We wrote the following letter to the editor to Culver City News, regarding their article on Bryan “Bubba” Fish’s recent campaign:
Dear Editor,
Bryan “Bubba” Fish uses misleading terms to describe his platform in your article “Fish places safe street and housing at top of agenda”. I’d like to elaborate on what he means in its three pillars: “safe streets, housing for all of us, and care-first budget.”
“Housing for all of us” means “housing first” – the philosophy that unless we have permanent supportive housing available for anyone who sleeps on our streets, we cannot touch them or their belongings.
Needless to say, this attitude on the Council majority would bring back every transient camp we worked so hard to clean up over the past two years.
When Fish claims he wants “safe streets”, he is not talking about crime prevention or public safety. He wants to “ban cars” as the main public safety threat. When Council opened up the second car lane downtown, his argument against it was not traffic-based. It’s that this will exacerbate climate change. Meanwhile, he opposed cleaning up the transient camps at the freeway underpasses (like Venice/405), as it goes against his “housing first” philosophy. He also supported the ridiculous “bulbout” proposal at Washington Blvd., rather than clean up the sidewalk camp. Even by his own standards – if the sidewalks are used for transient camps, and only cars can safely traverse, how is this “safe streets?”
When Fish says “care-first budget” he’s talking about defunding the police – namely the 50% reduction progressives have wanted for our city since the George Floyd riots of June 2020. He advocated against the StarChase program – which allows police in pursuit to launch a “sticky GPS” device on the target vehicle, thus avoiding an unsafe chase. It’s his argument that should give pause – that police would use it haphazardly, without attempting a stop. This is a basic slander of our police department as unaccountable and unmonitored. His very philosophy is police are dangerous, unnecessary, and should be abolished. Which is effectively what a 50% reduction would do.
Protect Culver City has had to chase down many constituents with the reality of a Fish Council. He’s been misleading on the campaign trail as well – avoiding the fact he would defund police, bring back transient camps, and impose more road diets. Hopefully your publication can help set the record straight.
Ron Bassilian, President
Protect Culver City