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Ashley Oelsen Newsletter — August 10, 2026
🌎 Protect What You Love with Ashley Oelsen
📅 August 10, 2026
Good morning, Santa Monica,
This afternoon at 2 PM, in a hotel ballroom one block from our beach, the federal government holds the only in-person hearing of its entire review of California's coastal protections. Not in Washington. Not in Sacramento. Here. I have spent years showing up at regulatory hearings, and I can tell you plainly: I have never asked this community to show up to one the way I am asking today. In this edition: everything you need for today's rally and hearing, a Council decision tomorrow night on the future of the Civic Auditorium, a heartbreaking loss on Lincoln Boulevard, a new street name that tells the truth about our history, and free music under the stars at Tongva Park.
🌊 Today Is the Day: The Federal Coastal Review Comes to Santa Monica
🔹 The review, in plain English: In May, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick directed NOAA to conduct a full, out-of-cycle review of California's Coastal Management Program under the federal Coastal Zone Management Act, and on June 26 NOAA formally opened the public comment phase. This Section 312 evaluation asks whether our Coastal Commission has given proper weight to offshore oil production, spaceport infrastructure at Vandenberg, pipeline maintenance, desalination projects, and undersea cables. Keep one number in mind: these evaluations normally come every five to ten years, the last one finished in 2024, and this one arrived in less than two. That is not a routine checkup. It is a stress test of California's authority to protect its own shoreline.
👉 Read the Federal Register notice
🔹 Your plan for today: We rally at noon outside the Hilton Santa Monica, 1707 4th Street, alongside partners including Heal the Bay, then head inside for the NOAA hearing from 2 to 6 PM in the Pacific Ballroom. The speaking list is already full and waitlisted, and that is exactly why your presence matters: NOAA counts everyone in that room, not just the people who reach the microphone. Our goal is 500 neighbors in that ballroom. Walk-ins are welcome, and you do not have to say a single word to be counted. I will be outside the Hilton at noon, and I hope you will stand with me.
🔹 Two more doors are still open this week: If today does not fit your schedule, NOAA is holding virtual hearings on Tuesday, August 11 and Wednesday, August 12, from 2 to 5 PM each day, and registration closes tonight at 11:59 PM. Written comments are open through Saturday, August 22 at 11:59 PM: email czma.california-evaluation@noaa.gov, or use the one-click tool, scripts, and templates on our action hub to send yours in minutes. You do not need a polished statement. You need a sentence that is true.
🔹 Thank you, poster-makers: On Thursday evening, neighbors turned the corner of Third and Wilshire into an open-air art studio, filling poster board after poster board with love for this coastline. Every one of those signs will be visible today. This is what I mean when I say this movement is powered by people.
🔹 And the fight is wider than one ballroom: On Thursday, August 13, the California Coastal Commission meets in Santa Cruz, where it could formally object to new offshore fracking and has grounds to issue a cease-and-desist order against Sable Offshore for restarting operations without a coastal permit. Rally at 8 AM, hearing at 9 AM, Scotts Valley Hilton. Meanwhile, a separate federal proposal would weaken protections across 245 million acres of public lands, with its own comment deadline of Monday, August 24. The Last Chance Alliance is tracking all of it in one place.
👉 View the Coastal Commission agenda
👉 Explore the Last Chance Alliance hub
☀️ Why I'm Running: A Sustainable Environment
🔹 I built my career for weeks like this one: As a conservation biologist, I lead The Coastal Alliance, where our team works on coastal restoration, post-fire habitat recovery, and water quality monitoring across California. Before that, I served as a Directorate Fellow with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Today, as your Commissioner for Sustainability, Environmental Justice, and the Environment, I advise this city on the decisions that determine whether our Bay gets healthier or sicker. Clean water, safe beaches, and a resilient coastline are not amenities. They are public health, they are our economy, and they are who we are.
→ 💙 What this means for you: Elect me, and the person reading the environmental staff reports on your Council will be someone who has spent her whole career writing, reviewing, and living documents exactly like them.
🛟 Safe Streets & Public Safety
🔹 Heartbreak on Lincoln Boulevard: Early Sunday morning, a fire in the 500 block of Lincoln Boulevard took the lives of a couple in their early 90s. Firefighters were called shortly before 3 AM and found the home engulfed in flames. My heart is with their family, their caretaker, and every neighbor on that block this morning. The cause remains under investigation, and this is the second fatal residential fire in our city in recent months. Please do two small things this week: test your smoke alarms, and check in on an older neighbor. It costs nothing, and it can save everything.
🔹 National Night Out filled the City Hall lawn: On Tuesday evening, families, officers, and community partners gathered for "Lights. Camera. Community.", a night of free food, activities, and face-to-face conversation. Trust between residents and public safety professionals is built on nights exactly like that one, long before it is needed in a crisis. Thank you to SMPD and to every neighbor who came out. Safe streets are something we build together, and Tuesday looked like proof.
🧭 Tomorrow Night at City Hall: Read the Fine Print With Me
🔹 The Civic Auditorium's next act: Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 11 at 5:30 PM, Council will consider authorizing exclusive negotiations with Goldenvoice AEG Presents, the producer behind the upcoming Ocean Way festival, to evaluate redeveloping and operating the Civic Auditorium at 1855 Main Street. A previous negotiation effort with Revitalization Partners Group ended without a deal. I would genuinely love to see that building alive with music again, and an exclusive negotiation is precisely the stage where the terms that matter take shape: who carries the costs, what the public receives, and how we verify it. The time to ask those questions is now, before signatures, not after.
🔹 Speaking up just got easier: Under new state requirements from SB 707, Council meetings now offer two-way remote participation, Spanish-language participation instructions, and space for personal interpreters during meetings. Fewer barriers means more voices, and more voices mean better decisions. If the Civic item matters to you, you can weigh in tomorrow night without leaving your living room.
👉 Learn how to participate in a Council meeting
🔹 Cottage courts move forward: This past week, Council directed staff to fold the Missing Middle Housing Realignment Plan into the city's next housing plan. The centerpiece is the cottage court, a cluster of six or seven small homes of roughly 850 square feet arranged around a shared courtyard, aimed at the teachers, nurses, and firefighters who serve this city but cannot afford to live in it. The concept is promising. The test, as always, will be in the numbers: homes at prices working households can actually reach. I will be reading every line as this one develops.
👉 Read about the cottage court plan
🤝 A City That Tells the Truth About Itself
🔹 Silas White Street arrives this afternoon: At 4:30 PM today, at 1846 Main Street, the city will unveil Silas White Street, renaming a portion of Vicente Terrace for the Black entrepreneur who, in the 1950s, envisioned the Ebony Beach Club as a place where Black families could enjoy this coastline. That dream was denied in his lifetime. This renaming follows the city's settlement with his family and the establishment of October 12 as Silas White Day, part of a larger restorative justice effort I am proud our city is undertaking. As someone whose commission portfolio includes environmental justice, I will say it plainly: access to the coast is justice work too. The ceremony is free and open to everyone.
👉 Read the city's announcement
🔹 Free music under the stars at Tongva Park: The city's new Tongva Twilight: Sounds & Cinema series kicked off Saturday with the all-star ska jazz of Western Standard Time, and it continues every Saturday evening at 7 PM through September 12 on the Tongva Park lawn. This Saturday, August 15, brings New Orleans funk powerhouse The Rumble, with salsa orchestra Son Mayor, plus a free salsa lesson, on August 22. Pack a picnic, bring a blanket, and settle in. Admission is free, and evenings like these are exactly why we fight for our public spaces.
👉 See the Tongva Twilight lineup
🐚 Dates to Know
🔹 Today, Monday, August 10, 12 PM: Rally outside the Hilton Santa Monica, 1707 4th Street, followed by the NOAA hearing from 2 to 6 PM in the Pacific Ballroom. Walk-ins welcome.
🔹 Today, Monday, August 10, 4:30 PM: Silas White Street unveiling ceremony at 1846 Main Street.
🔹 Tonight, 11:59 PM: Registration closes for NOAA's virtual hearings, held Tuesday, August 11 and Wednesday, August 12, from 2 to 5 PM each day.
🔹 Tuesday, August 11, 5:30 PM: City Council meets at City Hall, 1685 Main Street, with the Civic Auditorium negotiation on the agenda. Public comment is your right, in person or remote.
🔹 Thursday, August 13, 12:30 to 4:30 PM: Free in-person help with Santa Monica Renter Aid applications at the Main Library, 601 Santa Monica Blvd. Applications close Thursday, August 20, so please do not wait.
👉 Apply for Santa Monica Renter Aid
🔹 Saturday, August 15, 7 PM: Tongva Twilight at Tongva Park with The Rumble. Free.
🔹 Saturday, August 22, 11:59 PM: Written comments on the federal coastal review are due. Five minutes this week beats a regret next year.
🔹 Tuesday, November 3: Election Day, 85 days from today.
💙 Join the Movement
Today you will see what this campaign actually is: scientists and surfers, renters and retirees, kids carrying hand-painted signs, all standing up for the same coastline. None of that can be bought. It is built, conversation by conversation, and it runs on neighbors like you. If you believe Santa Monica deserves a Council seat filled by someone who reads the fine print and shows up when it counts, there is a place for you here.
🌊 Onward
Next Monday, I will report back on what happened inside that ballroom: who spoke, what NOAA heard, and what comes next in this review. That is the promise of this newsletter, and I intend to keep it. Between now and then, do one thing for our coast. Stand with us at noon, join a virtual hearing this week, or send your written comment before you go to bed tonight. Years from now, when our kids ask what we did the summer the coast was on the line, I want this city to have a good answer.
💙 Ashley
