MARCH
The City of Santa Monica and Charter Communications settled a complaint about overpayment of state cable license fees. An audit found that the company had overpaid the city about 2 percent annually for several years.
Staff at schools in Santa Monica-Malibu received vaccinations as part of the county’s Phase 1b vaccine expansion, which involved approximately 1.3 million key workers.
Santa Monica residents celebrated Women’s History Month by celebrating Thelma Terry as one of the most prominent figures from the city’s past. Terry was born in 1907 and became a prominent basketball player at Samohi and SMC before leveraging her love of sports to promote recreational and artistic education programs.
Venice residents filed a lawsuit against the City of Los Angeles for street fighting, vandalism, theft and physical threats they faced near Rose-Penmar Walkway and Penmar Park.
LA County has entered the red tier of COVID-19 restrictions, allowing secondary schools and many indoor businesses to reopen. At the red level, restaurants, museums and cinemas could reopen with a capacity of 25 percent indoors and gyms with a capacity of 10 percent indoors. Retail stores that were 25 percent full were able to operate 50 percent.
Trader Joe has submitted preliminary filings for a third location in Santa Monica. The grocery store requested a tenant development permit on Broadway 500 in the under construction development opposite the newly constructed target. A company spokeswoman said they were keen to expand their presence in Santa Monica but said no lease had been signed.
SMMUSD announced plans to move to a hybrid learning model after the spring break as schools have increased the number of in-person lessons as much as possible per location. The move came about two weeks after students returned to school after months of distance learning for minimal personal training. The district and the teachers’ union agreed to allow students to return to school for the remainder of the year.
Santa Monica received $ 5.5 million in funding from two grants from the California Department of Housing and Community Development. The money should go to three housing projects that target young people at risk, the homeless and the elderly.
Tesla announced an expansion of its network of Supercharger stations on the Westside with a Supercharger with 62 charging stations in Santa Monica. The planning committee approved a conditional use permit that would allow the operation of a 24-hour self-service charging system for electric vehicles with solar canopies, toilets and supporting equipment. The new Supercharger station with 62 booths will be located at 1401 Santa Monica Blvd. and 1421-1425 Santa Monica Blvd. The project hit a snag when the city temporarily banned some developments while it was working on its housing projects.
Local middle and high school surf teams participated in their first surf competition in over a year. The students competed against each other at two locations in Tower 24 in Santa Monica. Great South Swells made it a challenging day for athletes, with both boys and girls competing in over 27 runs.
Former SMDP reporter Jeff Goodman published his first book to help children explore the many emotions they may struggle with. Goodman’s debut children’s book “Feel Like Eggs?” was released earlier this year and is available online at IndieBound.org.
The second Santa Monica destination opened. The store had a grand opening ceremony on March 14, but the 5th and Broadway location began serving customers earlier this month.
Santa Monica City Council approved a Hero Pay regulation that requires some local drug and grocery stores to pay their employees an additional $ 5 an hour. The law applied to grocery stores, drug stores, and other large businesses that cover at least 85,000 square feet and that devote more than 10 percent of their retail space to grocery or drug sales in Santa Monica.
Santa Monica’s Shared Mobility program, which regulates scooters and bicycles, was expanded to include four operators following a 5-2 vote by the city council. Council members decided to extend the city’s current pilot program to June 30, 2021, approve a second permit-based pilot program for shared mobility, and asked staff to submit an application for up to four shared mobility operators from July 1, 2021 in Santa Monica. until March 30, 2023.
The city council approved the fire brigade’s proposal to fight homelessness with a community response unit. A Community Response Unit is rethinking the way emergency services respond to incidents of homelessness. The Community Response Unit assigns dedicated emergency calls for firefighters for 9-1-1 calls with the homeless. The CRU staff assess the person’s health and stay on site for as long as necessary to build trust and connect them with resources – be it medical support, psychological support, addiction counseling, housing or transport home.
Santa Monica-based nonprofit Chrysalis continued its mission to help post-prison people find work, and with funding from a county program, they have provided dedicated career counseling to 150 adults.
Santa Monica City Council discussed new regulations regarding public gatherings, targeted residential protests, and noise due to a series of recurring protests at Los Angeles County Authority’s Santa Monica residence, Sheila Kuehl in Fall 2020. The updated regulation limits the time and duration Targeted housing projects protests while protecting the rights of workers to protest in public spaces from 7 a.m.
Santa Monica non-residential developments and single-family homes in the city’s commercial areas were temporarily banned after the city council passed a provisional emergency zoning ordinance. The city had seen a surge in applications for non-residential projects on potential residential lots in the city’s business districts that have the potential to house some of the 8,895 units Santa Monica is currently expected to build between 2021 and 2029.
The Santa Monica City Council has set the community priorities that will guide the city’s budget process through 2023. In a 4-3 vote, the city council chose tackling homelessness, creating a clean and safe Santa Monica, and equitable and inclusive economic recovery as its priorities for the upcoming two-year budget process.
Expected rent declines due to the pandemic were less pronounced than many expected, according to a report by the Rent Control Committee. The usual market new rentals of controlled units have hardly decreased compared to the previous year. In 2020, median initial rents for newly leased Controlled Units decreased 2.8 percent for studios and 1.5 percent for two-bedroom apartments, while they rose 1 percent for one-bedroom apartments.
A Santa Monica man with a previous murder conviction was charged with domestic violence after allegations of assaulting his wheelchair-bound girlfriend. Simco Warmsley Morris Jr., 52, was charged with assault with a lethal weapon and domestic violence.
The Santa Monica Disney Store, located on the Santa Monica Place Mall, has closed by 60 stores as part of a contraction announced by the House of Mouse. The closure was part of an ongoing strategy by Disney to consolidate its businesses and bring more retail to its online platform. However, the loss came another blow to the mall as it struggled to recover after the pandemic shut down.
A public art project attempted to engage the public in a conversation about the state of interaction in the city. “What’s 6 Feet?” Local artist Marni Gittleman’s community-wide arts program gathered responses for publication on the effects of the split over the past year.
Building on its initial success, Safe Place for Youth expanded the Homestay Program, which seeks volunteers willing to open their doors to teenagers who live on the streets. The Host Home program was inspired by similar programs in the UK that have provided low cost supportive accommodation to uninterrupted youth for over 30 years.
Longtime local John Beasley received a Grammy Award after nine nominations this year. A Samohi graduate, living in Venice, Beasley is a multi-talented jazz pianist, composer, and arranger who has played with a number of music icons, including Miles Davis, Barbra Streisand, and Queen Latifah.
The council reiterated its support for the division of Santa Monica and Malibu into two separate independent school districts so long as the division of income and property is fair and equitable. Darrell Goode, president of the local NAACP branch, also participated and formally submitted a letter to oppose the Malibu City petition to secede Malibu from SMMUSD.
Another homeless camp went up in flames on the Venice promenade, and residents said they feared there would be many more dangerous fires if nothing was done to tackle the sprawling mountains of property and rubbish.
Newly updated hazard maps showed that a tsunami wave has the potential to inundate Santa Monica beaches, the pier, portions of Ocean Park, and the entire area of Venice south of Abbot Kinney Boulevard. Officials stressed that with preparation and awareness, residents can greatly reduce the risk they face in the event of a tsunami.
In light of the unprecedented social and economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the council extended a previously established rental deferral program, which means renters in city-owned properties were required to repay their contributions by June 30, 2022.
SMMUSD announced plans to fully reopen elementary schools in April. All schools had to implement strict COVID-19 security protocols.
The council began converting a downtown parking garage into residential buildings. The city council passed a resolution declaring 1318-1320 4th Street an exempt excess land. The council also declared the city-owned property at 1636 5th Street and the master lease property at 1333 4th Street, which the city will sublet to Chase Bank through April 2022, as excess land during a trio of Motions aimed at bringing the city in in accordance with a new version of the state’s Surplus Lands Act.
LA County hit the state COVID-19 health metrics to enter the orange tier, and officials announced a new series of sector openings. For the first time since June 2020, outdoor bars have reopened and socially distant live entertainment has been reopened for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic. In addition, the indoor and outdoor capacities have been expanded for many previously opened areas.
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