Protect our law enforcement
People are attracted to Culver City because it’s an oasis of neighborly calm in a turbulent city. This is thanks to our elite police department, whose response time and accessibility is bar none. And yet at council meeting after council meeting, we hear radicals lay baseless attacks on them. They’re here to protect our city, council is here to oversee them. We’re here to make sure that balance is met and they have the tools they need to perform their jobs.
Protect our vagrancy laws
We’ll be blunt. Our vagrancy laws are on thin ice. Municipalities everywhere are being sued for the simple act of keeping their streets clean, regardless of how sensitively they do it, and regardless of the menace these camps present to residents. We’ve been under threat of litigation, and our council responds by giving our police orders not to disturb vagrants camping in our parks.
This should be doubly concerning, as our mayor is using our citywide vagrancy epidemic as a pretext for passing rent control, calling it a “homegrown humanitarian crisis.” Thus she implies the vagrants we see on our streets are local renters kicked out due to rising rents, and not a spillover from the city and a public safety crisis. Culver City First Responders all agree that the majority of the populations in Homeless encampments are seriously mentally ill and / or drug addicted and need skilled intervention.
We want to stand as defenders of our vagrancy laws and will fight to hold them up in court if necessary. If our city council settles with a plaintiff to nullify our vagrancy laws, we can say goodbye to our safe & clean streets.
Protect our covenant with homeowners and businesses
People who move here are attracted to what our city has to offer. They buy homes and invest in businesses based on an expectation and a promise from the city that it won’t be taken away arbitrarily. We agree that Los Angeles is getting more crowded, and we need more housing built to match demand.
But we’re concerned with council’s new obsession with unlimited upzoning. They support eliminating R1 zoning – so developers can build 4 houses over any single family home. And they support turning our parks into more housing – a dangerous precedent.
We are also concerned with punitive and arbitrary solutions to housing that will wind up limiting or even demolishing what units are currently available. We think rent control is a horrible solution to rising rents. We think it will drive many multifamily units off the market – some of the most affordable housing left in Los Angeles. These are mainly owned by retirees and mom and pop operations, who will be forced to sell to developers of luxury condos. It will reduce housing options for families and make housing even more scarce and expensive for the majority of renters.
We are also concerned this comes from council’s new adversarial relationship with private business – something they did run on. This is not healthy for anyone. Such an attitude towards business will cause small business to flee, commerce to stagnate, and will leave our city in the lurch.
Hold our city council accountable
At the inaugural meeting for our two newest city council members, a Brown Act violation occurred and since then they haven’t changed their character. They have shown no desire to unify the city after a contentious election. Indeed they have proven to follow an agenda that goes against what the vast majority of Culver City residents want.
Some residents want to try to talk some sense into them, and we respect that approach. However, we feel the need for legitimate outside pressure. We will mobilize residents with action alerts and ballot measures if necessary. We will provide a counter to the various “action groups” allied with current council who we fear may not even live or work in our city.
Educate our fellow residents on the issues
Our council meetings have been hijacked by loaded, slippery language and minimal notification of key issues. Nobody knows what to believe anymore. Be it housing, vagrancy, policing, our oil fields, or other issues. People feel left in the dark about what’s happening.
We want to collect real data to present to residents, not biased agenda-driven anecdotes. We want to present it to residents, be it through forums, informationals, or other outreach methods. We want people to be informed about the changes in our city and the greater city of Los Angeles which surrounds us. A common understanding of facts is the first step to healing our community.