Coming Out of the Politically Correct Closet

By Donna Block

Reasons for running in this election

Our current Council goes into the decision making process with their minds already made up; public in-put is just a formality that has to be tolerated. There is a close-minded arrogance that goes along with the power of such a super majority. I know I don't have all the answers and it really makes me uncomfortable to be governed by those who think they do; especially before they have all the facts. Or, even worse, in spite of the facts.

An example is the ATM ordnance: now we are extremely inconvenienced every time we want to access our money because a few people think those big, bad banks have no right to charge us for their services. However, I still pay for the service, only now I pay it at inconvenient locations that have independent cash venders. Where was the public in-put on that.

When the community voices concerns about the homeless, those concerns are manipulated into supporting and expanding services. The real message is "it's out of hand and we need to do something about the problem." We need to cap our spending on services that promote and sustain our growing population of the homeless. So much for public in-put.

We have converted our trash collection trucks into a green fuel fleet that has created more ground pollution than ever before as a result. The new bins are awkward to use, too small and out of place in our alleys. The new system was modeled after the one in Beverly Hills, primarily single family homes. Our city is primarily multi-family residences. Public in-put continues to be ignored.

Traffic and parking solutions seem to just pop up randomly, they get implemented randomly and we are left holding the bag, trying to cope with the mess. There is no comprehensive plan, the only study we have is an updated version of a ten year old assessment and that's two years old. We need more parking in this town, why hasn't this issue been a priority. Parking is now translated and defined as overdevelopment and condemned by the slow growth advocates. Public in-put says different.

I recently read an editorial on how City Hall ( SMRR politicians) have run amuck for the last ten years, perpetuating their own need to stay in power over the needs of the community; I agree. Residents and small businesses in SM are being choked out. Any redevelopment project that is proposed is crucified in the name of `slow growth'. Even if the project would reduce the impact of parking in residential areas or better an existing structure that has been neglected; we all have an area like that in our neighborhood. Progressive?

We have turned our town into Disneyland North and then turn around and blame the luxury hotels and other major corporations for being here. What did we expect would happen when we turned Santa Monica into a tourist mecca. Now that were built out to the Max, SMRR is touting the slow growth banner, that's convenient. Slow growth is not the solutions, a plan to remedy what we have now is.

The damage is done. What we need to do is take a good look at the CHAOS and start to determine what we can do to relieve the impacts that this unplanned community is putting on its residents and small businesses. We need to stop buying into the phony (let's get elected) slow growth platform, it's a little late for that, and start setting our course to a well planned community.

It is time for a change in SM, the rebels of the 70's have become the `Establishment' of 2000. Too much power corrupts, we need to go back to having representation, not be engineered by the SMRR political machine. Get out and vote in Novembe