Culver City Politics Page

03/12/2023

There is a lot of discussion going on about the exchange between Vice Mayor Yasmine Mcmorrin and City Manager John Nachbar. If you haven’t heard it yet, load this link and go to the 02:57:30 mark. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvT8k02AGns&t=10815

My opinion is that both parties made mistakes here. If you start listening at 02:35:00 mark, Yasmine starts her turn in questioning the Housing and Human Services staff about their budget presentation for the coming year. She began with a statement complaining about the new city policy in dealing with the homeless situation, and then launched into a long series of questions about the various functions of this department.

Although her statements and questions might be interpreted by some as somewhat random and tedious, she was careful throughout to compliment staff on their efforts and took care to not devalue their work.

As she moves onto the issue of setting up Mobile Crisis Units (MCUs), it’s obvious by John’s body language that he is becoming agitated about this issue. Although I am not in a position or have the time to research the background of the progress of the MCU project, it became obvious during the exchange between them that Yasmine was on a subcommittee trying to stand up these units. John, in his capacity as City Manager, decided that the committee was not being productive and took responsibility for moving the project over to his staff. Yasmine is now not happy that the MCU is still not setup and that the timeline proposed to set it up is 18 months.

I think the statement that really set John off happened at 02:55:00 when Yasmine stated that the current system for handling crises is not working, so why is staff trying to create a perfect program before launching it? I found this statement puzzling and unnecessary. What Yasmine proposes is to replace a failing system with a system that is doomed to fail due to lack of planning, and then, I guess, fix the new system on the fly.

John then launched into a statement about his frustrations about the amount of criticism and pressure that is constantly being applied by Yasmine. Keep in mind that she had been questioning staff for more than 20 minutes at this point, and this was the second day in a row of budget meetings. At this point staff and council had had 9 hours of meetings about budget. I think that John was able to sense that his staff were tiring of the questioning, and he felt the need to protect his staff against this unnecessary line of questioning. It would have been better had he simply asked for a recess, calmed his staff if necessary, and then just given Yasmine a simple answer to her question, which was “can the timeline to setup MCU be accelerated?”. Better to talk to Yasmine outside of a public meeting about his frustrations. But John did not make this about race. At all.

Yasmine then decide to pull out the race card for no reason that I can fathom, stating that john was privileged as a “white man” to be able to emote like this. Yasmine then admitted that she is angry sometimes, and John agreed with Yasmine’s statement, saying that he felt anger from her, a lot. Yasmine then accused him of making “another micro-aggression” against her.

To sum up, John expressed frustration. Yasmine then claimed he was privileged as a white man to emote like that. Yasmine claimed that she is angry sometimes, too. John agreed with her statement, and for some reason John agreeing with her statement was interpreted by Yasmine as a micro-aggression.

This makes my head spin. John may not have been at his best in stating his frustrations, but Yasmine bringing race into the equation was uncalled for.

After this exchange ended Yasmine left the meeting. For the final 3 hours! *She left her supporters unrepresented for 3 hours of a Council meeting discussing next year’s budget*. I found this particularly frustrating as she missed a chance to query the transportation department about more service to the Fox Hills area, the area where she resides!

My questions to Yasmine are:
• Why did you leave the meeting?

• Why did you not return given the meeting still had 3 hours to run?

• If there is ever a major emergency in the city requiring activation of the response team, would you be able to be in the room and make decisions while people are shouting at one another?

• Do you feel you did anything wrong in pulling out the race card in this situation?

01/06/2023

Great posting by Al Vera about the minimum wage ordinance.

10/11/2022

City Council Election Recommendations:
Alex Fisch
Dan O'Brien

The shocking revelations of the racist, power grabbing conversations held in secret by LA City Councilmembers shows how important it is to prioritize electing the most ethical people to elected office. That's why I am supporting Fisch and O'Brien.

Alex Fisch is the leader of the three more progressive members of the Council. His positions on homelessness and upzoning have placed him at odds with many homeowners, but following his social media accounts, I find that he thoughtfully defends his positions, with data and examples to back it up. And just as important, he does not villainize or make fun of those who oppose his views.

The only fault I can find is that he is possibly implementing the correct vision for Culver City's future too soon. But I think the changes he advocates are the correct approach and this will be proven true in the next few years. It would be a mistake to deny this forward thinking councilman a second term.

Dan O'Brien is intelligent, a long term resident of the community, has participated in several local organizations and on the Homelessness Committee. He will also be driven by data to make the best decisions for Culver City moving forward.

09/23/2022

Here is a link to the CC City Council Candidates forum that was held on September 20th. The questions asked were good and elicited responses that clearly showed where the candidates stand on the issues facing the city. The author of this page was not involved in planning this event.

Culver City LIVE, 9/20/22 Culver City Council Candidate Forum, hosted by Chamber of Commerce

07/12/2021

Apologies for the lateness of this post concerning the June 23 and 28th meetings, but I wanted to go through the entire meeting and do some research before commenting.

TL;DR
The City Council voted 3-2 to have staff come back with recommended actions to allow multi-unit housing on properties that are currently zoned R1, except for those properties that have a footprint less than 4950 square feet. About 90% of R1 zoned properties exceed 4950 square feet, so if this plan is enacted R1 zoning would essentially not exist in Culver City. There were several hundred speakers, each limited to one minute. Speakers for leaving R1 zoning intact outnumbered those on the other side by at least a five to one margin, and perhaps as high as a ten to one margin. Unfortunately I did not have the time to spend taking a full count of each side.

The following paragraphs are my own random observations about the meeting.

WHY IS COUNCIL TAKING UP THIS ISSUE AT ALL?
Senate Bill 1000 (SB 1000) requires the City to complete an environmental justice element because the City is updating more than two General Plan elements after January 1, 2018 and disadvantaged communities exist in the Planning Area. Given that this is a state law, the city is obligated to respond.

LACK OF UNDERSTANDING OF 1910’s AMERICA
I found a misstatement in the “COMMUNITY HEALTH AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE EXISTING CONDITION S REPORT | MAY 2021”. https://culver-city.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=9484023&GUID=71E4EB8C-6CF4-4BD6-A22F-C5825D999336 This document is stamped with a Culver City General Plan update document, but appears to have been written by Raimi & Associates of Berkeley California. There is a flat misstatement about Harry Culver. The report claims that proof of his racism is contained in an ad published on March 12, 1915. In this ad the city is marketed as a “model little white city.” However, in that timeframe, this phrase literally meant a well lit city with white buildings. This phrase started in 1893 in Chicago at the World’s Columbian Exposition and in that time was not meant to indicate a city built just for white people. https://www.americanheritage.com/white-city #6. I wonder what Raimi Associates thinks about Broadway in NYC being know as “The Great White Way”?

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS AFFORDABLE HOUSING OVERLAY
Council mentioned that what Cambridge has done should be used as a model for Culver City. Here is the ordinance they are referring to: https://www.cambridgema.gov/-/media/Files/CDD/Housing/Overlay/adoptedahoordinance.pdf. I have not had the time to intensively study this document, but I sense that this is the final goal for this council. I am actually surprised that this was not the main focus of the meeting. It would certainly have garnered less vitriol than eliminating R1 zoning.

COUNCILMEMBER McMORRIN
I was surprised how unprepared she was to speak on the issue. She stated that she herself had experienced housing insecurity and that “it is on us to figure out what the solution is.” She then stated that she wants to clarify the link between the zoning change and providing affordable housing for folks, but then she stopped speaking and did not clarify anything.

COUNCILMEMBER LEE
Although I don’t agree with many of his positions, I have to give him kudos for clarifying his goals. I prepared this list based on his statements.
• Not particularly in favor of upzoning (although he voted to have staff move forward with it)
• A 100% affordable housing overlay. Allow people to buy homes at a lower price.
• Wants to see development where low, mid, and market rate housing all exist in the same development.
• CC Government can’t directly build affordable housing due to state amendment 34. He wishes this to be repealed.
• He wants to partner with an affordable housing developer
• Then he states that previous councils neglected to build affordable housing when the chance existed to do so. However Amendment 34 prohibiting local governments from so doing was passed into law in 1950 by proposition 10, so what missed chances is he talking about here?
• At about 5 hours 45 minutes in, he chose to attack those homeowners who are stating that their position on zoning should be prioritized over renters because they pay property taxes. He has an interesting take on this: Prop. 13 “froze property tax rates in the 1970s and has not kept up with the rate of inflation, so homeowners are not paying their fair share.” (counter-argument, see the first two charts in the document here: https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/209 ).
• He then launches into an attack on markets. Markets don’t solve problems, it just enriches people.
• At 5:51 he mentions the death rate of the unhoused in LA. Going back and forth between renters, renters wanting to buy, outsiders wanting to buy, and now homeless, what is the actual goal here?
• He wants to partner with an affordable housing developer
• He also spent some time on a rather pointless (to this issue) discussion of poverty level wages.

We provide additional data on trends in California's property taxes since the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978.

04/27/2021

The 4/26 meeting of the City Council was dominated by a discussion and action on changes in policing in Culver City. I will not comment on the council's action yet, as I have not had time to review it.

I listened to almost 4 hours of citizen speakers and became so frustrated that I tuned out. There were mostly two viewpoints presented over and over. Either "the police three decades ago were bad in this (ancient history) sundown town, the police are still bad in other towns, and we need to make changes"

-OR-

"We have the the best police force in the region, but crime is rising and changing anything now will endanger our citizens".

The real lowlights heard from the public was a speaker that leveled racial baiting charges against Vice Mayor Lee and another speaker that made accusations of posting homophobic, misogynistic, and racist language on social media sites by the leader of Protect Culver City.

First of all, everybody, you only have 2 minutes to speak. There is no way you can give us the proof and the context for these accusations in 2 minutes. The virulence leveled at Vice Mayor Lee was truly vicious.

How can anyone have so little respect for a councilperson? This is someone who devoted time, energy, and money to a campaign, gathered enough votes to be elected, and now spends hours several evenings a month in council meetings. The councilpeople do this for paltry compensation of about 6000 dollars/yr, and rarely does a councilperson rise to a higher elected position. They serve because they love Culver City.

I did not vote for Mr. Lee, I do not agree with some of his policies, but this name calling was truly shameless on the speaker's part. It's an open meeting, everyone has a right to say what they wish, but we don't have to like it or let it go without criticism.

02/24/2021

City Council Agenda Organization

At the 2/22/21 city council meeting, a resolution to ask the state to do a study to investigate possible closure of a gas storage facility in Playa Del Rey was discussed first, before the agenda item about the Culver City commercial tenant eviction moratorium. Why was an item over which the council does not have direct control discussed first?

The state study resolution was not time critical, the change to the eviction moratorium was as the moratorium was set to expire on March 31 if no action is taken

Does not make sense to order the time critical item to the end of the meeting when the council members are already fatigued after almost 4 hours.

08/03/2020

For those who saw my previous post about the effort to increase the Real Property Transfer Tax, I had the time to listen in on the Financial Advisory Committee (FAC) discussion about the advice that they will give to council.

In general, I am skeptical of any tax increase. However, if council acts on the advice of the FAC, this is a tax that I would support. It is progressive, not affecting tax rates on properties that sell for below 1.5 million dollars.

The first 1.5 million dollars in proceeds is taxed at the existing rate of 0.45%. If you sell your home for 2 million dollars, only 500,000 dollars is taxed at the 1.5% rate.

I have included a link to the proposed action that will be the subject of a council meeting tonight, August 3. The short version is as follows:

"increasing the City Real Property Transfer Tax rate on certain real property sales or transfers by adding 1.5% on sales amounts from $1,500,000 to $2,999,999; 3% on amounts from $3,000,000 to $9,999,999; and 4% on amounts equal to or over $10,000,000"

https://culver-city.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8700442&GUID=9E1B1510-601F-482E-A751-CDF516008E09

This seems to me a reasonable and non-punitive tax measure to make up for the current budget deficit.

07/29/2020

h/t to Protect Culver City and Dennis Page.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
ACTION ALERT: Real Property Transfer Tax?
Financial Advisory Committee meeting TONIGHT 7pm
CLICK the webex link to register to join. https://culvercity.webex.com/mw3300/mywebex/default.do?nomenu=true&siteurl=culvercity&service=6&rnd=0.9533059394972335&main_url=https%3A%2F%2Fculvercity.webex.com%2Fec3300%2Feventcenter%2Fevent%2FeventAction.do%3FtheAction%3Ddetail%26%26%26EMK%3D4832534b00000004b42ac31ce285aa54bd0a7e27d68173719a2da9a11e8c92d29a973f41402cb255%26siteurl%3Dculvercity%26confViewID%3D167934792798584680%26encryptTicket%3DSDJTSwAAAAT_t3PdVO8QqMKb9wSZBc8pbqkfJMoPtqiQk-d-mrkxdg2%26

Make yourself heard!

It's not enough that our council is setting a wrecking ball to our neighborhoods. Now they want to tax anyone trying to move out.

Monday night at council meeting, Alex Fisch asked members to raise transfer taxes, and the "gang of four" asked, "How high?"

When "Staff" presented projected revenues, the smallest number was $12.1M, the next higher $16.6M and the highest $19.6M. The "gang of four" immediately started thinking about what they can spend the money on.

There was not one word about the damage unusually high taxes does to the community.

"Staff" gave a rather misleading chart (attached) on various transfer tax rates in cities across California. The "Staff" chart shows (by my count) 25 jurisdictions having transfer taxes *higher* than $.55 per thousand. The "All other cities" line represents 447 other jurisdictions with tax rates at $.55 per thousand.

Only 12 have higher transfer taxes than Culver City today. I included a complete list (attached). Compared to the complete list, and one easily sees how the "Staff" presentation misleads.

The proposed tax increase would make Culver City the #1 highest. What makes Culver City that different? That special?

Transfer taxes were originally put in place to compensate jurisdictions for the cost of documentation and recordkeeping. Now that some jurisdictions "got away with" taxing rates to fund other non-property-transfer-related expenses, Culver City doesn't want to miss out, and, in fact, the "gang of four" want to lead the state.

"Staff" presentation:
https://culver-city.legistar.com/View.ashx?M=F&ID=8687363&GUID=84F2CDE4-7A23-4F51-8046-4B53DE6C513D

Complete list:
http://www.californiacityfinance.com/PropTransfTaxRates.pdf

07/13/2020

06/29/2020

I created this page to post logical arguments against defunding the CCPD. However, the arguments for defunding are so absurd and ridiculous that I decided I needed to add some levity to maintain my sanity. So here you go. h/t to the Seattle Politics Page.