The potential shuttering of another Santa Monica rent-controlled building could have an impact on the local political scene.

Last week, former City Council candidate and political activist Armen Melkonians received notice that the 13-unit complex north of Downtown where he lives will be cleared by the owner.

Read More: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/June-2019/06_24_2019_Top_Santa_Monica_Activist_May_Leave_City.html

The revised biennial budget the council will vote to adopt Tuesday is $1.3 million higher than the budget city manager Rick Cole proposed last month.

About one-fifth of the increase will go toward the cost of stationing hospitality ambassadors in Reed Park. Residents have called for the city to manage the large homeless population in Reed Park and the council decided to fund a pilot program in which Downtown Santa Monica, Inc. ambassadors, who are already present in other downtown parks, would work to make the park cleaner, safer and more welcoming. The program will cost $250,000 over six months.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/council-to-adopt-2019-2021-budget/176674

The man who made Santa Monica a leader in sustainability and helped the city prepare for climate change is retiring July 1.

Dean Kubani, the city’s chief sustainability officer, is responsible for Santa Monica’s reputation as a laboratory for innovative environmental policies that larger cities across the nation and world adopt and build upon. But after working for a quarter of a century to put Santa Monica on the path to carbon neutrality, he’s ready to take a step back from policy, start training the next generation of climate leaders and take a little time for himself.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/sustainability-czar-leaves-santa-monica-greener-than-he-found-it/176667

Community Corporation of Santa Monica will hold the second community design Input meeting for the proposed new construction affordable housing development at 1834, 1840, 1844, & 1848 14th Street.

Read More on pg. 2: http://backissues.smdp.com/062419.pdf

Officials are revising development standards in Santa Monica’s single-family neighborhoods to discourage developers from replacing small homes with mansions.

In the city’s four single-family neighborhoods — Sunset Park, North of Montana, North of Wilshire and a small part of Pico — new development is typically double or triple the size of existing homes, according to the city of Santa Monica’s analysis of recent building permits. Residents have noticed the change in the character of the neighborhoods they’ve called home for decades, and they’re not happy about it.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/city-moves-to-limit-mcmansionization-of-single-family-neighborhoods/176611

Thanks to community advocacy, City Council approved $669K in funding for improvements to Samoshel - an interim housing facility located on City property, leased and operated by OPCC dba The People Concern.

The facility is a tent that has not been improved by the City or by The People Concern for a quarter of a century. During that time, vulnerable homeless individuals - many of them seniors, disabled or with serious health conditions - have been warehoused, sometimes for years, in substandard conditions complete with mold, at times in temperatures of around 60°F in the winter and over 80°F in the summer, with no ventilation and with poor air quality, including the sewer gas odor.

Read More: https://www.smobserved.com/story/2019/06/20/opinion/city-to-fund-669k-in-improvements-to-samoshel-tent-after-25-years-of-neglect/4061.html

Los Angeles County needs to get almost 60,000 people experiencing homelessness off the streets, but building new shelters is expensive and typically met with community opposition.

There is another way to accommodate people as they transition to a permanent home, however: motels. County caseworkers typically offer homeless individuals vouchers for rooms on a case-by-case basis, however, and that piecemeal policy gets expensive.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/la-county-motel-rooms-could-be-turned-into-homeless-housing/176605

A "distressed" Arts Commission on Monday grilled the City's top cultural official on how Santa Monica could lose one of its most famous public artworks without the public knowing.

The Arts Commission placed the item on the agenda after its members learned late last month that Millard Sheets' iconic "Pleasures Along the Beach" mosaic had been donated to a museum in Orange County.

Read More: https://www.actiontakesaction.com/admin/website/system-pages/?pageId=1837908

AND: https://smmirror.com/2019/06/millard-sheets-mosiac-removal-begins/

German officials facing protests and endless complaints about threats to affordable housing in the nation’s capital have decided the solution may be a five-year ban on rent increases and fines as high as $550,000 for violators.

Read More: https://www.latimes.com/world/europe/la-fg-germany-berlin-rent-increases-outlawed-20190620-story.html

A bill proposed by Santa Monica's State Senator Ben Allen would repeal Article 34 of the California State Constitution. On June 4, Allen's bill was approved unanimously by the California State Senate's Housing Committee. It will now move to the State Senate floor. If approved there, the proposal to change the State Constitution will be put to the voters on the 2020 ballot.

Article 34 was passed in 1950 as Proposition 10. The legislation requires a local ballot referendum to approve any affordable housing project that is primarily funded with public money.

Read More: https://www.smobserved.com/story/2019/06/20/politics/article-34-california-voters-to-decide-against-their-right-to-decide/4050.html