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Lana Negrete Newsletter — November 10, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 November 10, 2026
Hello, Santa Monica,
The votes are counted, the yard signs are coming down, and I get to keep the best job I never planned on having. Thank you. But this week's letter is not really about the election. It is about what kept moving while the ballots were being tallied: our Fire Department's nurse practitioner unit quietly turned one year old with 1,100 calls answered, the State signed off on our plan to manage growth near transit on our own terms, and tomorrow morning a Chinook helicopter will thunder over the beach to honor our veterans. The work never paused. Neither do we. Let's get into it.
💙 First, Thank You
🔹 Four more years, same hometown heart. From the little girl who grew up in these eight square miles to the woman writing you this letter, this city has always been home, and you just trusted me to keep serving it for another four years. I do not take a single vote for granted. Congratulations to every candidate who won last Tuesday, and just as importantly, thank you to every candidate who did not. Putting your name on a ballot means putting yourself out there, vulnerable, in public, for your neighbors. That takes guts. If this election stirred something in you, do not let it fade: consider running next cycle, or raise your hand for a board or commission. This city runs on people who show up.
👉 Read my thank-you post (Instagram)
🇺🇸 Tomorrow: Veterans Day by the Sea
🔹 Wednesday, November 11, 11:00 a.m., Beach Parking Lot 4. For our seventh annual Veterans Day ceremony, the City is partnering with the U.S. Army and moving the whole program to a new beachside location between Santa Monica Beach and Crescent Bay Park. Expect live performances, remarks from senior military leaders and local officials, and a Chinook helicopter flyover that you will hear before you see. Honoring the men and women who served is one of the few things we should all be able to gather around without a single disagreement, and I hope you will come stand in the sand and do exactly that. Fun historical footnote: Route 66 turns 100 the very same day, and it ends right here.
👉 Read the SMDP ceremony preview
🚓 Public Safety
🔹 By the numbers: October 25 to 31. Same deal as every week: the data, straight, in a table.
Metric | Oct 25 to 31 | Oct 18 to 24 | 2026 YTD | 2025 YTD | YTD Change | % Change
|
Calls for service | 2,246 | 2,114 | 106,858 | 103,012 | +3,846 | +3.7% |
Arrests | 78 | 96 | 4,480 | 2,808 | +1,672 | +59.5% |
Officer-initiated activity | 1,019 (45% of calls) | 921 (44%) | 49,581 | 41,865 | +7,716 | +18.4% |
Resident-initiated calls | 1,227 (55% of calls) | 1,193 (56%) | 57,277 | 61,147 | -3,870 | -6.3% |
→ 💡 What this means: Arrests are running nearly 60 percent ahead of last year, officers generated 45 percent of all activity themselves this week, and resident-initiated calls keep falling. Officers are finding problems before you have to report them, which is exactly what we asked for. Keep holding up your end: 911 for crimes in progress, 311 for quality-of-life issues.
👉 Explore the crime dashboards
🔹 Happy first birthday to the APU, with 1,100 calls answered. One year ago this past week, I helped our Fire Department launch the Advanced Provider Unit, pairing a Firefighter Paramedic with a Nurse Practitioner and sending them to non-life-threatening medical and behavioral health calls. It started as a 40-hour-a-week experiment. After Council approved an expansion this past February, it now runs seven days a week with three Firefighter Paramedics and five Nurse Practitioners. The year-one receipts: 1,100 calls handled, 175 patients treated in place without an unnecessary emergency room trip, more than 240 engine responses avoided, more than 30 prescriptions written in the field, and a dozen alternative transports to urgent care instead of a crowded ER.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Every call the APU resolves on scene keeps an engine and an ambulance free for the next true emergency, and it gives the patient better care in the bargain. Roughly 31 percent of APU patients are experiencing homelessness, and the team's partnership with WISE & Healthy Aging is connecting vulnerable seniors to care management and safer homes, which reduces repeat 911 calls.
→ 🎯 My take: I have championed this unit from the start even when there was pushback- because a fire engine was never the right tool for every 911 call, and year two gets even smarter: a maturing UCLA Health partnership, expanded field medical clearances with SMPD so officers get back in service faster, and deeper ties to behavioral health and housing services. Kudos to every paramedic, nurse practitioner, and dispatcher who built this. More of this, please.
👉 Learn about the Advanced Provider Unit
🔹 Sharp police work, line by line. Officers responding to reported ATM tampering on the 900 block of Montana found cash-trapping devices and skimmer tools and made a grand theft arrest. After a reported stabbing attempt on the 700 block of Broadway, Sky1 helped locate the suspect, who was arrested with the knife recovered. Officers also arrested suspects in two separate knife-related threats on Main Street and Ocean Park Boulevard, and a felony theft suspect at Target. One case still open: a residential burglary on the 300 block of Bicknell, flagged by a homeowner's camera alerts while they were out of town. Those suspects remain outstanding, so a reminder that cameras and quick 911 calls genuinely move cases.
🔹 Traffic watch. Officers made 261 stops with 146 citations, focused on Wilshire from 19th to 26th and on PCH, where an October 25 speeding operation produced seven citations and a DUI arrest. One driver blew a 0.22 percent BAC, nearly three times the legal limit, and another was arrested for felony hit-and-run after abandoning his vehicle at Main and Pico. I will keep saying it until it stops happening: no shortcut, no celebration, no anything is worth driving impaired.
🔹 Homelessness response, both hands working. The Homeless Liaison Program logged 123 self-initiated contacts, addressed 14 encampments, issued 26 citations, made 15 arrests, and referred 10 people to SaMo Bridge and shelter services. The line that stays with me: officers worked with the Salvation Army Hope Team to buy a bus ticket the same day and reunite a man with his family in Arizona through Project Homecoming. During an October 29 beach and embankment deployment, the team helped remove more than 4,500 pounds of trash. Accountability and care in the same motion, every single week.
🔹 Sandbag Saturdays are coming, because El Niño is too. SMFD is inviting residents to Clover Park on Saturday, November 14 and Saturday, November 21, from 9 a.m. to noon, where firefighters will help you fill sandbags ahead of what forecasters still expect to be a seriously wet winter. We cleared the storm drains in October; now it is your turn to prep the garage door. Free help from a firefighter is the best deal in town.
🏠 Housing & City Hall
🔹 Sacramento signed off on our SB 79 plan. On Wednesday, November 4, the State's Housing and Community Development department approved the SB 79 Exclusion Ordinance our Council adopted back in July, confirming that SB 79 implementation is delayed until 2030 in six of Santa Monica's seven transit zones.
→ 💡 What this means: SB 79 is the state law, effective July 1, that sets minimum height and density standards for housing near major transit stops. The law lets cities press pause in zones where local rules already allow enough development, and we took that path so growth near our stations gets planned through our next Housing Element, on our terms, with your input. The one outstanding zone is Expo/Bundy, where the station technically sits in Los Angeles; we adopted a second ordinance in September to cover it, and the State's review deadline is December 24. We are watching that one closely, and I will report back the moment we hear. Although I did not support the upzone of the 79 parcels in Pico as I found it unfair to Pico.
🔹 47 affordable family homes break ground on Euclid. The public parking lot at 1217 Euclid Street closes Wednesday, December 2, so construction can begin on the Ollie Apartments, Hollywood Community Housing Corporation's 47 one-, two-, and three-bedroom affordable units, expected to be complete in December 2028. It is the second of two HCHC communities rising on former City parking lots near Wilshire, alongside the senior housing already under construction at 14th Street. The two construction sites will overlap for about 16 months, both under City-approved traffic control plans, and signs at the lot point to parking and business support resources. 👉 See HCHC's Santa Monica work
🔹 Virginia Avenue tenants get the first look at their new old homes. At 2033-2101 Virginia Avenue, the 40 rent-controlled apartments that Community Corporation of Santa Monica is rehabilitating with a City loan, new cabinets and countertops landed by the end of this month, and CCSM is now offering individual apartment tours by request so tenants can see exactly what they are coming home to next summer. I walked through one with a family yesterday. Six households have already booked. The next quarterly construction meeting for tenants is Thursday, November 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. at High Place West, 2345 Virginia Avenue. Preserving these late-1940s homes for the families who already live in them is what keeping Santa Monica for Santa Monicans actually looks like.
👉 Read Housing Office news and notices
💼 Economic Development
🔹 Commercial property owners can now pull their own building permits. Responding directly to feedback from local property owners, our Building and Safety team created a new owner-builder pathway for commercial properties, with a fresh information bulletin walking through the responsibilities that come with it. Previously that option mostly existed for residential owners only.
→ 🎯 My take: Ask anyone who has waited on a permit while paying rent on an empty storefront: friction is a tax, and it lands hardest on the smallest operators. This joins the self-certification program I supported and December's new permitting system in a steady drumbeat of making it simpler to open, improve, and reinvest here. That is the whole point of a business-friendly city hall.
🔹 Two market firsts picked us. La Diperie, the Montreal-born dessert shop with 65 stores across Canada, chose 2441 Main Street for its first California location, dipping nearly everything in sugary goodness. Makenna Koffee, the fast-growing Hawaiian-inspired coffee brand out of Simi Valley, made 2425 Wilshire its first Westside outpost. Off the Charts opened at 2415 Wilshire as our third cannabis dispensary, and Laya Café is building out a Mediterranean spot Downtown with plans to open this year. When brands get to pick anywhere and pick Santa Monica, that is a scoreboard I enjoy reading to you.
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 Art in Motion debuts this Saturday on the Promenade. The new program putting arts content on Downtown's digital displays launches its live series this Saturday, November 14, during Santa Monica Block Fest: choreographer DaEun Jung, a former Camera Obscura Art Lab resident, performs live at 6:30 p.m., followed at 7 p.m. by dance on film across the displays with a DJ. It continues every second Saturday. We promised those screens would carry Santa Monica's creative voice, not just advertising, and this is that promise paying out. As a music store kid, watching our own artists light up the Promenade is my kind of return on investment.
👉 See the digital display City programming
🔹 Civics, in every language. Ahead of Election Day, our City Clerk's Office visited the Library's ESL Conversation Class to walk students through reading a ballot, weighing choices against their own values, and looking up who funds and endorses candidates and measures. You know transparency is my favorite subject: teaching new English speakers how to check sources for themselves is democracy done right. Kudos to the Clerk and Library teams.
🔹 Halloween by the numbers: over 1,000 neighbors, five celebrations, zero sugar restraint. Spooky Splash drew 599 swimmers to a floating pumpkin patch, Joslyn Park's first Fall Spooktacular welcomed about 135 kids, more than 200 families braved a rainy night for PAL's Spooktacular, The Cove hosted a costumed skate night and won Best Halloween-Themed City Facility, and roughly 261 kids completed the Library's spooky scavenger hunt across four branches. I was proud to support PAL's big night witha delivery of spooky donuts, and as a mom I can confirm: a city that throws itself into Halloween is a city kids remember loving. Thank you to every staffer and volunteer who made the magic.
🍽️ Dining for Democracy: Pull Up a Chair
🔹 They told us not to talk politics at the dinner table. I'm setting a place for it. This week I launched something I have dreamed about for a long time: Dining for Democracy, a monthly supper club bringing neighbors together across political beliefs. This past election convinced me the need is urgent. Too often, labels and name-calling scare good people out of speaking up or serving at all, and no one's voice should be silenced by fear of being judged. We celebrate diversity in every other space; let's celebrate diversity of thought too. The first dinner is Monday, November 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. at West Side Oyster Club, with 20 seats at $50 per person. We will gather monthly, grow the series, and eventually support local nonprofits. Want in? DM me your email and I will send you a personal invitation. The best ideas should win, no matter who they come from.
👉 See the Dining for Democracy post (Instagram)
🎉 Around Town
🔹 My Saturday morning, available to all. This past Saturday I walked to the Pico Farmers Market at Virginia Avenue Park with Luis and Lucy Pearl, loaded up on flowers, juice, and our favorite hummus, and discovered Bakeman's Bars, scratch-made gluten-free bars from local maker Jake. Then the Pico Pop-Up got us: two Santa Monica hats and a $5 engraved keychain in two minutes. We are lucky to have three farmers markets every week: Wednesdays Downtown, Saturdays at Virginia Avenue Park, Sundays on Main Street. You will find me at one almost every weekend. Come say hi.
🔹 Día de los Muertos came home to Woodlawn. After a six-year hiatus, the Pico Improvement Organization revived the celebration at Woodlawn Cemetery on November 1, where our Library's two tables logged 320 interactions and issued more than 25 new library cards. Familias Latinas Unidas gathered about 60 neighbors around a beautiful altar at Virginia Avenue Park, and the 19th Street Community Garden built an altar showered with marigolds, plus a garden-guarding scarecrow. Also learned this week: astronaut Sally Ride rests at Woodlawn. Eight square miles, endless stories.
🔹 The holidays have officially landed. We kicked off the season at the grand opening of Frost on 5th, our Downtown ice rink, then headed to the BroadStage to celebrate 100 years of Route 66 and honor the Song Contest winner, who took home a $10,000 grand prize for a new anthem to the highway that ends at our Pier. Lace up some skates and go make a December memory in November.
👉 See my holiday kickoff post (Instagram)
🔹 Two more reasons to love the Beach House. This Saturday and Sunday, November 14 and 15, from noon to 2 p.m., Marion Davies Guest House visitors can add their own stories to a Route 66 Memory Map for the centennial. Then on Sunday, November 22, from 6 to 9 p.m., the Los Angeles Astronomical Society sets up telescopes on the boardwalk for free drop-in stargazing. The moon, the planets, and the Pacific in one evening? Only here.
👉 Explore arts, culture and fun
🔹 Quiet wins from the back of house. Our Fleet team put two new electric vehicles to work: a custom-outfitted Ford F-150 Lightning for Facilities Maintenance, with onboard power to charge tools between job sites, and an all-electric utility vehicle at Woodlawn Cemetery that keeps operations quiet and the grounds peaceful. Meanwhile, seven of our Code Enforcement officers trained at the statewide CACEO conference on short-term rentals, vending enforcement, and more.
💗 A Pink Note for November
Yes, this is newsletter ask number seven, because persistence is the whole brand: if October got away from you, your screening still counts this month. Breast cancer does not read calendars, and early detection is the reason this survivor is still the one writing to you. Book it, and nudge someone you love to book theirs.
👉 Support the Tough Titty Committee
🏗️ Development Watch
🔹 A ninth digital display is proposed Downtown. The City received a development agreement application for a 1,000 square foot display at 1441 Third Street Promenade, wrapping the corner at Broadway, which would be the first on the Promenade's 1400 block. Two displays are live, six more are approved, and the district allows up to 16, each requiring its own agreement with revenue sharing and dedicated screen time for City and arts content. This application goes through staff review, the Planning Commission, and Council, with public hearings at each step. You should hear about it from your city, not the construction fence, so consider yourself told.
🔹 1338 5th Street continues through design review. The Architectural Review Board met Monday, November 2, and continued its review of the proposed eight-story, 110-unit market-rate building Downtown, sending the development team back with comments on design, colors, materials, and landscaping before it returns to the Board. Also worth noting: Planning logged 20 applications in October, up from 17 a year ago.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Tomorrow, Wednesday, November 11, 11 a.m.: Veterans Day ceremony at Beach Parking Lot 4, with a Chinook flyover. Route 66 also turns 100.
🔹 Thursday, November 12, 6 to 7 p.m.: Virginia Avenue Apartments tenant construction meeting at High Place West, 2345 Virginia Avenue.
🔹 Saturday, November 14: Sandbag Saturday at Clover Park, 9 a.m. to noon; Route 66 Memory Map at the Beach House, noon to 2 p.m.; Art in Motion debuts on the Promenade at 6:30 p.m. during Block Fest.
🔹 Sunday, November 15, noon to 2 p.m.: Route 66 Memory Map, day two.
🔹 Monday, November 16, 6 to 8 p.m.: First Dining for Democracy supper at West Side Oyster Club.
🔹 Tuesday, November 17, 5:30 p.m.: City Council meets, including the $55 million water bond authorization I previewed last week.
🔹 Saturday, November 21: Sandbag Saturday round two at Clover Park, 9 a.m. to noon, and Friendsgiving at Ishihara Park, 9 to 11 a.m.
🔹 Sunday, November 22, 6 to 9 p.m.: Stargazing on the Beach House boardwalk.
🔹 Wednesday, December 2: The Euclid Street parking lot closes as the Ollie Apartments begin construction.
🔹 Monday, December 7: The Clariti permitting system launches Phase 1.
🔹 Through December 31: Ride, Shop, Save deals continue on Big Blue Bus.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you will find me.
📱 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: The Table Is Bigger Than the Ballot
An election ended last week, and here is what it did not change: a nurse practitioner still climbed into a rig and treated someone where they stood, tenants on Virginia Avenue still got invited to walk through their almost-finished homes, and a scarecrow still went up in a community garden with marigolds at its feet. Campaigns are loud. The work is quiet. The work was always the point.
What I am carrying into these next four years is the same thing I am setting on the table November 16: the conviction that we can disagree about plenty and still pass the bread. You do not have to vote like your neighbor to fill sandbags next to them, cheer the same flyover, or want the same kid to have a safe street to trick-or-treat on. That is not naive. That is Santa Monica, and I have 40-plus years of proof.
So honor a veteran tomorrow, book the screening, grab a seat at the table, and come find me at the market. We have work to do, together.
With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica