AmorosoNate said:

Venetian said:

zappaman said:

SaltWater said:

The lesson here kids is that SM and the people who live there and govern it have there *#!%$! together way more than the sorry-ass leaders of LA/Venice. I mean c'mon, let's be honest- SM isn't a bad neighbor. LA/Venice is the bad neighbor.

Could not agree more, Saltwater!

yup. 

These comments only reinforce the truth of the last clause in my orignal post…..

 
AmorosoNate: You mean this one?

One, they aggressively and intentionally try to push problems on their neighbors whenever possible, and two, we let them get away with it.

You make it sound as if SM City Council sits around plotting how to eff-over Venice and LA and poor pitiful Venice is their victim.

SaltWater said:

 

 
AmorosoNate: You mean this one?

One, they aggressively and intentionally try to push problems on their neighbors whenever possible, and two, we let them get away with it.

You make it sound as if SM City Council sits around plotting how to eff-over Venice and LA and poor pitiful Venice is their victim.

To call it "plotting" is hyperbole. "Intentional" is not. Santa Monica has done a lot things that they've later come to regret and then taken actions to "fix" their problems which have basically moved the problem to neighboring communities.

It's well known that Santa Monica was a haven for the dispossessed for years. Relative to their size, Santa Monica had a huge homeless population, in large part because the city welcomed and funded numerous food programs, and the residents and police were very tolerant and easy-going about the transient population. As you'd expect, free food, great weather and a live-and-let-be attitude resulted in an ever increasing homeless population (sound familiar?). Around the year 2000, Santa Monica did a 180 (or at least a 135) and started cracking down, becoming much less tolerant. Life in Santa Monica suddenly became quite a bit more difficult for the homeless and they started to get pushed out. Where do you think many of them went? Brentwood, the Palisades? Back home to Nebraska or Oregon? I'm not putting all the blame for Venice's homeless issues on Santa Monica – but it didn't help. Santa Monica creating a highly welcoming environment for transients, and then decided it was a bad idea and started encouraging them to leave. Clearly, Santa Monica was "aggressively" and "intentionally" trying to push-out the very people they had been welcoming and accommodating a few years earlier. Even if Santa Monica city officials weren't sitting in a meeting "plotting" against Venice, the implications for what they were doing should have been obvious.

The airport is an even more egregious example. A group of Venice residents has had some discussions with the FAA and a couple of things have become clear. First, there is no compelling safety or regulatory reason why the flight pattern has to turn south at Lincoln and fly over Los Angeles, it could just as easily go north and fly over Santa Monica. Why doesn't it? Because Santa Monica doesn't want it to. Why would they want to the flight schools to buzz Santa Monica residents, when they can dump it on Los Angeles. This is certainly "intentional".

Second, the FAA has admitted that it is highly unusual for an airport to have more than 2-3 flight schools – SMO effectively has seven. Why? Because more business licenses and airport activity means more revenue and Santa Monica owns the airport. Since the noise and pollution created by the flight schools is largely borne by residents of Los Angeles, there was no reason not to sign-up more flight schools. Only recently has Santa Monica taken a stance against more flight schools, largely due to a very well organized and substantial resistance from residents of Sunset Park, which is just about the only neighborhood in Santa Monica that suffers from airport operations. This may be more benign neglect than "intentional" but they clearly weren't thinking about who was going to listen to those seven schools when they rubber stamped the business licenses.

Third, the FAA recently did a "test" to route some SMO departures so that they turn northwest almost immediately after take-off. The reason was to reduce traffic congestion by moving their flight path away from LAX traffic coming from the south. The result was a noticeable increase in the number of operations over Santa Monica residential neighborhoods rather than flying over Penmar and Rose to the sea. With some planes now flying more northwesterly, the implication would be fewer planes flying over Rose. Santa Monica "aggressively" and "intentionally" fought this new departure plan, sending a delegation to DC to discuss the matter in a closed door session with the FAA. Shortly thereafter, the FAA, which subsequent to the meeting had indicated positive results from the test, declared the test over and it hasn't been spoken of again.

So yes, I think the city of Santa Monica "aggressively" and "intentionally" pushes their problems on others. It's especially offensive when Santa Monica's own short-sighted policies created the problem in the first place. I can't blame them, they're acting in their own self interest, but there are clear and obvious repercussions for neighboring communities and Santa Monica doesn't seem to care enough to change their behavior. They're guilty of being bad neighbors.

I don't think Venice is pitiful, otherwise I wouldn't live here, but we do have a hard time getting heard for a couple of reasons. First, LA is a demographically and geographically diverse city with a weak-mayor system and Venice is a tiny corner of that system. It's hard to take definitive action on any issue because there is no concentration of power anywhere. Some people like that. But as much as I love living in LA, I wouldn't call it a great city, like Chicago or New York. Those cities have strong mayors who can make things happen and can be real leaders and advocates for their residents. Santa Monica doesn't have a strong-mayor either, but its smaller size means the scope of its problems are smaller and it's easier to take focused action and get the attention of the machinery of government. Second, Venice is not a particularly cohesive community. One of the best things about Venice is the diversity of its residents and the freedom and tolerance to live and let live. People mind their own business. On the downside, it's incredibly difficult to build consensus in Venice or to take any strong action because people either can't agree or they are too disinterested or disconnected from each other to do anything. I think Venice has been treated and perceived for so long as this place that you just "have to put up with" that a sense of futility and indiffernece pervades it. On the bright side, there has been some hopeful signs of community involvement. Like the outcome or not, the OPD and RV debate did get the city's attention.