See email here: https://imgur.com/a/gA5Njqw

If you’ve been following the local turf wars at all, it has been, at best, confusing why SMMUSD – unlike other nearby districts like LAUSD and of course the City of Santa Monica itself – has been so gung ho on installing artificial turf on its campuses. Even if you buy the arguments about “field availability” for older students (I don’t, but let’s put that aside for the sake of argument…), District COO Carey Upton has been pushing turf even for our littlest kids, including 4 year olds (!). This is even though turf gets much hotter than real grass on warm days, and turf temps have regularly exceeded 130 degrees in just the past couple of months. Carey Upton has gone so far as to install turf at the new Ocean Park School House without Coastal Commission permits and is currently pushing turf for the new Roosevelt TK/K yard. Parents and other community members have been upset, not just at these decisions but in the way they’ve been treated in raising these issues.

What many parents and community members don’t know, however, is just how cozy Upton is with the artificial turf industry, and just how dismal our superintendent and the School Board have been in rooting out his inappropriate and unethical behavior. It honestly boggles this mind how they allow this stuff, but just to keep it relatively short, here’s a top 5. Tencate (a turf manufacturer) sure is right that Upton is a “fantastic champion,” but I think the community deserves to know who they’re dealing with…

1) Upton literally accepts gifts from the artificial turf industry: https://imgur.com/a/gi9VQKt.

I personally find it insane that the District doesn’t already prevent gifts from its vendors? If this were the City, this would be a straightforward violation of the Oaks Initiative, because I guess the City just has higher (better) ethical standards? Note that Upton’s never mentioned this at the dozens of meetings about the topic.

2) Upton speaks at Tencate-hosted conferences: https://imgur.com/a/a445nTW. Looks like he’s pretty excited about it 🙃: https://imgur.com/a/i8Unctr.

He then has Tencate reps speak before the School Board, without mentioning this to the public. Our superintendent (Dr. Antonio Shelton) shouldn’t be let off the hook either. He has also spoken at one of these conferences and has also failed to mention that to the public, despite knowing this is a contentious issue: https://imgur.com/a/VjAI7JP.

3) Upton has offered to lobby the City of LA on Tencate’s behalf and used his SMMUSD email address to lobby State Senator Ben Allen in defense of turf (luckily Ben is a champion on this issue!): https://imgur.com/a/Tyx5pW0. And: https://imgur.com/a/ftj5wlZ

Most recently, he went to Culver City’s Sustainability Commission to promote turf. I struggle to understand how this is an acceptable use of time for someone with (admittedly) so many job responsibilities?

4) Upton has zero problem being dishonest with the community – here, taking an, at best, disingenuous approach to zoning to avoid community input on turf: https://imgur.com/a/0aTbV2T

From the linked email to School Board member Laurie Lieberman: “Politically, it is better exempt the project now rather than needing to exempt the project on a specific new challenge. (An example, tonight the SM Sustainability Commission is discussing banning a synthetic turf. If they were to do this, the BOE would need to exempt the project to put in a synthetic turf field. Voting on this when it is a community issue would be more of a challenge.”

Bonus anger points: check out how Upton talks about street safety advocates! This is the guy designing “safe” pick up and drop off for our kids. Lovely.

5) Upton – along with Shelton, Laurie Lieberman, and Jon Kean – tried to push the PTA study in their own direction, attempting to exempt play yards for our littlest kids [Note that the PTA study refused to listen to them because they actually gaf…]. I highly recommend reading this email chain in full to get a sense of how manipulative these people are, how afraid they are of disagreement, and just a sense of how they operate in general. It’s unbecoming to say the least: https://imgur.com/a/luavPgU.

Gems in here include School Board Jon Kean accusing the study group, including an environmental sciences professor, of being “biased.” I’d love to understand what definition of “bias” would include the study’s authors, but not their COO who literally accepts gifts from the industry. I don’t think Jon will be explaining that one anytime soon though.

And really impeccable logic from Laurie – “I saw turf in Chicago, so it must be fine, even for little kids!” Seriously, this is the level of analysis and concern that Laurie Lieberman, running for a fifth term, brings to issues the community cares about.

TL;DR:

We so, so desperately need a more serious School Board who will be vigilant about these issues. Even if artificial turf is not your issue, Upton’s behavior is absolutely unethical and unacceptable. And, amazingly, this is the same guy they have overseeing the failing HVAC and the ~$1 billion in construction (which I’ve voted for!). A School Board that allows this behavior, and indeed enables it, is failing to perform its basic oversight role for the community.

Kicker email: https://imgur.com/a/qns2aEK. Maybe, Laurie, people blame Carey because they should? Maybe people blame Carey because the Board isn’t doing its job?

I've been corresponding with the City about several parking-related issues lately, and I'm curious whether others are having similar experiences.

1. We have license plate recognition, but parking garages still depend on paper tickets.

On Wednesday, I pulled into the Civic Center parking structure, where the SKIDATA entry terminal displayed an "out of fan-fold tickets" error. I had to contact an attendant, who asked for my name to document my entry.

Oddly enough, almost the exact same thing happened to me in June. At the time, the City's Parking Manager acknowledged that collecting my name was unnecessary.

Santa Monica approved $1.2 million license plate recognition project intended to streamline operations across nine parking structures. The Civic Center structure has already been equipped with LPR, and a $600,000 budget request specifically described the technology as a way to streamline garage entry.

Except running out of paper tickets can still disrupt the entire process.

SKIDATA offers license plate-based entry capabilities, and its equipment can alert operators when ticket supplies are running low. So why isn't LPR being used as a fallback? Are low-ticket notifications being monitored? And how does a public parking garage repeatedly run out of tickets in the first place? Why is it parking fees go up but the level of service goes down?

2. Paying for parking doesn't necessarily prevent you from getting a citation.

In September, I paid for a meter using the City's IPS TXT2PAY system. I have the receipt documenting the meter number, payment, and time period.

Unfortunately due to a radio communications issue the meter didn't reflect the payment, and I received a citation anyway.

I submitted the receipt with my appeal. The City subsequently serviced the meter, but I'm still waiting for a decision on the citation.

Shouldn't the City's enforcement system be able to reconcile a paid meter number and timestamp before issuing a citation? Why should residents and visitors have to prove transactions that the City's own payment processor has already recorded?

3. It can take 4–8 weeks just to get an initial parking citation review.

Parking Operations confirmed that contested citations can take up to eight weeks for an initial decision, despite the City's website indicating three to four weeks. I was also informed that initial reviews are handled by the Police Department.

Why is reviewing a potentially expired parking meter citation a police responsibility in the first place? When you contest an administrative decision the city's file is sent by the City's "revenue division" which is reason enough for some judges to dismiss a ticket. And with SMPD reportedly back to full staffing, why are reviews taking up to four weeks longer than the City's published timeframe? Eight weeks to review a timestamped payment receipt?

How much time is spent reviewing citations that better integration between the City's payment and enforcement systems could have prevented altogether.

Parking operations had also said.. a lot of people are contesting tickets.. probably because a class action is imminent?

4. And introducing yet another parking technology system.

The City announced a new Metropolis pilot that will introduce ticketless, license plate-based entry at three parking structures beginning in November.

According to the Parking Manager, the existing SKIDATA/INEX access-control system is separate from Metropolis, which operates the garages.

Yes, these are different systems, but Metropolis acquired SP+, the City's parking operator AFTER the City already approved the 1.2M budget for LPR upgrades. Is this new pilot being driven by that acquisition and the operator's preferred technology, or because the City's existing LPR infrastructure can't deliver ticketless entry?

Why are we introducing another technology solution when we've already invested substantially in LPR? What functionality is missing from the existing system, and who's accountable for making sure taxpayers actually receive the operational improvements they paid for?

Parking fees have been restructured, substantial amounts of public money are being invested in new technology, and the City regularly talks about operational efficiencies. Yet from the perspective of someone actually using these facilities, some pretty basic things still aren't working.

Why are we spending money on technology versus actually improving operations? Has anyone else experienced malfunctioning parking equipment, citations despite paying, or unusually long review times?

The torn pigeon netting is entangling and killing pigeons under the pier. On my last survey, I counted over 20 dead pigeons in the pedestrian walkway section alone. Entanglement is one of the worst ways an animal can die, as it slowly starves and dehydrates.

An article released in LAist supports that the netting is not working as intended, as birds actively nest and perch on the netting. This is an animal cruelty concern and a public health issue, as the torn netting may encourage even more pigeons to perch and breed under the pier and pollute the water. And it is a bad image for the city to have dead pigeons hanging above pedestrians at a major tourism hotspot.

I think the netting should be removed, and perhaps a non-lethal deterrent (like bird spikes) should be used instead. Netting requires precise installation and maintenance in order to safely exclude pigeons, but the city is clearly incapable of maintaining it. The torn net under the pier has instead become both a breeding and killing ground for pigeons. 

There are already talks about removing the net, due to the pigeons breeding upon it, exacerbating the pollution issue. However, they do not have an actual timeline.

Please email the pier management at [pier.management@santamonica.gov](mailto:pier.management@santamonica.gov) about this, and speak up at city hall to tell them to remove the net ASAP.

Noooooooooooooooooo

Edit: there were some bad actors in here, and the conversation is chopped up a bit because I think some mods ejected him from the thread

We are looking for a full time barista. Please share to anyone interested!

There are numerous studios in the area, and so many of them have classes that say all levels or beginner levels, but they don’t actually teach or accommodate beginners well. I don’t know anything about poses, breathing and proper form. A true beginner who really wants to fall in love with yoga. I’m not athletic or flexible. Thanks!

https://smmirror.com/retraction-from-curious-city-columnist-charles-andrews/

PACS and candidates spend a lot of advertising dollars leading up to an election. Thanks to laws around donor and expenditure reporting we know more about where their money comes from and how it gets spent.

Meta's Ad Library is a way to find out how many eyeballs a social media advertising budget buys for political measures and people asking for your vote during election season, here in Santa Monica or where ever you might have friends or family:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/library/

Thanks to cases like Citizens United money buys speech and spots on a ballot, but there are ways for us to see how that plays out in real time and how that money puts a finger (or several) on the scale when it comes to the democratic process.

The phrase “residents first” gets said a lot this election. We kept getting stuck on which Santa Monica residents that’s supposed to mean. The answer looks pretty different depending on when you first moved into your apartment, whether you run a business here, or whether you couldn’t find an affordable place in the city at all.

So we went back through the Rent Control Board’s annual reports, RAND’s new report on the city’s economy, and looked at how the council voted on a handful of related decisions going back to 2015. This is a longer read, about 15 minutes. It ends with three questions we’d want every city council candidate to answer.

Before publishing we wrote to SMRR and to the lead author of the RAND report. Neither replied.

https://oursantamonica.com/investigations/which-residents-come-first

If any number in it is wrong, let us know and we’ll look into it.

Seems to be the time of closings :-/

Spotted at 7am in Santa Monica on 10/13/26

Why do we get saddled with these people? Enough. https://www.smdp.com/meth-addict-cuts-internet-service-for-hundreds-of-frontier-subscribers-over-the-weekend/?ref=smdp-daily-newsletter. You can see that he is a repeat unstable a-hole. Just a few years ago he was wandering around SMC with a fake gun and an open assault warrant in Ventura. - https://www.thecorsaironline.com/corsair/2023/3/30/arrest-at-center-of-media-and-design-calls-campus-safety-into-question.

In July 2025, Lana placed an item on the city council agenda "waiving City fees not to exceed $15,000 for the Butterfly Brawl", a boxing event run by Mark Habibi. In May 2026, Habibi made a $1,200 donation to Negrete. In July of this year, Lana placed another item on the city council agenda "waiving City fees not to exceed $16,950 and also approve $12,500 in Council discretionary funds to support the Butterfly Brawl".

This adds up to two separate Levine Act violations by Lana, at least one by Habibi, and also at least one violation by Negrete of the anti-corruption Santa Monica Oaks Initiative, enshrined in the Santa Monica city code as Article XXII Taxpayer Protection.

You can get future articles directly in your email inbox by subscribing at https://mastbaum.beehiiv.com/subscribe or using the subscribe box at the bottom of the linked article. I also have an RSS feed.

https://www.westsidecurrent.com/venice/wabi-on-rose-announces-permanent-closure/article_88da8100-ec5b-4a98-8c01-b594da7786f1.html

I want to hear fellow residents opinions!

Background:

$75 per a visitor pass

$45 per a resident one

increased pricing a year ago or so

only valid on their calendar year and do not transfer when you move

I live in Ocean Park five blocks from the beach (off Lincoln). We have parking permits for our whole block to allow us to park during business hours. Since it is off Lincoln, there are not many high traffic business so I am confused as to why we need them. The exception is on weekends with a local coffee shop but they seem to park on our street and never get a ticket. They have only ticketed the street once in my four years here and it was the day after the permits changed over. At night when tons of cars seem to park and it's a battle for a spot the permits are not valid. Night permits or full day permits would be much more helpful to us residents

Rose area just got two hour parking with permits for the whole block?!?

20th and OP has zones everywhere, maybe to stop smc parking maybe but I find that hard to believe as SMC has a lot of parking

high traffic Montana doesn't have them?!?

My opinion is they are a source of revenue for the city which is in dire needs of funds more than they are helpful for us residents with the exception of if you live by the beach or super high traffic area

Something troubling is happening at the Santa Monica Daily Press. Susan Sheu wrote a letter to the editor questioning Doug Trussler's business record. Letters from Trussler and Dylan Nugent defending him followed. Those letters disappeared or never appeared online, taking the opportunity for comments and public debate with them.

Agree or disagree with Sheu, her questions are legitimate. Trussler is running on his business leadership experience, yet won't even acknowledge he's a private equity investor. He is. It's on his company Bison Capital's website. Whether it's Sentinel, FinFit, or another investment, these are decisions HE made. That's the record he's asking voters to trust.

Nugent's letter compared his involvement with Sentinel to owning stocks in a 401(k). Seriously? That's absurd. Bison controlled over 90% of Sentinel, and Trussler sat on its board. The company profited from fees charged to low-income people, faced lawsuits, a Human Rights Watch investigation, Vice documentary, congressional scrutiny, and direct appeals to Trussler from civil rights groups. He was in a position to make meaningful changes. He claims he did; those claims deserve scrutiny too.

Meanwhile, Trussler is throwing crazy money around this election. Campaign filings show $33,660 paid to SMDP through September 19, nearly a month ago. It could easily be over $40-50k now. Nugent's letter defending him even featured a big Doug Trussler campaign ad with his face right in the middle of it. Now the article returns a 404 "page not found" error.

These are debates about a candidate's actual decisions and leadership. If elected, those decisions will affect people's lives, livelihoods, and futures.

The information is out there. Anyone with a search engine and access to AI can begin examining his companies and investments. Even his claims about extensive corporate board experience deserve verification. Publicly cited figures vary, and I've only been able to verify 31 board positions despite him claiming over 100. That's a 3x difference. That's exactly the kind of discrepancy a journalist should investigate.

People are free to believe Doug Trussler's claims. But believing someone isn't the same as verifying their record. Maybe SMDP should do what a real newspaper does: put a reputable reporter on the story, investigate the companies, examine his decisions, and establish what's true and what isn't.

SMDP, if you let Trussler buy influence and silence the public, you're no longer an objective news outlet. You're part of the problem.

Money shouldn't determine what the public gets to read. Huh, SMDP?

While I have always enjoyed standing in line and chatting with my neighbors waiting to vote in person, this year I’ll be dropping off my ballot ahead of time. Apparently the ballot drop boxes are officially open for business.

Check your mailbox for your ballot and voter guide!

Sorry for the AI-generated info, I couldn’t find anything else without IG.

(Reposted with correct date.)

really will miss their salads!!! always felt like the space was too big for them though

Hi!! Anyone have a successful story with their own kiddo or know someone who is very good at math and understands very smart pre-teens who just don’t get math? Looking for a tutor/study partner for an active, hilarious, creative 12yo girl who just cannot focus or retain Math as it is being instructed at school*. A few evenings a week, the parents will pay whatever is necessary. They have tried UCLA tutors, Kumon - but I am a relative with kinda the same issue and her parents don’t want this impacting our bond - she needs someone who can make it interesting/fun and relevant to her. Many amazing things have come from reddit convos - would love to hear any advice or success stories. She loves tech and could do it over Zoom or if there was an online program your kiddo loved - just thought I would put this out here and see what comes back. Thanks for reading!

*attends a great private school so spec ed/specialized math instruction isn’t totally an option. Staff has offered to assist after school but she isn’t really into it (needs something DIFFERENT in the approach, not just 1:1 repeat of the day’s lesson).

Hey everyone! I’m just wondering if you guys have any recommendations for live music on Thursdays in or around Santa Monica. My boss is staying nearby from NY and I don’t know too many places! Any recommendations would be much appreciated.

Planning a bachelorette trip here and need good recommendations for places to go. I need the best place for brunch, lunch and dinner. A winery in Malibu for wine tasting, best nightlife (night clubs and cocktail places), a good hiking spot and any other places you can recommend for our trip!

Hi! I’m a writer for the Santa Monica highschool news paper (The Samohi, check it out) I’m hoping to do a feature piece on the people who create haunted houses on Montana. Does anyone know the house numbers and/or any contact information?? Thank you so much!