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Doug Trussler Newsletter — September 14, 2026
📋 The Game Plan with Doug Trussler
📅 September 14, 2026
Good morning, Santa Monica,
Some weeks test a city's pipes and pavement. This one tested its character. Hurricane Marie's leftover swell carved away so much sand south of the Pier that the city had to cancel its first major beach music festival before a single stage went up. And then, on Sunday morning, a sold-out field of runners came pounding down Ocean Avenue for the Santa Monica Classic like nothing could slow this town down. That contrast is the story of the week: setbacks are real, and so is our capacity to show up anyway. Grab a coffee and let's go through it.
🏁 From the Campaign Trail
🔹 The launch is behind us, and the listening starts now: This week I shared a video from our campaign launch, where more than 200 neighbors from every corner of the city came together, and I am still a little humbled by it. What struck me most was not the turnout. It was the mix: renters and homeowners, longtime residents and newcomers, people who disagree on plenty but agree that Santa Monica deserves better than the status quo. Over the coming weeks I will be out in our neighborhoods listening, learning, and talking with residents about what they want our city's future to look like. If you see me, stop me. The best ideas in this campaign will come from you.
👉 Watch the campaign launch video (Instagram)
💼 Economic Development
🔹 Ocean Way Festival is off for 2026, and the city made the right hard call: On Friday, the city and Goldenvoice announced that the inaugural Ocean Way Festival, planned for September 26 and 27 on the beach south of the Pier, has been canceled. Hurricane Marie's surf stripped away enough sand that the safe shoreline setback would have needed to move 96 feet inland, while runoff from the Pico-Kenter storm drain cut through the site's southern end. All tickets will be refunded automatically, the Pier itself was not damaged and remains open, and both partners have committed to bringing the festival back in 2027.
→ 💬 My take: Canceling before load-in began, rather than gambling with tens of thousands of people on unstable sand, was the responsible decision, and Goldenvoice deserves credit for backing it. But let's be honest about the cost. As I wrote back in July, our visitor economy leans too hard on day-trippers, and this festival weekend was supposed to put overnight guests in hotel rooms and diners in our restaurants. That revenue hole is real, and I want to see the plan to backfill it. The community benefit programs built alongside the festival are reportedly still moving forward this year, and I will be watching for those details.
👉 Read the SMDP report on the cancellation
🔹 The Classic sold out, and that is a blueprint worth studying: Sunday's Santa Monica Classic filled every general and charity entry for both the 10K and 5K, with general registration up 20 percent over last year and record fundraising for The McCourt Foundation's work on neurological disease research. Runners finished on Ocean Avenue near the Pier and spilled straight into a finish festival on the Third Street Promenade, which is exactly where you want a few thousand hungry, celebrating people to end up. As someone who tries to stay active through CrossFit and soccer when my body cooperates, I love what this race says about us. Healthy community events that end at the doorstep of our local businesses are not a nice-to-have. They are economic strategy, and we should be building more of them.
👉 Visit the Santa Monica Classic race hub
🚨 Public Safety
🔹 Council approved red-light cameras and a new road-safety playbook, 7-0: At Tuesday's September 8 meeting, Council authorized staff to establish an automated red-light camera program under a 2025 state law and adopted a new "Safe System" framework for street safety, alongside a neighborhood traffic-calming toolkit and a curb-management pilot. The cameras would start at just two intersections, run through a civil process with fines from $100 to $500 and reduced amounts for lower-income drivers, and operate entirely separately from the Police Department.
→ 📊 By the numbers: Here is the context that matters. In 2016, the city committed to eliminating fatal and severe-injury crashes by 2026. Instead, from 2021 through 2025, Santa Monica recorded 214 of them, including 21 deaths, and 20 of those 21 people were walking or biking. That gap between goal and result should bother all of us.
→ 💬 My take: I support this pilot, and I will apply the same test I apply to everything: define success before you start. Before the first citation is mailed, residents should know what the vendor contract costs, what the program is expected to achieve at those two intersections, and when we will see the data. A goal without a scoreboard is a press release. This city has had enough of those.
👉 Read the SMDP breakdown of the new rules
🔹 SMPD released its video from the August 22 shooting in Palisades Park: A man lost his life that afternoon, and before anything else, my thoughts are with everyone touched by this, including the officers and firefighters who responded. This week the department released its Critical Incident Community Debriefing Video, including body-worn camera footage, showing officers on an unrelated call being charged by a man armed with a knife. The investigation is ongoing, and the video is preliminary context, not a conclusion. I give Chief Jacob credit for showing the work: he said that when a life is lost, "our responsibility to provide a clear and open account is especially important." That is exactly the standard I have spent my career holding organizations to, and it is the standard residents deserve from every corner of City Hall, not just the Police Department.
👉 Read the SMDP report on the video release
🔹 Twenty-five years since September 11: On Friday, firefighters, police officers, city representatives, and neighbors gathered at Fire Station #1 for the department's quiet annual ceremony marking a quarter century since the attacks. A steel artifact from the World Trade Center sits on display outside the station's community room, open for public viewing during business hours, and it is worth the trip. To everyone in this city who answers the call when the alarm sounds: thank you. We do not say it enough.
🏛️ Inside City Hall
🔹 Santa Monica joined a four-city affordable housing trust, and one clause is doing all the work: Council voted 6-0 on September 8 to join the Westside Cities Affordable Housing Trust alongside West Hollywood, Culver City, and Beverly Hills, a structure designed to receive and deploy county Measure A housing dollars that these cities cannot currently access directly. First-year operating costs are covered by the Council of Governments, not our General Fund, and the agreement now states that no Santa Monica money moves without a separate, explicit vote of our own council.
→ 💬 My take: I have spent 25 years reading partnership agreements, and that guardrail clause is the entire deal. Regional pooling can genuinely help a city our size finance affordable housing, but joint powers authorities have a way of drifting from their founding promises. Some residents raised fair transparency concerns in written comments, and the answer to those concerns is vigilance, not dismissal. The trust is targeted to form as soon as September 22, with a first board meeting expected in late October or early November. I will be reading those board agendas, and I will report back here.
🔹 The autonomous-vehicle fleet rules got a two-year extension: In August I told you about the court injunction that stopped overnight operations at the AV charging lots on Broadway, and promised to keep tracking this issue. Here is the update: Council voted 7-0 to extend the emergency zoning rules governing AV fleet operations for two more years, keeping tougher conditions on sites within 100 feet of homes. Staff reported queues of roughly 15 vehicles occupying up to 375 feet of street at existing facilities, and one pending application is already under review. I have backed growth companies my whole career, including in emerging technology, and I still believe the bar is simple: innovate all you want, but be a good neighbor while you do it. Two years is a long runway. The permanent ordinance should arrive well before the deadline does.
→ ⚡ One more thing about that meeting: Both of these votes happened at a session that stretched into the early morning hours. I will keep saying it: decisions made after midnight are decisions most residents cannot witness, question, or even stay awake for. Efficient meetings are not a scheduling preference. They are a form of transparency.
👉 Read the SMDP recap of both votes
🌳 Environment & Open Space
🔹 A Samohi grad turned 10,000 cigarette butts into a surfboard, and now a film: Taylor Lane, a Santa Monica High School graduate, built a working surfboard from thousands of cigarette butts collected off our beaches with Heal the Bay volunteers, and the documentary that followed the project, "The Cigarette Surfboard," begins a two-week online premiere this Tuesday, September 15. Cigarette butts are the most collected litter item on American beaches, and most people never learn the filters are plastic. What I love about this story is that it refuses to wallow. It takes a depressing statistic and turns it into something you can ride. Our beaches are this city's front porch and its balance sheet rolled into one, and keeping them clean is both an environmental duty and an economic one. Local kid, local beaches, global audience: that is a Santa Monica export worth celebrating.
👉 Read about The Cigarette Surfboard
📅 Mark Your Calendar
🔹 Tuesday, September 15: "The Cigarette Surfboard" opens its two-week online premiere, timed to lead into Coastal Cleanup Day.
🔹 Thursday, September 17, 3:30 to 7 PM: Opening reception for "Afterglow: Portraits by Sam Comen" inside the Pier's historic Merry Go-Round building during Locals' Night. The free exhibition of 274 portraits taken on the Pier this summer runs through September 30.
👉 Read about the Afterglow exhibition
🔹 Saturday, September 19, 9 AM to noon: The 42nd annual California Coastal Cleanup Day, the state's largest volunteer event. After the week our beach just had, this one feels personal. Bring the kids and a bucket.
👉 Find a Coastal Cleanup Day site near you
🔹 Tuesday, November 3: Election Day, exactly 50 days from today.
🤝 Join the Campaign
This campaign runs on neighbors, not machines: the families I have coached alongside at AYSO, the business owners I trade notes with near the Promenade, and readers like you who want a City Hall that defines success before it declares it. If that is the leadership you want, there is a spot on this roster for you. Knock on doors with us, plant a lawn sign, host a living-room meet and greet, or simply forward this newsletter to a neighbor who cares about where this city is headed.
👉 Follow the campaign on Instagram
⚽ The Final Whistle
A storm can take 96 feet of beach, and it cannot take an inch of what actually makes this city work: the runners who sold out a race, the firefighters who stood in silence on Friday morning, the volunteers who will be out on the sand Saturday with buckets and gloves. Infrastructure can be rebuilt. Trust has to be earned, week after week, vote after vote, and that is the work I am asking you to hire me for. So write back and tell me what you want measured next: the camera program, the housing trust, the festival's replacement plan. Your questions set my agenda. Thank you for reading, Santa Monica. I will see you in the neighborhood.
Doug Trussler
Council Candidate, City of Santa Monica
