Looking at the 10-year financial forecast for Santa Monica.

At this Tuesday’s Santa Monica City Council meeting, staff presented their Ten-Year Financial Forecast for the City of Santa Monica.

“We look at a decade that will bring changes to our traditional expectations about revenue and expenditure growth,” Gigi Decavalles-Hughes, Santa Monica’s Director of Finance, said.  “There’s going to be, pretty quickly, a shortfall between revenues and expenditures.”

Among the causes for the projected revenue decrease are things such as online shopping surpassing sales from brick-and-mortar establishments, fewer people using city parking structures, and a projected decrease in tourism revenue over the next decade.

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2019/01/revenue-decreasing-costs-increasing/

"Affordability" and "keeping neighborhoods safe" topped the City Council's list of "framework priorities" crafted at a retreat attended by some 50 community members Saturday.

The list -- voted on by the participants -- will help inform the City's upcoming budget for Fiscal Year 2019-20, which the Council is scheduled to adopt in June, officials said.

Read More: http://surfsantamonica.com/ssm_site/the_lookout/news/News-2019/01_28_2019_Council_Forges_Framework_Priorities_at_Saturday_Retreat.html

Don Woods wins

Rent Control officials have lost an initial battle over the fate of a former rent control property that has been brewing for more than 15 years. A judge ruled against the Rent Control Board’s efforts to bring a Mid-City apartment building in Santa Monica under rent control

after allowing the owner to rent the 13 apartments at market rates since 1993. Judge Lawrence H. Cho issued a ruling Jan. 15 that called the board’s decision to revoke the removal permit that exempted the building at 1040 20th Street from Santa Monica’s rent control law “capricious.”

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors will debate extending funding for homeless outreach in Santa Monica this week after Supervisor Shelia Kuehl recommended budgeting $300,000 towards the City’s Homeless Multidisciplinary Street Team (HMST) Program.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/supervisors-asked-for-300000-to-support-local-homeless-work/172409

At the fourth annual City Council retreat, all seven councilmembers participated in workshop activities and listened to staff presentations to identify and vote on the top six priorities for the Fiscal Years 2019-2021 biennial budget. 

6 City Framework Priorities:

• Affordability
• Keeping Neighborhoods Safe
• Reduce Homelessness
• Climate Change
• Engaged and Thriving Community
• Mobility and Access

Read More: https://www.santamonica.gov/press/2019/01/26/council-sets-framework-priorities-to-guide-upcoming-budget-process

In the first move of a promised battle between Gov. Gavin Newsom and local governments over California’s housing affordability crisis, the state sued the city of Huntington Beach Friday and accused it of failing to allow enough new homebuilding to accommodate a growing population.

At Newsom’s urging, the state attorney general’s office filed a lawsuit in Orange County Superior Court against the community over a state law that requires cities and counties to set aside sufficient land for new residential development. The governor said in a statement that the suit was needed because rising housing costs threaten the economy and deepen inequality.

Read More: https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-gavin-newsom-huntington-beach-housing-lawsuit-20190125-story.html

AND

SMDP Jan. 28, 2019, pg. 5: http://backissues.smdp.com/012619.pdf

City Council will set priorities for the City of Santa Monica’s 2019-2021 budget Saturday using results from a community survey conducted over the last month.

Council will select three to six goals the City will prioritize in its budget, which will go into effect July 1. The City conducted a survey in December and January called SaMoSays that asked the community to select five areas they would like the City to devote more resources to from a list of 23 priorities, such as infrastructure and business diversity. Staff is also recommending Council add a 24th goal to that list: advancing a new model of mobility.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/budget-priorities-to-be-set-at-weekend-council-retreat/172364

City Hall is looking to clarify the complaint process for the homeless shelters it funds in response to multiple shelter residents alleging neglect from staff.

City Council heard testimony Tuesday night from clients of The People Concern, which operates three homeless shelters in Santa Monica, before deciding to renew the agency’s $1.6 million in funding for the next two years. Multiple speakers told Council that staff at Samoshel, a shelter near City Hall, neglected the health and safety of residents and did not adequately assist them in finding permanent housing.

Read More: https://www.smdp.com/city-renews-funding-for-homeless-shelters-with-a-catch/172361

On Wednesday night, volunteers in Santa Monica and across Los Angeles County conducted the annual Greater Los Angeles Homeless Count. From 10:30 pm until 2:30 am, volunteers in teams canvassed the streets to count the people they could see sleeping in public spaces.

Read More: https://www.smobserved.com/story/2019/01/25/news/we-cant-house-all-the-homeless-but-at-least-we-can-count-them/3794.html

SM.a.r.t.

Let’s just say it: This is Hines ALL OVER AGAIN! An Environmental Impact Report (EIR) that doesn’t select qualified alternatives to the project that would have fewer environmental impacts so as to choose a better option.

The massive project currently proposed for 4th and Arizona would be only about 20 percent smaller than Santa Monica Place (10.5 acres) squeezed onto a 2.5 acre site. Like Hines, it has generated enormous public engagement. It’s been controversial from the beginning — it’s size turned on its side is as big as a football field, it’s mix of uses (hotel, office, residential, retail) — and whether these uses benefit the public so as to BE on public land.

Read More: https://smmirror.com/2019/01/4th-street-and-arizona-ave/