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Ashley Oelsen Newsletter — August 31, 2026
🌎 Protect What You Love with Ashley Oelsen
📅 August 31, 2026
Hello, Santa Monica,
First, I have to express my heartfelt gratitude to you. On Wednesday night, a couple hundred of you turned 261 18th Street into the liveliest corner of the city and officially launched this campaign. On Saturday morning came the news we had spent weeks organizing toward: the Governor's trailer bill was published, and the special Santa Monica carve-out was not in it. In between, SMPD announced an arrest within hours in the Pier ramp shooting, and the City put more officers on foot in the places we gather. All of it is below, along with where you come in.
🌊 Our Coast: The Carve-Out Is Out
🔹 Saturday's news, weeks in the making: The Governor's trailer bill language is finally public, and the provision that would have exempted certain development in Santa Monica's Coastal Zone from Coastal Act review is not in it. That did not happen by accident. Residents, coastal advocates, community organizations, and leaders from across the coast called, emailed, and refused to let a closed-door process slide by unnoticed. Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur put his opposition in writing to the Governor, legislative leadership, and both budget committee chairs, and thousands of you backed him up.
→ 🎯 My take: I have spent my career as a biologist turning science into policy, and the hardest part is never the data. It is getting decision makers to honor the public process when it is inconvenient. This week, Sacramento honored it because you insisted. This is a win for our coast, for transparency, and for every resident who now knows exactly how much a phone call counts.
👉 Read my full statement (Instagram)
🔹 What the fine print would have done: A Daily Press investigation published Tuesday laid out just how tailored the proposal was. The draft language would have created a streamlined approval pathway in our Coastal Zone written so narrowly that only one project in the city could qualify: the Gehry-designed Ocean Avenue Project, whose developer, the paper reports, has been a longtime donor to the Governor. It even included deemed-approved provisions, meaning a project could be automatically green-lit if the Coastal Commission missed tight review deadlines. And remember how trailer bills work: drafted behind closed doors, published just 72 hours before a vote.
→ 💡 Why this matters: The right path forward has not changed. Santa Monica and the Coastal Commission should finish our Local Coastal Program in public, on the record, with residents in the room. I will keep reading every version of every bill that touches this shoreline until that work is done, and I will tell you what I find, every time.
👉 Read the Daily Press investigation
🔹 Sunday in the sand: The timing could not have been sweeter. One day after the trailer bill news, neighbors gathered at Lot 8 North for the monthly Community Dune Walk and Beach Cleanup with the Helping Hub and The Coastal Alliance, pairing a guided walk through our dune ecosystem with a cleanup of the beach itself. To everyone who gave a weekend morning to the shoreline you had just helped protect: thank you. Protecting a coast is rarely one dramatic vote. It is a thousand quiet mornings like that one.
🛟 Public Safety: Arrests, Patrols, and Follow-Through
🔹 An arrest within hours at the Pier: On Monday, SMPD announced that a juvenile suspect is in custody in the shooting that injured a robbery victim near the Pier ramp on Sunday, August 23. Detectives are actively pursuing the remaining suspects, and additional arrests are anticipated. I am grateful for the speed and professionalism of that response, and I will say the harder part out loud too: a young person pulling a trigger on our Pier is a tragedy on every side. Accountability and prevention are not competing goals. We owe this city both.
🔹 More officers where people gather: Starting last week, the City deployed enhanced visible patrols at the Pier, on the beach, in Palisades Park, and throughout Downtown, paired with direct outreach to Pier and Downtown businesses. SMPD also kicked off a Coffee with a Cop series, with the first gatherings Tuesday at Pacific Park and Thursday at the Downtown Substation. City Manager Oliver Chi framed it plainly: "Public safety is the foundation that everything else in our community rests on."
→ 🎯 My take: Presence is welcome, and accountability is what makes it durable. The City has committed to releasing body-worn camera footage from the Palisades Park officer-involved shooting within the next few weeks, and I will be watching for it, because transparency after a death is not optional. The backdrop matters too: serious crime fell 12.5 percent citywide in 2025, and SMPD is at full sworn staffing for the first time in more than two decades. Progress and vigilance are not opposites. We need both, and you deserve both.
👉 Read the City's patrol announcement
🔹 Waymo watch: Monday, August 24, was the deadline for the City to file its opposition in the appeal over overnight operations at the Broadway charging lots. The matter now sits with the Court of Appeal, and while the temporary stay allows 24-hour operations for the moment, the trial court's findings in the City's favor still stand, and so does the record Broadway families built night after night. I will keep tracking every filing until this is settled for good.
🗳️ From the Campaign Trail: You Showed Up
🔹 Wow, what a launch: Wednesday night meant more to me than I can properly put in a newsletter. A couple hundred neighbors came out, from every corner of Santa Monica, representing different organizations, different perspectives, and plenty of people who do not land on the same side of every issue. Seeing this community in one place, choosing to build something together, was humbling and energizing in equal measure. Thank you to everyone who volunteered, donated, brought a friend, or simply came to ask me a hard question. And yes, the '72 Stingray reported for campaign duty in full livery. It is not red, but green means go.
👉 See my launch night recap (Instagram)
🔹 To the storytellers, thank you: Santa Monica Stories, a community account chronicling the people shaping this city, featured our kickoff this week. Local storytelling like theirs is part of what keeps a city honest with itself, and I am grateful they were in the room.
👉 View the Santa Monica Stories feature (Instagram)
🔹 The team's most enthusiastic member: I genuinely tried to keep Wild Rosie out of this campaign. He had other plans. Flyers, community events, dancing the second music starts: he has appointed himself director of joy, and honestly, the position was open. Every campaign should be so lucky.
🐚 Dates to Know
🔹 Monday, September 7: Labor Day. However you spend it, take a moment to thank the people whose work keeps this city fed, safe, moving, and clean.
🔹 Tuesday, September 8, 5:30 PM: City Council meets at City Hall, 1685 Main Street. The continued annual board and commission appointments are scheduled for this meeting, and if you have ever considered volunteering your expertise, this is exactly how city government builds its bench. I started as a volunteer commissioner, and it changed how I understand this city.
👉 View the latest Council agenda
🔹 Sunday, September 13, 1:30 to 6:30 PM: Americana in the Park returns to Gandara Park, 1819 Stewart Street, for its sixth year: a free, all-ages afternoon of roots, blues, jazz, and folk presented by McCabe's Guitar Shop with the City's Cultural Affairs Division and KCRW. The lineup includes Grammy winner Albert Lee, Ricardo Lemvo & Makina Loca, Abby Posner & the Big Fall, Jason Luckett, and the Bob Baker Marionettes. Bring a blanket, a lawn chair, and a picnic.
👉 Get the Americana in the Park details
🔹 Tuesday, November 3: Election Day, 64 days from today.
💙 Join the Movement
Wednesday was a starting line, not a finish line. This campaign is funded by individual donors and powered by neighbors, and that is exactly how it will stay. The maximum contribution is $1,200 per person and $2,400 per couple, but every amount makes a difference and is deeply appreciated. And if giving is not possible right now, an hour of your time or this newsletter forwarded to one friend moves us forward just as surely.
🌊 Onward
I shared a Dolly Parton line on Instagram this week: "Find out who you are and do it on purpose." I keep coming back to it, because that is precisely what Santa Monica just did. This city knows who it is: a coastal community that reads the fine print, shows up for its neighbors, and does not accept closed-door shortcuts, and this week you did all of it on purpose. So here is my ask for the week ahead: pick one thing. Come speak at the Council meeting on September 8, mark your calendar for Gandara Park on the 13th, or forward this letter to a neighbor who wants in. Purpose is a muscle, and you have been building it all summer.
💙 Ashley
