🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete

📅 July 6, 2026

Happy Monday, Santa Monica,

Something unexpected happened on my way home from a mother-daughter graduation trip to Portugal: I got emotional walking back through customs and onto American soil. We marked America's 250th birthday from an ocean away this year, celebrating in our hearts with the city we love, and it turns out a little distance only makes the gratitude louder. Portugal was beautiful, and I'd go back in a heartbeat. But coming home reminded me that gratitude for another place doesn't take away from gratitude for your own: for my family, for this community, and for the opportunity to serve the city that raised me.

And while my daughter and I were sharing pastries on cobblestone streets, this city did not slow down for a second. There's fresh housing data worth your attention, encouraging World Cup numbers for our hotels, a first-ever feat above the Pier, and yes, some big campaign dates I want on your calendar. Let's catch up.

🚔 Public Safety

🔹 The week in numbers, June 21 through 27. SMPD handled 2,299 calls for service and made 92 arrests, with officers initiating 41 percent of all activity. Two year-to-date trends are worth holding side by side: arrests have climbed 70.5 percent over 2025, while homeless-related dispositions have actually dipped 3 percent.

→ 📊 What the cases looked like: The week's most serious incident was an armed robbery at a smoke shop near Lincoln and Pico, where an employee was shot in the leg. Two days later, CHP spotted the suspect vehicle, took two people into custody, and recovered two firearms. Officers also arrested a suspect tied to a prior stabbing near the Circle Bar, recovered an unregistered gun during a stop on Appian Way, and used camera footage to track down a felony hit-and-run driver who left a pedestrian badly injured on Wilshire.

→ 🎯 My take: I'm keeping the person who was shot in my thoughts, and I'm grateful for the coordination between our officers and regional partners that put those suspects in custody within 48 hours. Cases like these are why I fight for our department to have the staffing and the technology to follow through, not just respond.

🔹 A veteran is getting the keys to an apartment next month. Behind our Homeless Liaison Program's weekly totals of 166 radio calls and 153 proactive contacts sits a breakthrough worth celebrating: a veteran who had resisted housing for several years secured a VA voucher through the combined persistence of HLP, a County mental health clinician, the VA, and the City Attorney's Office, and he is expected to move into his own place within weeks.

→ ⚡ Why this matters: Years of no, and then one yes. That is what real outreach looks like, and it takes a whole team refusing to give up on someone. Enforcement where it's warranted, and a patient hand toward services where that's the better path. I'll keep backing both.

🔹 Our Fire Department stayed busy in the background, too. SMFD answered 341 calls this week while completing 102 annual fire inspections and dozens of plan checks for alarms, sprinklers, and new construction. With a packed summer events calendar, prevention work like this is exactly what keeps a busy season a safe one.

🔹 Mark your calendar: National Night Out comes to City Hall on Tuesday, August 4. From 5 to 8 p.m. on the City Hall lawn, Chief Jacob and SMPD are rolling out the red carpet, literally, with a "Lights. Camera. Community." theme for an evening of family activities, safety resources, and face time with the officers and professional staff who serve you every day. The strongest neighborhoods are the ones where residents and public safety personnel know each other by name, and this is the easiest way I know to start.

👉 See the National Night Out details

💼 Economic Development

🔹 Our hotels are winning the World Cup, and that's new information. Early World Cup tourism data shows Santa Monica hotels outperforming other regional markets, with higher room rates and strong occupancy. That's a very positive sign for our local economy, because hotel performance flows directly into the taxes that fund police, fire, parks, and libraries.

→ 🎯 My take: We've been tracking foot traffic and parking since the tournament began, and now the lodging numbers are confirming the bigger story: when the world visits, it's choosing to stay here. Our job is to turn a great month into a great habit, so these visitors come back long after the final whistle.

🔹 Sunset Park businesses are organizing, and I love to see it. On Monday, June 29, business owners along Ocean Park Boulevard, including Lucky Duck, Yoga-urt, and Sunset Park Provisions & Goods, sat down with City staff and consultants for the first conversation about forming a Sunset Park business improvement district. Our four existing districts, Downtown, Main Street, Montana Avenue, and Pico, pool resources for marketing, events, and streetscape improvements, and Sunset Park's neighborhood businesses have never had that structure.

→ 💡 What this means: Forming a district is voluntary and driven by the businesses themselves at every step. This first meeting was about listening and gauging interest, and the City is providing support because our Realignment Plan flagged Ocean Park Boulevard as a corridor worth investing in. If you run a business on the boulevard, this is your conversation to shape.

🔹 Home-sharing permits just went digital. The City's new online home-sharing portal is live, giving lawful home-share operators a modern way to apply for permits and pay their occupancy taxes. Quick refresher on our rules: residents may host visitors while they remain on-site, but un-hosted vacation rentals under 30 days are prohibited, a framework built to protect our housing stock while still allowing genuine home sharing.

→ ⚡ Why this matters: Making it easier to follow the rules and easier to catch those who don't is a win on both ends. The same technology the City uses to spot unpermitted listings now powers a front door for the operators doing things right.

👉 Visit the home-sharing portal

🏠 Housing: The Honest Numbers

🔹 Fresh data just landed on the City's Housing Progress Dashboard, and it tells a clear story. Fresh data from the City's Housing Progress Dashboard gives us a snapshot of where Santa Monica stands on its State-assigned housing obligation for this cycle.

→ 💡 What this means: The City continues to approve housing at a rapid pace, and thousands of units have now been entitled. Yet one question remains: is this actually making Santa Monica more affordable?

The answer is far more complicated than simply approving more market-rate housing. While the Council adopted an Off-Site Affordable Housing Incentive Program to help move some projects forward, I continue to ask whether these policies are delivering the kinds of homes our community needs most.

My focus remains on creating housing opportunities for the people who keep Santa Monica running, teachers, first responders, healthcare workers, service employees, young families, seniors, and middle-income residents who increasingly find themselves priced out. Approving more units is only part of the equation. Success should ultimately be measured by whether more people can actually afford to live here.

As these policies continue to roll out, I’ll be watching the data closely and asking the same question many residents are asking: are we creating more affordability, or simply building more market-rate housing?

👉 Explore the Housing Progress Dashboard

👉 Download the off-site program summary (PDF)

🔹 The State just added us to its SB 35 streamlining list, and here's the easy-to-understand version. As of June 30, Santa Monica, along with 507 of California's 539 local jurisdictions, is subject to streamlined housing approvals under SB 35. Qualifying projects that include at least 10 percent affordable units can now elect a ministerial State approval process with no public hearings. The practical effect here is likely limited: we were on this list back in 2023 and not a single application was ever filed, mostly because Santa Monica already offers its own local streamlined pathway for qualifying projects.

→ 🎯 My take: You know where I stand on Sacramento reaching past the communities that know their own streets best, and this designation shows just how much of housing policy now runs through the State. Credit to our Community Development team for managing our processes well enough that the impact here should be muted. I'll be watching this closely and will keep you posted.

🔹 Your voice is wanted on a new Affordable Housing Integrity Ordinance, and the window closes Wednesday, July 15. When City staff resumed full compliance monitoring after the pandemic, they found cases where deed-restricted affordable units were not reaching income-qualified households or were not renting at the required affordable rates. Right now, the City's main recourse is a polite letter. The proposed ordinance would consolidate the rules into one clear chapter of the municipal code and give the City real remedies for serious or repeated violations, so the affordable homes we require actually serve the families they were built for.

→ ⚡ Why this matters to me: As a renter, I don't think it's radical to expect that an apartment built for a working family goes to a working family. If you have thoughts, email Consumer.Mailbox@santamonica.gov by July 15. Every comment gets reviewed as the proposal is refined.

👉 Read the draft ordinance and session materials

🔹 And tonight, more than 600 potential homes go before the Architectural Review Board. The ARB meets this evening, Monday, July 6, to review designs for an eight-story, 147-unit project at 1302 Pico Boulevard, including 24 affordable homes, and an eight-story mixed-use development at 2716 Ocean Park Boulevard with 456 units, 46 of them affordable, plus ground-floor commercial space.

👉 View meetings and agendas

🎓 Education & Our Libraries

🔹 Our adult literacy learners got a night at the theater. The Library's LEAF adult literacy program brought seven learners and three tutors to the Geffen Playhouse for a live production, complete with a preshow workshop at the Library and, for the first time, a post-performance workshop led by a Geffen teaching artist at the theater itself. Practicing speaking, reading, and writing through live theater beats a worksheet every single time.

🔹 And our younger readers are being met right where they are. Fresh books just landed at six SMPL Book Nook sites, the front-facing displays placed where families face long waits, from Venice Family Clinic to the Boys & Girls Club. Meanwhile, ten teens spent an evening at the Library's Teen Game Night trading snacks and rounds of Uno and Clue, and plenty of them checked out books on the way home. Small programs, real impact.

🤝 Transparency & Civility: One Standard for Everyone

🔹 I said something this week that I want to say to you directly, too. The Governor's Office recently put out an official press release publicly mocking the City of Huntington Beach over its housing position. Whether you agree with Huntington Beach or not isn't really the point. California has increasingly centralized housing policy, limiting local decision-making. Some cities agree with that approach. Others have challenged it in court because they believe they're advocating for the communities that elected them. That's how our democratic system works. What concerns me is the response. Instead of inviting local leaders to the table, listening to concerns, and working through disagreements, the Governor's Office chose to publicly mock fellow elected officials.

→ 🎯 Where I stand: As someone who serves on a city council, I know firsthand that local elected officials are human beings. Most aren't doing this for the paycheck. You don't have to agree with every decision they make. I certainly don't. But we should treat one another with respect. I don't care whether it's a Democrat or a Republican. I believe we should hold everyone, especially the people we vote for, to the same standard. Government should inform, engage, and build trust, not ridicule those who disagree. California's housing challenges are real, and they deserve serious conversations, collaboration, and leadership, not official press releases that sound like social media clapbacks.

👉 Read my full post (Instagram)

🎉 Around Town & Community

🔹 A dream took flight above the waves at Pier 360. For the first time in the Pier's storied history, a slackline stretched the full width of the Santa Monica Pier during late June's Pier 360 Beach Festival, and athletes walked all 200 feet of it, suspended above the Pacific as crowds watched from below. The idea came from the Original Muscle Beach slackline community, and resident Robert Chapin believed in it so completely that he created an AI-generated image of what it might look like. Our Building & Safety team then worked with internationally certified professional riggers to turn that image into a safe, real installation on short notice.

→ ⚡ Why this one sticks with me: When a resident dreams up something that's never been done here before, the easy answer is always no. This time, our city found a path to yes. That's the Santa Monica I want us to be: skilled, careful, and still willing to say let's figure it out.

🔹 Splash Night was a smash, and the next one lands Friday, July 17. Our aquatics team welcomed 438 guests to the Swim Center on June 26 for the first of three summer Splash Nights, with pool floats, an inflatable obstacle course, free cotton candy from our lifeguards, and the Spain versus Uruguay match playing on the monitors. Round two runs Friday, July 17, from 4 to 7 p.m., and if the first one is any indication, grab tickets early.

👉 Get Splash Night tickets

🔹 The Beach House turned a soccer match into a family reunion. About 190 guests came out for a World Cup Watch Party at the Annenberg Community Beach House, including a family from Melbourne, Australia who had landed in Los Angeles that very day to catch the Australia versus Paraguay match. Free popcorn, soccer coloring pages for the kids, and proof that our Beach House is both a neighborhood living room and a genuinely international destination.

🔹 Santa Monica will honor a giant: July 15 is now Wallis Annenberg Day. The City has proclaimed Wednesday, July 15, our first-ever Wallis Annenberg Day, on what would have been the legendary philanthropist's 87th birthday. Her vision transformed the former Marion Davies estate into that very Beach House, a first-class beachfront destination that belongs to everyone, something no other coastal city in America can claim.

→ 🙏 A note of gratitude: Generosity at that scale reshaped our coastline for generations of families who will never know her name. Remembering it once a year feels like the least we can do.

🔹 Good news for the corner of Santa Monica and Princeton. Seven months after a late-night vehicle collision severely damaged the building at 2632 Santa Monica Boulevard, displacing the family upstairs, permanent repairs are officially underway following the City's issuance of a building permit last week. Our teams supported the displaced household throughout, and the goal now is getting that second-floor home habitable again and that corner back to full strength.

📅 Dates to Know

🔹 Monday, July 6 (tonight): Architectural Review Board takes up more than 600 potential new homes at 1302 Pico Boulevard and 2716 Ocean Park Boulevard.

🔹Coffee & Bagels with neighbors and candidates on Sunday, July 12, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., hosted by Alan Mont and Mary Beth Woods.

👉 RSVP for Coffee and Bagels

🔹 Wednesday, July 15: Deadline to comment on the proposed Affordable Housing Integrity Ordinance, and Santa Monica's first Wallis Annenberg Day.

🔹 Friday, July 17, 4 to 7 p.m.: Splash Night at the Santa Monica Swim Center.

🔹 Thursday, July 23: The State of the City takes over Main Street from 4 to 7 p.m., with booths, live music, and the Mayor's annual address. Ride Big Blue Bus for free to get there and back.

👉 See the State of the City details and RSVP

🔹 Tuesday, August 4, 5 to 8 p.m.: National Night Out on the City Hall lawn.

🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: our farmers markets are running, and now that I'm back, so is my weekend market routine. Come say hello and tell me what's on your mind.

💙 All In Through November

I told you a kickoff was coming, and now it's official: my birthday was June 29, and I hadn't yet thrown a campaign kickoff party because I was away celebrating my daughter. But now I'm home, and it's time to kick off this reelection campaign in true Lana fashion. Let's get together over music and food, talk about what matters most to you in Santa Monica, and launch this thing right. Mark your calendars for Friday, July 17, from 6 to 10 p.m. Stay tuned for the address.

And before that, come say hello over Coffee & Bagels with neighbors and candidates on Sunday, July 12, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., hosted by Alan Mont and Mary Beth Woods. All three candidates running for City Council in November, myself, Ashley Oelsen, and Doug Trussler, will be there to meet neighbors from all across our city. The address is provided upon RSVP.

👉 RSVP for Coffee and Bagels

If you're able to chip in as we head into kickoff season, every contribution, large or small, gets us closer to November.

👉 Chip in before the kickoff

📱 Stay Connected

Got an issue to report? Want to make sure the city hears you?

👉 Report an Issue

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.

👉 Follow me on Instagram

🔹 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: The Mug From Portugal

I brought a coffee mug home from Portugal for One Cedar, our little neighborhood coffee shop, and I've decided that's my new tradition: one mug from every place I visit, so the shelf slowly fills up with stories from around the world. It's a small thing, but it captures what this trip taught me. Portugal was beautiful, and I'd go back in a heartbeat. But sometimes the best way to appreciate home is to leave it for a little while.

We spend a lot of time talking about what's broken, and there's plenty we should keep working to improve. This week's newsletter has both: hard numbers, honest challenges, and a whole lot worth being proud of. So here's my ask. Pick your way in. Send a comment on the housing ordinance by July 15, RSVP for coffee on the 12th, or just come find me at the market and tell me what's on your mind. What's one place that always tells you, "I'm home," the moment you get back? For me, it's this one.

👉 See my homecoming post (Instagram)

Together, we're building a Santa Monica that works for everyone — a city where families can thrive, businesses can grow, and community comes first.

With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica