. Adding to the mayhem are the domestic appliances, like cordless phones and microwave ovens, that radiate in the same frequency band.

This creates enough trouble inside a building. Outside, there are the added problems of foliage, tall buildings and hills. These can reflect, absorb or otherwise interfere with a municipal Wi-Fi’s signal, beamed from aerials on lamp-posts and traffic lights.

Because of these glitches, network operators have found that the old rule of 15-20 Wi-Fi aerial nodes per square mile is nowhere near good enough. Nowadays people expect to connect to the internet using low-powered devices such as laptops and Wi-Fi-enabled mobile phones. To meet this demand, operators must install twice as many nodes per square mile.

The cost escalation does not stop there. In opting for external Wi-Fi, municipal operators seem to have forgotten that the vast majority of dwellings in America use chicken wire in their walls. As every high-school physics student learns, a mesh of chicken wire can screen out electromagnetic fields, especially those caused by radio waves. For an external Wi-Fi beam to be detected indoors, homes have had to be kitted out with signal-boosting wireless modems.

These complications have made a mockery of service suppliers’ business plans. When Earthlink says it is re-evaluating its position in the municipal Wi-Fi market, what it really means is that it can’t make money out of communities with fewer than 2,500 households per square mile. Even then, it needs assurances that the city will commit to buying a big chunk of the network’s capacity for such “anchor tenancies” as emergency services, traffic and parking control, video surveillance and internet telephony, as well as automated meter reading and other utility services.

This is precisely how it should be. Internet access for residential users was never going to be the mainstay for municipal Wi-Fi. Most communities are pretty well served these days by cable, DSL and satellite internet services. As a result, competition has beaten broadband-access charges down to around $15 a month. And where such services are not competitive, they quickly become so the moment municipal Wi-Fi presses its nose to the window.

No, the future of municipal wireless broadband rests on making cities safer, saner and simpler to manage. Trivial pursuits like downloading songs or posting video clips can be safely left to phone and cable companies."

Azulstar is using in Santa Monica the same business model, attempting to recoup its investment in infrastructure and to turn a profit through subscriptions and advertising, that the Economist reports is a failure elsewhere. At least Earthlink and its ilk have the deep pockets that would enable them to live up to their commitments even while losing money for a while. How long will a little outfit like AzulStar be able to hang in without making a profit? I guess we're going to find out.

The Economist