Santa Monica City Council to Consider Ballot Measure Requiring 'Super-Majority' Vote for Biggest Projects

12/14/2017 4:32 PM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Despite dread of touching off more development warring, the Santa Monica City Council Tuesday voted to consider a ballot measure requiring a “super-majority” council vote for development exceeding City limits on size and height.

The vote asks City staff to examine such a measure for the November ballot next year.

The author, Councilmember Kevin McKeown, said he hoped a super-majority requirement approved by voters would help create “a period of development peace” for a city scarred over the issue of new development.

No Clothes

12/14/2017 7:25 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

By Guest Author, Thomas A Nitti

The rent board fails to see that the emperor has no clothes.

The sole reason for Ellis evictions is harsh rent control.

Over 7000 apartments in Santa Monica still have rents based on the year 1978.

Call It What You Want

12/13/2017 8:35 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

by Charles Andrews

Santa Monica isn’t Bell, they say derisively. Maybe not, but it’s beginning to look like it’s not Mayberry, either.

Read More http://backissues.smdp.com/121317.pdfon page 5:

Costs of Selling Real Estate Increase in 2017, May Rise in 2018

12/13/2017 8:24 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Escrow Agency President Reveals typical costs when selling or buying a home

CITY HALL CONSTRUCTION IMPACTS THIS HOLIDAY SEASON

12/13/2017 8:21 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

DEMOLITION WORK TO OCCUR DECEMBER 18 – JANUARY 5

RETRACTION: NMS PROPERTIES

12/13/2017 8:09 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

The Mirror Media Group is issuing a retraction in relation to a recent article: “Fraud, Corruption: NMS Properties’ D.A.s Move Forward”.

Citizen Panel Members Recommends Wage or Hiring Freeze at Santa Monica City Hall

12/13/2017 8:02 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

Members of a first-ever citizen advisory panel helping to examine pay and benefits at Santa Monica City Hall -- among the highest for cities in California -- are recommending a freeze of employee compensation or possibly of new hiring.

Advisory panel members advocated the wage freeze and possibly similar action on hiring of non-public safety personnel at a joint session with the City's Audit Subcommittee on November 1 devoted largely to an on-going review by outside auditors (Moss Adams) of wages and benefits of City employees.

“What we are advocating is that the City take decisive action,” Dominic Gomez, a member of the seven-member advisory Compensation Study Advisory Committee, told the Lookout on Monday.

SF landlords’ attempts to pass some charges on to tenants face opposition

12/13/2017 8:01 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

In San Francisco, like many other cities, when the various costs of running an apartment building outpace the annual allowable rent increases set by the city’s Rent Board, landlords can request to pass on a portion of those expenses to their tenants.

But in recent years, a pattern involving these so-called pass-through expenses has emerged that’s causing alarm among tenants-rights organizations. Landlords, particularly large property management companies, increasingly are passing on the costs of their debt service — payments on the loan taken out to buy the building — and property taxes to tenants.

That could soon change. Tenants-rights groups, including the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, the Tenderloin Housing Clinic, the San Francisco Tenants Union and Legal Assistance to the Elderly, have secured a commitment from Supervisor Sandra Lee Fewer to sponsor legislation to eliminate debt-service and property tax pass-throughs.

Santa Monica Joins Los Angeles Community Choice Energy

12/12/2017 10:53 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

December 8, 2017 -- The City Council on Tuesday voted to join Los Angeles Community Choice Energy (LACCE), a move City officials say will shift all Santa Monica electricity customers to competitive electricity and help boost similar efforts in the region.

The new agency allows cities to purchase electricity in the wholesale power market and sell it to their residents and businesses, according to LACCE.

The agency employs a strategy known as community choice aggregation to provide energy sourced from up to 100 percent renewable sources, compared to less than 30 percent of for Southern California Edison, the City's existing utility.

AND

http://smdp.com/santa-monica-promises-to-be-a-leader-in-new-regional-energy-partnership/163565

How WeHo’s Decade-Old Green Building Codes Compare to Santa Monica

12/12/2017 10:37 AM | Margaret Fulton (Administrator)

It’s important to ask the question before WeHo loses too much ground – ground that cities like Santa Monica are quickly occupying.

What’s Happening In Santa Monica

By 2020, Santa Monica plans to complete construction on a 50,000-square-foot city services building that will meet the requirements of the “Living Building Challenge” — the strictest green building standard in the world and a goal that has never before been reached in California.