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Dan O'Brien Newsletter — June 29, 2026
📬 Councilmember Dan O'Brien | Culver City | June 29, 2026
Friends and neighbors,
There is a certain energy that arrives with summer, and this year it is hard to miss. The World Cup is being played a few miles from our doorstep, the country is about to celebrate its 250th birthday, and Culver City keeps finding new reasons to come together.
I felt all of it at once a couple of weeks ago, in a stadium of more than seventy thousand people, watching New Zealand and Iran trade goals to a 2-2 draw. The football was thrilling, but what stayed with me was the feeling in the stands: love of country and love of one another, side by side, no matter whose flag you came waving. That same spirit carries straight into the weeks ahead. Here is what is coming.
⚽ The World Cup Landed in Our Backyard
🔹 A World Cup match, a few miles from City Hall. New Zealand and Iran played to a 2-2 draw at SoFi Stadium in neighboring Inglewood, in front of a crowd north of seventy thousand. For a tournament that only visits this part of the world once every few decades, having it this close to Culver City is its own kind of gift.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: When the world shows up to our region, our restaurants, hotels, shops, and studios land on a map that millions of visitors are reading. The same wave of attention the Olympics will bring in 2028 is getting a trial run right now, and Culver City is close enough to feel the lift.
→ 🎯 My take: I was lucky enough to be there for a sold-out match, but a night like that is better when nobody needs a ticket to share in it. That is exactly what the Downtown screening the Council greenlit for July 19 is for: a place to feel the same roar without leaving Culver City. When the world comes this close to home, my hope is simple, that as many neighbors as possible get to be part of it.
👉 See the match from the stands (Instagram)
🏳️🌈 Pride at The Culver Steps
🔹 Culver City PRIDE returned for its sixth year this past Saturday. On June 27, Town Plaza at The Culver Steps filled up for an evening of live music, local artists, community booths, and a Pride Ride that wound several miles through the city before reaching the festival. What began as a small neighborhood gathering has grown into one of the larger Pride celebrations in the area, built and run by local volunteers, and that kind of homegrown energy is Culver City at its best.
👉 Learn about Culver City PRIDE
💰 What Changes on July 1
🔹 A new city budget takes effect Wednesday. July 1 opens Fiscal Year 2026-27 and, with it, the balanced budget the Council adopted this month, the first one Culver City has passed in three years. It is built around the priorities we set this spring: keeping the city on stable financial footing, investing in parks, streets, and public spaces, and protecting affordability for residents facing housing and homelessness.
→ 💡 What this means: The community conversations, the input-box notes, and the long budget nights from this spring stop being a debate and start being the plan that funds the year. If you weighed in, this is where your fingerprints show up.
🔹 Your trash and recycling bill changes too. The new solid-waste rates the Council finalized this spring also begin July 1, starting with a 9 percent increase this year. Our refuse program runs entirely on what customers pay rather than the General Fund, and rising recycling, organics, and processing costs had outrun what the old rates brought in.
→ 🎯 My take: Nobody celebrates a rate increase, and I would not have backed this one without a clear, public accounting of where every dollar goes. Because this program is funded by the people who use it, the fairest thing we can do is show our work. So we did, and it is all posted for you to read.
👉 See how city trash and recycling services work
🎆 Independence Weekend, and a 250th Birthday
🔹 Downtown throws its Independence Celebration on Sunday, July 5. From 6 to 9:30 PM at Town Plaza on The Culver Steps, the Downtown Business Association brings back a free, family-friendly evening of live music, a flag salute by local Scouts, and an aerial drone light show to close the night. This year the show is built around America's 250th birthday, a journey across two and a half centuries of struggle and progress.
→ 🎯 My take: I love that this one is free, outdoors, and made for families, because the best version of a small city is the one where you can walk to a town plaza and run into half your neighbors. A 250th anniversary only comes around once. Bring the family, bring a neighbor, and go.
👉 Get the details on the Independence Celebration
📅 Dates and What's Ahead
🔹 Sunday, July 5. Downtown Culver City Independence Celebration, 6 to 9:30 PM at Town Plaza on The Culver Steps. Free, with a drone show finale. See above.
🔹 Monday, July 13 at 7 PM. Regular City Council Meeting in the Mike Balkman Council Chambers, including a public hearing on the Sewer Service Charge for the coming fiscal year.
🔹 Sunday, July 19. The Downtown World Cup screening comes to Town Plaza, the Council-approved watch party inside our new Downtown Entertainment Zone.
🔹 Friday through Sunday, August 28 to 30. The 75th Annual Fiesta La Ballona returns. Mark it now if you have not already.
👉 Browse the city events calendar
🔹 Every Tuesday, 2-7 PM. Downtown Farmers Market. Main Street. Grab produce, support local growers, and say hello to neighbors.
👉 Visit the Farmers Market page
🔹 How to watch and participate in meetings. Agendas post Wednesdays before Monday meetings. You can attend in person or virtually.
🙏 Closing Thought
Summer is when a city stops being a set of addresses and becomes a place where people gather: a stadium of strangers cheering as one, a town plaza glowing under a drone show on the nation's 250th birthday, a farmers market on a warm Tuesday afternoon. None of it shows up on an agenda, and all of it is the reason the agenda is worth fighting over the rest of the year.
The calendar ahead is full of reasons to show up, and I hope a few of them find their way onto yours. If you make it to one, come find me. I would love to hear from you.
