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Lana Negrete Newsletter — August 17, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 August 17, 2026
Happy Monday, Santa Monica,
On Saturday I spent part of my afternoon in a neighbor's backyard, one block from my own front door, after one of the organizers stopped me at Bob's Market and invited me. The group started around a shared love of gardening. These days they still trade tomato tips, but they also talk about their streets, their neighborhood, and the future of the city they call home. Some have lived here 30 years or their whole lives. Some just moved in. Every single one of them had something to teach me, and none of them needed a title, a membership, or a City Hall glossary to do it.
I carried that backyard with me all week: into Tuesday's Council meeting, where the Virginia Avenue accountability report I fought for finally landed (with a price tag attached), through Friday's frustrating court news on Broadway, and toward this Thursday, when the first school bells of the year ring across town.
Here's your week, the wins and the work alike.
🚔 Public Safety
🔹 A setback on Broadway, not a surrender. On Friday, a state appeals court temporarily paused the July injunction that had barred overnight operations at the Waymo charging lots at 1222 and 1310 Broadway, which means the company can resume around-the-clock charging while its appeal is considered. Two important details: the appellate court ruled before it had the City's opposition brief, which we will file no later than Monday, August 24, and nothing in this order reverses the trial court's findings that the noise, lights, and traffic were interfering with residents' ability to enjoy their own homes.
→ 💡 What this means: Neighbors on Broadway will likely hear overnight operations again for now, and I hate delivering that news after two weeks of quiet. But this is a pause, not a verdict. The trial court's findings still stand, the City is urging a fast resolution, and I remain confident in where this lands. You waited over a year for a decent night's sleep. I will not let this drop.
🔹 Holding two of our neighbors in our hearts. Just before last week's letter went out, an early morning fire on the 500 block of Lincoln Boulevard took the lives of a couple in their early 90s. The cause remains under investigation, and I won't speculate. What I will do is grieve with their loved ones and their block, and turn that grief into something useful: please test your smoke alarms this week, and if there's an older neighbor on your street, knock on the door and check in. Ten minutes of your Tuesday could matter more than you know.
🏛️ At City Hall: The Follow-Through Edition
Last Monday I gave you the preview of Tuesday's agenda. Today you get the honest recap, because transparency means telling you what happened even when the answers weren't the ones we wanted.
🔹 Virginia Avenue: the report came back, and so did the hard questions. The accountability update I brought forward on the rehabilitation of the 40-unit Virginia Avenue Apartments finally arrived, and here's the headline: Community Corporation of Santa Monica now projects the project will finish roughly $2.4 million over its nearly $35.9 million budget, driven by construction overruns blamed on mold, termite damage, and reframing, plus relocation costs that ran $1.6 million higher after the decision to move every tenant out at once. About $26.6 million, 77 percent of the City's loan, has already been drawn, with completion targeted for June 2027.
→ 🎯 My take: I said it plainly from the dais: residents flagged this building's condition for years, so treating mold and termites in a 1947 building as a surprise is the most frustrating part of this whole saga for the families involved. I also pressed CCSM to put its own remaining developer fee, up to $1.5 million still undisbursed, on the table before anyone asks for more public money. Council received and filed the report. Consider it received, filed, and not forgotten. It's 40 families. They've waited long enough, and I'm not done asking questions.
👉 Read SMDP's report on the overrun
🔹 The Civic has a new dance partner, and this time the sheet music is required. Your Council voted 6-0 (one colleague was absent) to enter an Exclusive Negotiation Agreement with Goldenvoice/AEG Presents to study bringing the Civic Auditorium back to life as a live entertainment venue. I voted yes. The structure is what won me over: a six-month window with two optional 90-day extensions, AEG retaining and paying for the feasibility experts, no immediate cost to the City, and, crucially, a full financial pro forma baked in as an expected outcome. After 17 years and failed attempts in 2009, 2017, and 2023, hard numbers are the whole ballgame.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: The music-store kid in me wants nothing more than to hear a crowd inside that building again. The councilmember in me remembers that past efforts collapsed precisely because there was never a real financial plan on the table. This agreement costs us nothing to find out if there finally is one. That's a bet worth making, with eyes wide open.
👉 Read SMDP's coverage of the Civic vote
💼 Economic Development
🔹 ✨ Business Spotlight: the best-kept secret at 15th and Broadway. I almost don't want to tell you about this one. The Assistance League of Santa Monica Thrift Shop, tucked behind a gate at 15th and Broadway, is run entirely by volunteers, and every dollar you spend supports scholarships and philanthropic programs right here in our community. My daughters and I went for a little back-to-school thrifting and found designer treasures hiding on those racks, everything from Stuart Weitzman to Tom Ford. Insider tip from the regulars: Thursday morning is when the newest finds hit the floor. The shop is open Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Shopping local while funding scholarships is my kind of retail therapy. Go see what you've been missing. And if you already knew, why didn't you tell me?
🔹 Our event economy's next act: wellness. After June's World Cup Kickoff Celebration drew nearly 4,000 people to Santa Monica Place, the mall is keeping the momentum going with Wellness on the Westside on Sunday, August 23: four hours of pilates, yoga, sound baths, and breathwork ($40, sign up in advance), plus food samples and free professional portraits from Community Collage, photographer Josh Madson's project to capture 40,000 Angelenos before the 2028 Games. Josh recently took a family photo of mine that I will treasure forever, so I can personally vouch for the man's eye.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Every one of these events converts a big regional moment into steady foot traffic for our local businesses. That's the playbook, and it's working.
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 From a fourth-grade trumpet at Grant Elementary to the biggest podium prize in America. Santa Monica-raised conductor Elias Brown has won the 2026 Sir Georg Solti Conducting Award, the largest grant given to American conductors in the early years of their careers. It comes with $30,000, a year of mentorship, and introductions to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Lyric Opera. Elias traces his path straight back to SMMUSD music classrooms: an inherited piano, a trumpet in fourth grade at Grant, ensembles at John Adams, and a teacher who stayed late to give lessons that stretched for hours.
→ 🎯 My take: I've spent my whole life around a music store and built a nonprofit on one belief: put an instrument in a kid's hands and you change the trajectory of a life. Elias is the proof. Congratulations to him, and to every SMMUSD music teacher who ever stayed late. That pipeline starts in a classroom, and it's worth every penny we fight for.
🔹 The first bell rings Thursday. SMMUSD students head back to class on Thursday, August 20, and the City's Mobility team has a smart ask: plan the trip before the first day. Students should grab a GoPass through their school for free, unlimited rides on Big Blue Bus and LA Metro. Walkers and bikers, use marked crosswalks and wear that helmet. And drivers, this one's for all of us: slow down in school zones, watch the crosswalks, and don't double park at drop-off. A little patience during week one keeps every kid safe.
🎉 Around Town & Community
🔹 Silas White's name is officially on the map. Last Monday, city officials, community advocates, and members of the White family pulled the cord on the new Silas White Street sign, renaming a portion of Vicente Terrace steps from where Silas White planned the Ebony Beach Club before the City used eminent domain to take the property in the 1950s. His daughter, Constance White, joined the ceremony remotely. And the City made clear this is a beginning, not a finish line: a $5.5 million restorative justice fund and a newly appointed Restorative Justice Commission will shape what comes next. History, now in street-sign green. A city willing to write its past onto its street signs is a city serious about earning trust, and I'm proud ours is doing the work.
👉 Read Patch's recap of the unveiling
🔹 Tongva Park, you showed OUT on Saturday. Picnic blankets across the lawn, kids running, neighbors dancing to New Orleans funk from The Rumble, and a Santa Monica sunset handing off to a show-stealing moon. I said it on Instagram and I'll say it here: THIS is Santa Monica, and this is exactly what our public spaces are for. The best news? We get to do it again. This Saturday, August 22, at 7 p.m., Son Mayor brings a full salsa orchestra, complete with a free salsa lesson, and the series runs every Saturday through September 12. Pack a picnic, bring somebody you love, and come dance next to me.
👉 See the Tongva Twilight lineup
👉 See my post from Saturday night
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Thursday, August 20: First day of school for SMMUSD students. Slow down out there, Santa Monica.
🔹 Thursday, August 20: FINAL day to apply for Santa Monica Renter Aid. If one hard month has you or someone you know on the edge, do not let this deadline pass.
👉 Apply for Santa Monica Renter Aid
🔹 Saturday, August 22, 7 p.m.: Tongva Twilight at Tongva Park with Son Mayor and a free salsa lesson.
🔹 Sunday, August 23: Wellness on the Westside at Santa Monica Place, and the final day of the LA Jazz Festival's free events across the region.
🔹 Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27: Ocean Way Festival on Santa Monica Beach.
🔹 Starting Tuesday, September 29: The League of Women Voters candidate forum series begins, with City Council forums October 4, 9, and 14.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you'll find me.
🔹 Watching City Hall: Council agendas and staff reports always post ahead of each meeting.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
💙 All In Through November
The November ballot is officially taking shape. Filing closed this week, and the certified list shows contested races for City Council, the Rent Control Board, the College Board, and the School Board. I've qualified for the ballot as an incumbent, and I genuinely welcome a crowded field. Democracy works better crowded. Competition forces all of us to earn your vote instead of assuming it, and between the candidate forums this fall and your own kitchen-table conversations, you'll have every chance to size us up.
Which brings me back to Saturday's backyard. My favorite invitations don't come on letterhead. They come from a neighbor at Bob's Market. So here's mine, standing: gather a few neighbors in your backyard, living room, apartment courtyard, or coffee shop, and I'll come to you. I want to hear what you love about Santa Monica, what worries you, and what you want its future to look like. If you're able to support the campaign with a contribution or a few hours of door knocking, every bit helps me reach more voters.
👉 See who qualified for the ballot
👉 Get involved at LanaNegrete.com
📱 Stay Connected
Got an issue to report? Want to make sure the city hears you?
If you haven't already, be sure to follow me on Instagram too for behind-the-scenes updates, event highlights, and my thoughts along the way as I continue to go on this journey with you.
🔹 Book time with me. Virtual, in-person at City Hall, or catch me at the farmers market on weekends.
👉 Book Office Hours with Councilmember Lana Negrete
🌟 Closing Thought: Tend Your Corner of the Garden
I keep thinking about that backyard group. They didn't set out to build a civic organization. They set out to grow tomatoes. But gardens have a way of teaching the real lessons: you show up regularly, you pay attention to what's struggling, you water even when nothing looks like it's happening, and one day you look up and something is thriving that wasn't there before.
That's community. It isn't issued by City Hall, and you don't need a badge, a bylaws binder, or a seat on the dais to grow it. You tend your corner. Test a smoke alarm. Check on the neighbor who's been here 40 years. Wave a kid across the crosswalk Thursday morning. Learn the name of the volunteer behind the thrift shop counter. Then come dance with me at Tongva Park on Saturday, because a city that celebrates together tends together.
The soil here is good, Santa Monica. It always has been. Let's keep growing.
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica