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Lana Negrete Newsletter — October 27, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 October 27, 2026
Happy Halloween week, Santa Monica,
This Saturday, more streets than ever before will close to cars and belong entirely to kids in costumes, which makes this the one week of the year when City Hall officially endorses taking candy from strangers. Before the capes come out, tonight's City Council meeting takes up an El Niño emergency declaration, the Affordability Agenda, and a building code overhaul, and exactly one week from today, on Tuesday, November 3, your ballot is due. Candy, storms, codes, and democracy, all in one letter. Let's get into it.
🚔 Public Safety
🔹 By the numbers: October 11 to 17. Same deal as every week: the data, straight, in a table.
Metric | Oct 11 to 17 | Oct 4 to 10 | 2026 YTD | 2025 YTD | YTD Change | % Change
|
Calls for service | 2,318 | 2,386 | 102,494 | 97,979 | +4,515 | +4.6% |
Arrests | 98 | 111 | 4,306 | 2,654 | +1,652 | +62.2% |
Officer-initiated activity | 993 (43% of calls) | 1,022 (43% of calls) | 47,641 | 39,627 | +8,014 | +20.2% |
Resident-initiated calls | 1,325 (57% of calls) | 1,364 (57% of calls) | 54,853 | 58,352 | -3,499 | -6.0% |
→ 💡 What this means: Arrests remain up more than 62 percent over last year, officers initiated 43 percent of all activity this week, and resident-initiated calls keep trending down. Officers are finding problems before you have to report them. Keep doing your part: 911 for crimes in progress, 311 for quality-of-life issues.
🔹 A heartbreaking loss on 4th Street. On October 16, officers conducting a welfare check in the 2400 block of 4th Street found a married couple deceased. The Medical Examiner determined the husband died by suicide and his wife was the victim of homicide, and investigators confirmed the incident was isolated with no ongoing threat to the community. That same week, officers arrested a suspect on the 1300 block of 4th Street after witnesses stepped in when a woman was being strangled, even as a bystander was attacked for trying to help. My heart is with both families, and my gratitude is with the neighbors who refused to look away. October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and if you or someone you love needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233. You are not alone.
🔹 Sharp police work, line by line. SMPD recorded 98 arrests this week. SMART Center resources located a stolen vehicle at 20th and Idaho with the suspect arrested on the spot, and tracked a theft suspect boarding a Big Blue Bus on the Promenade, where officers recovered the stolen merchandise plus a concealed weapon. The Crime Impact Team joined a countywide parole and probation operation, where nine Santa Monica checks produced three felony arrests and a loaded, unregistered firearm off our streets. Officers also safely detained a prowler in the rear yard of an occupied home who turned out to be on parole for stalking. Every one of those lines is a neighbor made safer, and I am grateful for the work behind each one.
🔹 Traffic watch: a death, and a duty. The pedestrian critically injured in the October 2 collision on Ocean Avenue died on October 11, and the driver was arrested for felony DUI, with investigators now coordinating with prosecutors. My heart goes out to the victim's family. Officers also arrested a driver found asleep behind the wheel at 34th and Pico, and made 253 stops with 139 citations, including enforcement you asked for along Wilshire, the 200 to 700 blocks of 26th Street, 21st and Marine, PCH, and Downtown. Your reports steer this work. Please, never drive impaired. No errand is worth a life.
🔹 Homelessness response, outreach and accountability together. The Homeless Liaison Program handled 175 radio calls, logged 153 self-initiated contacts, addressed 8 encampments, issued 26 citations, made 13 arrests, and connected 6 people to SaMo Bridge and Samoshel. The lines that stay with me: two individuals who had previously declined services accepted placements at SaMo Palm and SamoShel after sustained engagement, and HLP connected another person with the Salvation Army's Project Homecoming to return home to Illinois. Enforcement opens the door. Outreach walks people through it. That is the whole strategy, every single week.
🔹 SMFD: a save 30 miles from the station. While off duty at a gym in Brea, Captain/Paramedic Bryant Stone watched a fellow gym member collapse in cardiac arrest and, alongside an off-duty physician and another off-duty paramedic, started CPR and deployed the facility's AED. They restored the patient's pulse before local EMS even arrived, the patient has made a full recovery, and Brea Fire recently arranged a reunion between the rescuers and the person they saved. That is who wears our uniform. Closer to home, the Training Division ran six-month evaluations for our Probationary Firefighters, who all showed strong growth, and the department answered 342 calls while completing 88 annual fire inspections. If this story nudges you to finally take a CPR class, consider that Captain Stone's second save of the week.
🔹 Big Blue Bus brought 250 operators together. BBB held 20 quarterly safety sessions across every shift, from 5 a.m. to 9 p.m., so all 250 Motor Coach Operators could review the layered protections behind the wheel: driver door barriers, onboard silent alarms, SMPD-led de-escalation training, Transit Safety Officers riding onboard, and Prohibition Orders restricting riders arrested for violent offenses. These meetings carried extra weight after the tragic killing of a Culver CityBus operator in Mar Vista earlier this month, and just as important as what BBB shared was what operators shared back, because their experiences shape the next round of improvements. Fittingly, tonight's Council meeting opens with a Mayor's Highlight recognizing Operator Antonise Walton for supporting the public safety response after that tragedy. The people who keep Santa Monica moving deserve to feel safe doing it, full stop.
🎃 Halloween: The Streets Belong to the Kids
🔹 Saturday, October 31, more closures than we have ever done. Halloween lands on a Saturday this year, so our Public Works Mobility team and SMPD are coordinating a record number of street closures so the biggest trick-or-treat destinations can be enjoyed safely on foot. The plan for Saturday night:
- Yale Street between Washington Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard
- Cedar Street between 10th and 11th Streets
- 24th Street between Pico Boulevard and Pearl Street
- 21st Street between Pico Boulevard and Ocean Park Boulevard
- Pearl Street between 20th and 25th Streets, since the 21st and 24th closures cut across it; 23rd Street and Cloverfield Boulevard stay open with traffic control so you can still cross
- Georgina Avenue at 16th Street, home of the Halloween spectacular that draws thousands, where SMPD will close sections for public safety as in past years
→ 💡 What this means: This year's closures were stitched together from individual block party permits, which taught us something: trick-or-treating does not respect block boundaries, and neither should our permits. For next year, Mobility and SMPD are building a dedicated trick-or-treat closure program designed around neighborhood areas, with a simple application and clear criteria. A city that redesigns its paperwork because kids outgrew it? I will take that win.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: If you are driving Saturday evening, plan an alternate route and slow way down everywhere, not just at the barricades. Costumes do not come with headlights, and sugar-fueled eight-year-olds are not known for checking both ways. I grew up in this city, and keeping Halloween magical here is a tradition worth protecting.
👉 Explore getting around Santa Monica
🏛️ Tonight at City Hall
🔹 Council meets tonight, Tuesday, October 27 at 5:30 p.m. It is a packed agenda, and several items deserve your eyes. Staff presents policy and program options for the Affordability Agenda. We take up the El Niño preparedness resolution, a proposed local emergency proclamation for the 2026-27 winter season paired with a full update on the storm prep already underway; I previewed this last week, and I would rather do the paperwork before the rain than during it. Staff also recommends adopting the 2025 California Building Standards Code with local amendments plus two companion ordinances supporting our permitting improvements, we hold a public hearing on a Development Agreement for a digital display at 1355 Third Street, the landmark building at the corner of the Promenade, and we consider an appeal of the Landmarks Commission's decision not to designate the Craftsman airplane bungalow at 1921 20th Street. Come weigh in, or watch from the couch. Either way, you should know what your city is deciding.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
🔹 Progress in Action: the Realignment story, on camera. One year after we launched the Realignment Plan, our communications team is telling the story through a new campaign called Progress in Action, with videos and infographics on clean streets, safe neighborhoods, secure housing, and economic growth. New videos are already out featuring our Transit Safety Officers, Libraries, parking garage maintenance, and Pier maintenance crews, and I love that the focus is on the actual people doing the work, not just the talking points. You have heard me say it a hundred ways: do the work, show the receipts. This is the receipts part, and more is coming.
💼 Economic Development
🔹 New flames at the Airport, Italian flair on Main Street. Stiletto celebrated its grand opening at 3200 Airport Avenue, grilling meats, seafood, and vegetables in a style the owners call "fire and finesse," with a name honoring the Douglas X-3 Stiletto, the experimental jet built right there at the Douglas plant in 1951. On Main Street, Bar Fortuna has opened at 2917 Main, pairing Italian-inspired cocktails and a deep amaro list with handmade pasta built entirely on California-sourced ingredients, open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday and lunch Friday through Sunday. And Forbes noticed: a new piece declares Main Street is having its biggest restaurant moment in decades, tracing the run from Seline's James Beard Award and Michelin star through Pasjoli, Bar Fortuna, the planned Marseié in the former World Café space, and The Santa Monican proposed for the Victorian. Still more in the pipeline: Taiwanese favorite Joy on York has applied for a permit at 418 Wilshire, and Robeks Juice has signage up at Lincoln and Broadway. Every opening is a vote of confidence in this city, and I plan to welcome every single one.
🔹 Clariti is coming December 7, and I have personal feelings about it. The City's new permitting system remains on track to launch Monday, December 7, with Phase 1 covering all building permit activity: submittals, plan review, issuance, and inspections. Phase 2 brings Public Works, Code Enforcement, Planning, and Special Event permits aboard in mid-2027, a new consolidated permitting website launches alongside it, and staff across every permitting department train the week of November 16 to 20. Expect some bumps in the early weeks of any system this size; we will be watching closely and adjusting fast.
→ 🎯 My take: I did not learn our permitting process was broken from a staff briefing. I learned it the expensive way, running my family's music store through the delays, the runaround, and the rent you keep paying while you wait. The software is only half the fix; the real gains come from the process simplification our Community Development team has built around it. Opening a business in Santa Monica should be easier than it was for me. That is the bar.
👉 Watch my permitting story (Instagram)
👉 Visit Building Permits and Plan Review
🔹 Ride, Shop, Save: the bus that pays you back. Big Blue Bus just launched a holiday program running November 1 through December 31 that gives riders a free digital discount card good for exclusive deals at participating Santa Monica businesses. Enrollment is free and takes a minute. One program that fills buses and fills storefronts at the same time? As a small business owner, I approve this message.
🔹 Business Spotlight: Lucky Penny General Store. This Downtown gem at 1207 4th Street, right next to the Santa Monica Playhouse, was created by owner Marieka Van Tilburg Kline and named for her grandmother's childhood nickname for her. There is a red telephone booth out front where you can borrow or donate free books, a little bit of everything inside, from kids' clothes to candles to Santa Monica swag, and I made a charm bracelet there with music charms and my kids' initials, because of course I did. Between mahjong classes, sip-and-shops, and fundraisers for local schools, Lucky Penny is building community, not just ringing sales, and it was voted Santa Monica's Most Loved Gift Store in both 2025 and 2026. Schools and nonprofits, take the hint: partner with a local business for your next fundraiser and everybody wins.
👉 See the Lucky Penny spotlight (Instagram)
🏠 Housing & Homelessness
🔹 SaMo Palm now has a public report card. Our first City-directed interim housing facility, at the former Palm Motel, is nearly fully occupied, with placements by referral only and priority for people with ties to Santa Monica. Now our Homeless Prevention and Intervention team has set four measures of success: 40 percent of participants achieving a successful housing outcome, 90 percent of those needing mental health or substance use services offered a connection, 70 percent maintaining or growing their income, and 85 percent obtaining their ID and Social Security card within 90 days of enrollment.
→ 💡 What this means: When the Council adopted the Housing Focused System of Care this summer, the promise was that Santa Monica would run its own local continuum instead of waiting on a shrinking regional system. If we are going to run our own system, we grade our own homework, in public. These metrics will fold into the citywide Scorecard so you can check the results yourself, which is exactly how I like it.
👉 Connect with homelessness services
🔹 RAND will now count every month, not once a year. For years, our only regular data point on homelessness was the annual one-night Point-in-Time Count, which showed encouraging movement this year: homelessness down 11.6 percent and unsheltered homelessness down 18.7 percent from 2025. But RAND's own research found the regional count has significantly undercounted unsheltered populations, so starting this month, RAND begins an independent monthly count of unsheltered homelessness in Santa Monica using the same rigorous methodology it has applied in Hollywood, Venice, and Skid Row, plus 200 voluntary, anonymous surveys a year to understand what the count alone cannot tell us.
→ 🎯 My take: You cannot manage what you only measure once a year. Monthly reports, quarterly analyses, and a year-end summary will flow straight into our data framework and Scorecard, and independent numbers mean you never have to take City Hall's word for it. More of this, always.
🔹 Sacramento set the number: 1,359,750. On October 15, the State issued its final Regional Housing Need Determination for the six-county SCAG region covering 2029 to 2037, with roughly 57 percent designated for lower-income households. Plain English: the regional pie is now set, and the slicing comes next. SCAG proposes an allocation methodology in March 2027, finalizes the plan in 2028, and Santa Monica's individual share is not yet determined, with our next Housing Element due April 15, 2030. Our current obligation runs through 2029 at 8,895 units, and the work underway now, from the Off-Site Affordable Pilot to housing on City-owned sites, is about delivering on that commitment while positioning us for the cycle ahead. Staff will be at the table throughout the methodology process, and I will keep translating the acronyms for you as it unfolds.
👉 Learn about affordable housing in Santa Monica
🔹 Roots are housing policy too. The families of Generations of Virginia Ave, generational tenants and workers with deep roots in the Pico neighborhood, shared their story this week about what rent-controlled housing made possible: kids who went from SMMUSD classrooms to MIT, neighbors who keep this city running. I rent my home in this city too, so housing stability is not an abstraction for me, and I was honored to help these families find resources and navigate systems. Longtime families staying rooted here is not nostalgia. It is the whole point.
👉 Read the Generations of Virginia Ave story (Instagram)
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 Continuum honored Belmar, and the conversation continues tonight. Historic Belmar Park hosted Continuum: Honoring Belmar History & Black Santa Monica, a free cultural celebration of one of the oldest African American seaside communities in California, which thrived near the beach from the late 1800s until it was displaced through eminent domain in the 1950s. Despite a rainy forecast, attendees gathered to hear journalist Sam Sanders in conversation with historians and archivists, experience April Banks' moving exhibit on Silas White Street and the Ebony Beach Club, and connect with our Library team, the Conservancy, SMC, and the Samohi Black Student Union. Delivered through the Goldenvoice community benefits package even with the festival postponed to 2027, this is a promise kept. Too few people know this history, and events like this are how that changes. The thread picks up tonight, when the Library hosts author Walter Mosley in conversation with Andre Hardy.
👉 View the Library events calendar
🔹 The Teen Craft Club nailed it. Literally. About 30 teens ages 12 to 17, including a crew from the Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center, packed the Pico Branch for an afternoon of designing press-on nail sets, painting, decorating, and making new friends. The lesson our library team took away is one I will never stop repeating: give young people something worth showing up for, and they show up. Every time.
🔹 One new American, one proud classroom. The Saturday Citizenship Class at the Main Library, a long-running partnership between SMPL and SMMUSD's Adult Education Center, celebrated its first learner to pass the citizenship exam this school year. Anoosh passed his interview, then came back to class to walk his classmates through exactly what to expect. That is what community looks like: you climb, then you turn around and lower the ladder.
🔹 Janis Ian at the Miles. For LGBT History Month and National Coming Out Day, 44 community members gathered at Miles Memorial Playhouse for the PBS documentary Janis Ian: Breaking Silence, tracing six decades from "Society's Child" to "At Seventeen" to her coming out publicly. Director Varda Bar-Kar, a Santa Monica resident whose earlier film Big Voice followed Samohi's choir director, stayed for a talkback moderated by our own Librarian Robert Graves. A film about a songwriter, moderated by a librarian, in a historic playhouse: as a music store kid, that is my idea of a perfect evening.
💗 Pink October: The Final Lap
Saturday was the Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk here in Santa Monica, and to everyone who laced up with my Tough Titty Committee, donated, shared, or stood on the sidewalk and cheered: thank you, from the bottom of this survivor's heart. October wraps up this Saturday, but here is the thing nobody puts on the pink posters: breast cancer does not check the calendar, and neither should you. Donations still count after the walk, support still matters in November, and yes, this is my fifth consecutive newsletter asking if you have booked that screening yet. I am nothing if not persistent, and early detection is the reason I am still the one writing to you.
👉 Support the Tough Titty Committee
🏗️ Development Watch
🔹 Follow-up on the Downtown pair. Last week I flagged the Architectural Review Board's October 19 look at two connected Downtown projects: 1325 6th Street, the eight-story, 110-unit market-rate building planned just north of the Main Library, and 1323 5th Street, its five-story, 35-unit, 100 percent affordable receiver site under the Off-Site Pilot. Here is the outcome: the ARB continued both items and gave the applicants design direction, so revised plans will come back to the Board. That is the public review process doing its job, and I will keep flagging what is proposed near you before it is built, not after.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
🎉 Around Town
🔹 Last call for the Moby drawing. Our Farmers Markets have partnered with Goldenvoice on a drawing for three sets of tickets to see Moby with special guests Underworld at Brookside at the Rose Bowl on Saturday, November 7. Stop by a Santa Monica Farmers Market to enter before the drawing closes on October 28. Fresh peak-season produce and a shot at a concert? That is a very good errand.
🔹 Nineteen cats, one soft landing at a time. A quieter note from this week's reports: Animal Control took in 19 cats connected to two residents who passed away, and our team is caring for every one of them while placement and adoption are worked out with next of kin and rescue partners. Behind every statistic in these reports there are living creatures and grieving families, and I am grateful we have people who treat both with dignity. If you have been thinking about adopting, our local rescue partners would love to meet you.
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Tonight, Tuesday, October 27, 5:30 p.m.: City Council meets, including the El Niño emergency resolution, the Affordability Agenda, building code updates, the Promenade digital display hearing, and the landmark appeal. The Library also hosts Walter Mosley with Andre Hardy tonight.
🔹 Wednesday, October 28: Downtown Farmers Market, and the Moby ticket drawing closes.
🔹 Saturday, October 31: Halloween, with trick-or-treat street closures across the city. Drive like the kids own the streets, because Saturday night they do.
🔹 Sunday, November 1: Ride, Shop, Save begins on Big Blue Bus, running through December 31.
🔹 Tuesday, November 3: Election Day. Big Blue Bus rides free system-wide all day.
🔹 Wednesday, November 4: LAEDC announces the Most Business-Friendly City at the EDDY Awards.
🔹 Saturday, November 7: Moby and Underworld at Brookside at the Rose Bowl, for the drawing winners.
🔹 Monday, December 7: The Clariti permitting system launches Phase 1.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you will find me.
💙 All In Through November
🔹 One week. Zero excuses. Election Day is Tuesday, November 3, and Vote Centers and official drop boxes are open across Santa Monica right now. Vote by mail, drop your ballot in a box, or vote in person, whichever fits your life, and Big Blue Bus is sweetening the deal with free rides system-wide on Election Day itself. Please encourage your friends and neighbors to vote, help the first-timer at your kitchen table make a plan, and when you get to the City Council portion of that ballot, I humbly ask for your vote for Ashley Oelsen, Doug Trussler, and myself. Locals for locals, all in for Santa Monica.
👉 Find a Vote Center or drop box
👉 Read the free rides announcement
🔹 Monday at Blue Wave HQ. Thank you to everyone who came by 1427 Third Street Promenade yesterday for our meet and greet with Councilwoman Traci Park of CD 11, State Senate candidate Brian Goldsmith, Doug, and Ashley, with a panel on homelessness, public safety, economic recovery, and regional partnerships. Strong relationships between local and regional leaders are how things actually get done, and collaboration will always accomplish more than divisive attacks. Democracy works best when we show up, and you showed up.
👉 See the event post (Instagram)
🔹 About the robocalls, the texts, and the rest of it. The attack mail has now graduated to recorded phone calls, and the claims have not gotten any truer with volume. I am a lifelong Democrat, born and raised in these eight square miles, living in a rent-controlled apartment, and no amount of manufactured narrative changes that. What bothers me most is not the attacks on me; it is the insult to your intelligence, because these campaigns are counting on people who do not know me to believe misleading photos over records. So here is my standing ask, the same one I make about everything: read the fine print, check the sources, and ask who is telling you what they will do for Santa Monica versus who is only telling you what to think about someone else. You do not have to agree with every vote I have cast. You do deserve honesty about who I am. Facts over fear, every time.
👉 Read my full response (Instagram)
📱 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: No Masks Required
I spent part of this past week walking the Promenade, soaking up the murals and running into the people who make this city what it is, and it reminded me why some days this job does not feel like work. Then I thought about Saturday, when half of Santa Monica will put on masks for fun, and about next Tuesday, when the costumes are supposed to come off.
Halloween is the one night pretending is the whole point. The other 364, you deserve people who are exactly who they say they are: at the dais, on the mailers, at the market, behind the counter. This city raised me without a costume, a music store kid who got every break these eight square miles had to give, and everything in this letter, from storm declarations to citizenship classes to nineteen rescued cats, is just neighbors being exactly who they are for each other.
So close a street for the kids, hand out the good candy, book the screening you have been putting off, and then open that envelope on your kitchen table and vote. No mask required for any of it.
👉 See my Promenade stroll (Instagram)
With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica