New regulations regarding medium-term leases go into effect Tuesday, but concerns from local homeowners and students have prompted City Council to consider revisions during next week’s meeting.

The practice of entities renting out units between 31 and 365 days is defined as medium-term leases, and city staff believes it removes valuable rental housing from the market. As a result, Santa Monica councilmembers adopted an ordinance in September requiring leases to be longer than 365 days. The new rules also state rental housing units cannot be furnished and advertising any lease of a residential rental unit that does not comply with these requirements is prohibited.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/new-ordinance-takes-effect-tuesday-but-revisions-are-coming/197169

Still, California has gone all-in on voting by mail in 2020. For the first time, county election offices are sending a ballot to every active registered voter. Plus, the state Legislature changed the law to say that, as long as ballots are postmarked by Nov. 3, they can arrive at county election offices up to 17 days after the election and still be counted.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/its-in-the-mail-california-sending-ballots-to-all-voters/197162

Santa Monica’s Rent Control Board will gather this Thursday for the first time in nearly a month to adopt its final budget report for the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

In June of 2019, the board adopted an operating expense budget around $5.3 million, but a staff report states the total revenue received for the fiscal year was $164,720 more than staff had previously anticipated in the adopted budget.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/rent-control-board-to-meet-thursday/195378

As COVID-19 related financial hardship continues across Southern California, Clean Power Alliance (CPA) will extend its COVID-19 Relief Program. On October 1, CPA’s Board of Directors doubled the previously approved $1 million program to $2 million of bill credits for struggling residential and small business customers.

Read More on page 5: https://s3.amazonaws.com/smdp_backissues/100620.pdf

A local political activist filed a complaint with the State watchdog agency last week claiming four Council challengers violated campaign law, a claim one of the challengers calls "baseless."

Read More: https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2020/October-2020/10_05_2020_FPPC_Complaint_Filed_Against_Santa_Monicans_for_Change.html

Santa Monica's employee unions and special interest groups are building a large financial warchest to back the status quo at City Hall, according to campaign disclosure statements posted on the City Clerk's website Monday.

Read More: https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2020/October-2020/10_05_2020_City_Employee_Unions_Special_Interests_Back_Incumbents.html

Prop 21 would allow local communities to extend Rent Control to any Single Family Homes not owned by a natural person. It will treat anyone who owns more than one or two houses as a for profit corporation. Through such provisions, Prop 21 would hit hard at small landlords, while large corporations will as usual use their lobbying might to find loopholes and buy their way out of trouble.

Prop 21 will increase bureaucracy and state control.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/your-column-here-no-on-prop-21/197128

Voters for the 2020 election can vote by mail or in person this year. Mail ballots will arrive in mailboxes starting this week. All registered voters will be sent a Vote By Mail ballot and they can be returned via the USPS, to a designated ballot return box or in person at a vote center. Ballots postmarked by election day and received within 17 days will be counted in the election.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/voting-locations/197145

So are we on a road to “nowhere”? How will this fast changing and diminishing quality of life affect our city? What will its future be? Just another piece of a larger metropolis. Recently the City Council finished constructing a 50,000 sq ft city hall annex at twice the cost of comparable municipal buildings. It then spent over $25 million fighting district elections and residents’ effort combatting the enormous benefit of development contributions to “friendly” incumbent re-election campaigns! 

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2020/10/sma-r-t-colthe-future-of-our-city-is-at-stake/

A recent poll of registered Santa Monica voters forecasts trouble for local incumbents, with less than 10 percent of the respondents saying they plan to support the current Council members.

The telephone survey of 305 likely voters conducted for Eyes on Local 11, an anti-hotel union watchdog group, found that 53.29 percent of the respondents have not decided who they will vote for.

More than a third -- 35.53 percent -- said they planned to vote for "someone new,"

Read More: https://www.surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2020/October-2020/10_02_2020_Poll_Shows_Lack_of_Support_for_Council_Incumbents.html