The Santa Moinca City Council will meet to review the cuts on May 5. Your help is needed immediately to stop these devastating cuts that will negatively affect our quality of life, jeopardize safety, and delay economic recovery. Learn more on about vital services the Transportation and Mobility Division continues to provide on a daily basis, including now during this time of crisis? Learn here
Draft Email template is below.
Include a personal note, short is ok, to let them know how these cuts will affect the safety of you and your family. Thank you!
Address your email to all City Council members and Planning Commissioners listed below:
In solidarity,
DRAFT EMAIL TEMPLATE – Please personalize as you wish.
To: councilmtgitems@smgov.net; info@smgov.net, gleam.davis@smgov.net, terry.oday@smgov.net, anamaria.jara@smgov.net, kevin.mckeown@smgov.net, sue.himmelrich@smgov.net, greg.morena@smgov.net, ted.winterer@smgov.net, council@smgov.net, council.mailbox@smgov.net, leslie.lambert@smgov.net, richard.mckinnon@smgov.net, elisa.paster@smgov.net, shawn.landres@smgov.net, mario.fonda-bonardi@smgov.net, jim.ries@smgov.net, nina.fresco@smgov.net, planning@smgov.net
Subject: Item 8-A, May 5th – Safe Streets & Economic Recovery
Dear Santa Monica City Council and Leadership:
Transportation work assures public safety and economic activity — operating signals and roads on which we all depend. The streets we travel on make up over 20% of our city, and are one of our biggest assets. Mobility staff provide essential fiber optic network infrastructure, signal timing with regular adjustments, and Opticom first-responder systems. Proactive maintenance of these systems ensures faster response to emergencies and saves lives.
When transportation staff do their jobs right, ironically, nobody notices. But there is constant work to keep our City flowing safely.
- Solve loading, parking and access issues for businesses as they reopen, relocate or launch.
- Keep people safe on streets with speed management, functioning street signals, protections for pedestrians and cyclists, and emergency response.
- Provide for physical distancing on sidewalks, queuing for essential services, and healthy access to outdoor restaurant & retail.
- Preserve residential neighborhoods and our community’s well-being with slow streets for access to safe movement, fresh air and essential exercise close to home.
- Catalyze revenue growth for local businesses and the community alike, through streamlined processing, expanding access, and fair fees for corporate use of public sidewalks, driveways, and streets.
These essential safety and life supporting functions are under threat with budget cuts that would reduce necessary staff capacity of the City’s Transportation and Mobility Division. Commitment to supporting equitable access is essential to Santa Monica’s recovery. Santa Monica’s Mobility staff manage critical transportation infrastructure and services as essential government functions, which directly contribute capacity for healthy economic growth. Transportation infrastructure and planning services combined with multi-modal mobility are the very foundation of a thriving, resilient new economy based on public safety, equity, and sustainability.
How we manage our streets – or ignore them – will move us either toward environmental justice, economic recovery and climate resiliency or away from those vital community and city goals.
While the City suffers catastrophic shortfalls, we should not use a sledgehammer where a scalpel is needed to balance new budgets. We urge the Council to be strategic and lean on staff expertise for thoughtful “restructuring†that reduces costs and bureaucracy while retaining essential capacity that builds confidently on the foundation and programs that our public roadways and investments afford us as they advance us to a vibrant and full recovery.
Sincerely,