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Doug Trussler Newsletter — August 17, 2026
📋 The Game Plan with Doug Trussler
📅 August 17, 2026
Good morning, Santa Monica,
Big week for anyone who cares about this election: the filing deadline passed, and the November ballot is officially set. Thirteen names competing for three City Council seats, with contested races up and down the ballot, and one of those names is mine.
After three weeks of writing to you about how this city should keep score, the season is officially on, and I would not want it any other way. This was also a working week at City Hall: Council took its first real swing at reopening the Civic Auditorium, an affordable housing project came in $2.4 million over budget, and the Waymo case took a turn in the appeals court. Plenty to review, so grab a coffee and let's go through it all together.
🗳️ The Ballot Is Set
🔹 Thirteen candidates, three seats, and a real choice for voters: With the filing period closed as of this week, Santa Monica's November ballot has taken shape: contested races for City Council, the Rent Control Board, the Santa Monica College Board of Trustees, and the school board. My nomination papers are in with the City Clerk, and I am proud to be part of a crowded field. I mean that sincerely. Competition makes candidates sharper and voters stronger, the same way a deep bench makes a better team. You deserve options, and this year you have them. My job between now and November 3 is simple: keep earning your attention every Monday with real numbers and honest assessment, and let you make the call.
→ 💬 Where I fit in a field of thirteen: Every candidate on this ballot loves Santa Monica. The difference is what we have each spent our lives doing about problems. For 25 years, my job has been walking into organizations under real financial pressure, figuring out what is actually broken, and being accountable for fixing it, and that is the work our city needs right now.
👉 See the full candidate rundown in the Daily Press
💼 Economic Development
🔹 The Civic Auditorium gets a fourth shot, and this time the other side pays for the homework: On Tuesday, August 11, Council voted 6 to 0 to enter an exclusive negotiating agreement with AEG Presents and its Goldenvoice subsidiary to study reviving the Civic Auditorium as a live entertainment venue. The structure matters: a six-month window with two possible 90-day extensions, during which AEG hires and pays for the technical experts to test whether the project pencils out, at no immediate cost to the city and with no commitment on either side. This building has sat dark through solicitations in 2009, 2017, and 2023, so a company that operates over 100 venues worldwide deciding to spend its own money studying ours is a genuinely encouraging signal.
→ 💬 My take: In my business, an exclusive negotiating agreement is a term sheet, not a deal, and deals are won or lost in diligence. The best moment of the night was the Mayor pressing staff to require a full pro forma with real financial analysis before this goes any further, because past efforts collapsed exactly there. That is the right instinct, and I will say so every time I see it. Now hold the checkpoint: when the six-month window closes, we should see hard numbers, not another extension on a handshake. I have read a lot of pro formas in 25 years. I will happily read this one with you, line by line, right here.
👉 Read the SMDP report on the AEG agreement
🔹 A pearl of a story on Ocean Avenue: While the big deals get the headlines, a longtime family of Santa Monica restaurateurs quietly opened the West Side Oyster Club in June, and the Daily Press profiled them this week. Every local family that bets its savings on a Santa Monica storefront is casting a vote of confidence in this city's comeback, and those votes deserve to be answered with a city that is safe, clean, and easy to do business in. Go have the oysters. That is the whole ask.
👉 Meet the family behind West Side Oyster Club
📊 Budget Watch
🔹 A $2.4 million surprise on Virginia Avenue: The city-financed rehab of the 40-unit Virginia Avenue Apartments is now projected to cost about $2.4 million more than budgeted, city officials told Council on Tuesday. The project, run by Community Corporation of Santa Monica with a Housing Trust Fund loan of up to $35.65 million approved last August, is only 70 percent through construction, yet the hard-cost contingency is already exhausted and the soft-cost contingency is down to roughly $3,000. The stated culprits: mold and termite damage that was worse than the inspection found, plus relocation costs that jumped $1.6 million after the plan changed to move all tenants out at once. Councilmembers pushed back hard, noting residents had flagged the building's condition for years and that up to $1.5 million in undisbursed developer fees should be on the table before anyone asks for more public money. The Mayor put it plainly: "This has been an extremely frustrating presentation for me."
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Forty families are waiting to come home to these apartments, and every overrun dollar is a public dollar that cannot fund the next affordable unit. A building constructed in 1947 producing "unforeseen" mold and termites is not bad luck. It is a diligence question.
→ 💬 My take: As I said on Instagram this week, I have served on dozens of corporate boards and committees where preparation and accountability were not optional, they were expected, and good government is not about longer meetings, it is about better decisions. This is exactly what I meant. A project should never reach 70 percent complete with its contingencies gone and, in the project team's own words, no plan. Before another public dollar moves, I want to see three things: an updated all-in budget, a funded contingency, and that developer fee applied first. Watch this one with me. It comes back to Council, and I will report what happens.
👉 Read the SMDP report on the overrun
🚨 Public Safety & Homelessness
🔹 The new homelessness system goes shopping for housing: Two weeks ago I told you Council had approved the Housing Focused System of Care and that execution would be the real test. Here is the first move. On Wednesday, August 12, the city formally invited property owners to join a new Master Leasing Program: the city or a nonprofit partner becomes the master tenant on vacant units, multifamily buildings, or hotels for up to five years with annual renewals, handles rent and management, and subleases the units as interim housing with city oversight at each stage.
→ 💬 My take: I supported the principle of local control, and master leasing is a reasonable tool for standing up capacity quickly. But this is where my test from two weeks ago kicks in: measurable targets and honest reporting. The numbers that will tell us whether this works are lease rates versus market, cost per unit per night, and how quickly people move from these units into permanent housing. When those figures surface, you will read them here. If you own property and want to be part of the solution, the city wants to hear from you.
👉 Read the Master Leasing Program announcement
🔹 Good police work, before anything happened: SMPD arrested a stalking suspect this week and seized a handgun, more than 5,000 rounds of ammunition, and roughly 100 magazines from his vehicle and residence. That is the kind of prevention you never see on a crime chart, because the chart it prevented never got written. This is what a fully staffed department buys us, and our officers have my gratitude.
👉 Read the SMDP report on the arrest
🔹 School zones go live Thursday, so build in five extra minutes: SMMUSD classes start Thursday, August 20, and both SMPD and the city's Mobility team spent last week getting families ready, with staff at Samohi and Lincoln registration events and a practical set of travel tips. The short version: slow down in school zones, follow the posted drop-off procedures, and if your student rides transit, the GoPass gets them free unlimited rides on Big Blue Bus and Metro. One of our boys heads back to Roosevelt this week, so I will be living the drop-off line right alongside you. Those first mornings are chaos everywhere in the country, but the stakes in a crosswalk are real. Patience is the play.
👉 Read the city's back-to-school travel tips
🌳 Environment & Open Space
🔹 The Waymo case takes a turn, and the calendar is now the story: Two weeks ago I promised to track the Broadway charging lots case, so here is the update. On Friday, August 14, the Court of Appeal temporarily stayed the July 27 injunction, which means Waymo can resume 24-hour operations at 1222 and 1310 Broadway while the court considers the company's challenge. Two things are true at once: the neighbors who spent a year losing sleep are back to square one for now, and the trial court's findings in the city's favor still stand. The City Attorney's office noted that "Temporary orders do not end this dispute for our residents." The schedule to watch: the city's opposition is due August 24, Waymo can reply by September 2, and both sides were told to propose an expedited timeline.
→ 💬 My take: I have spent 25 years investing in growth companies, including in renewable energy, so nobody is rooting harder for this technology to succeed in Santa Monica than I am. But innovation and being a good neighbor are not competing goals, and a stay is a pause, not a verdict. The city pushed for speed, which is exactly right. I will report what the August 24 filing brings.
👉 Read the city's update on the appellate stay
📅 Mark Your Calendar
🔹 Thursday, August 20: First day of classes for Santa Monica-Malibu Unified. Leave early, watch the crosswalks, and wave to a teacher.
🔹 Saturday, August 22, 7 to 10 PM: Tongva Twilight: Sounds & Cinema at Tongva Park, 1615 Ocean Avenue. This week the free outdoor series features salsa orchestra Son Mayor, complete with a complimentary salsa lesson. The series runs Saturdays through September 12. Pack a picnic.
👉 Get the Tongva Twilight series details
🔹 Sunday, August 23: Wellness on the Westside at Santa Monica Place, building on June's World Cup celebration that drew nearly 4,000 people. A $40 ticket covers four hours of classes, from pilates and yoga to sound baths, with advance sign-up required for each class, plus free professional portraits from the Community Collage project. A smart way to keep local momentum going between big events.
👉 Read about Wellness on the Westside
🔹 Tuesday, November 3: Election Day, 78 days from today.
🤝 Join the Campaign
Now that the ballot is official, every week counts double. This campaign has no machine behind it, just neighbors: the AYSO families I have shared sidelines with, the shop owners near my office at the foot of the Promenade, and readers like you who think a city should publish its numbers and stand behind them. If that is your kind of team, there is a jersey with your name on it: knock doors with us, take a lawn sign, host a living room conversation, or chip in whatever works for your budget.
⚽ The Final Whistle
Before I go, one personal note: this weekend we celebrated my amazing wife Blythe's birthday, and I am reminded that none of this, not the business, not the boys, not this campaign, works without her. Here's to many more.
Thirteen candidates. Three seats. Seventy-eight days. Between now and then, my commitment stays the same: I will read the staff reports, the budgets, and the fine print, and hand you the numbers straight every Monday. This week, I want to flip the clipboard around. When AEG's Civic Auditorium study lands, what is the one question you want answered before the city signs anything? Send it my way. The best diligence questions I have ever heard came from people outside the boardroom, and I suspect Santa Monica's living rooms are no different.
Keep your eye on the ball, Santa Monica. More next Monday.
