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Lana Negrete Newsletter — October 6, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 October 6, 2026
Happy October, Santa Monica,
Two things arrived this week without asking permission. The first is your ballot: vote-by-mail ballots started going out yesterday, Monday, October 5, which means democracy is about to land between the junk mail and the catalogs. The second showed up on your receipts: as of October 1, every $100 you spend in Santa Monica carries an extra 50 cents, and I want you to know exactly why. Both get the plain-English treatment below, along with El Niño prep, a ballet pipeline for our littlest dancers, one very proud mom moment, and an invitation to lace up pink sneakers with me on October 24. Pour the coffee. Here we go.
🚔 Public Safety
🔹 By the Numbers: September 13-19, 2026
Through September 26, 2026, calls for service are 5.3% above the comparable 2025 period, arrests are 63.8% higher, and officer-initiated activity is up 22.4%. A compilation of “by the numbers” data is articulated in the chart below.
Metric | September 20–26 | September 13–19 | 2026 YTD | 2025 YTD | YTD Change | % Change |
Calls for service | 2,296 | 2,307 | 95,405 | 90,588 | +4,817 | +5.3% |
Arrests | 114 | 100 | 3,988 | 2,435 | +1,553 | +63.8% |
Officer-initiated activity | 970 42% of calls | 1,083 47% of calls | 44,675 | 36,491 | +8,184 | +22.4% |
Resident-initiated calls | 1,326 58% of calls | 1,224 53% of calls | 50,730 | 54,097 | -3,367 | -6.2% |
Crime Reduction Weekly Update
Crime reduction efforts focused on coordinated responses to robbery, burglary, retail theft, narcotics activity, sexual battery, and wanted individuals.
Patrol and specialized units worked with SMART Center personnel to turn developing information and follow-up investigations into arrests, evidence recovery, and the return of property to victims.
Notable Incidents and Investigations
This week, SMPD investigated and made arrests involving retail theft, robbery, vehicle burglary, narcotics, outstanding warrants, and a reported sexual battery at the Main Library. SMART Center personnel assisted officers with locating suspects and recovering stolen property from Downtown retailers, while coordinated enforcement resulted in additional narcotics and warrant arrests.
Officers also investigated a September 26 murder-suicide involving two adults in the 3100 block of Pico Boulevard.
Traffic Enforcement Weekly Update
Traffic safety efforts continued around schools, crosswalks, major corridors and areas with recurring traffic concerns. Officers also conducted commercial vehicle enforcement and impaired-driving enforcement.
Traffic Enforcement Activity | Number |
Traffic Stops | 310 |
Citations | 190 |
Advisals | 115 |
Notable Traffic Incident
On September 24, officers responded to a vehicle-pedestrian collision at 5th Street and Wilshire Boulevard. A woman walking in the marked crosswalk was struck by a turning vehicle and later died from her injuries. The driver remained at the scene, impairment was not suspected, and the Major Accident Response Team is investigating.
Homelessness Response Weekly Update
HLP continued directed deployments in Downtown, beach and park areas, combining enforcement with service coordination. This week’s activity included helping an individual return to residential care and arrests involving serious outstanding warrants, narcotics, parole and stay-away order violations.
HLP Team Stats | Number |
Radio Calls | 176 |
SAMO Bridge / Samoshel Referrals | 4 |
HLP Self-Initiated Activity | 113 |
Citations | 25 |
Total Arrests | 30 |
Encampments | 9 |
Fire Department Weekly Update
Activity | Number |
SMFD Total Calls | 320 |
SMFD Homeless-Related Calls | 66 |
SMFD Fires Related to Homelessness | 2 |
Fire Prevention Update
Prevention Activities | Number Completed |
Annual Fire Inspections | 160 |
Alarm/Sprinkler Plan Checks & Inspections | 26 |
New Construction Plan Reviews/Meetings | 28 |
Special Event Plan Reviews/Meetings | 10 |
My take: We have to do both. We need to enforce the laws already on the books and address behavior that impacts public safety, while continuing to get people off our streets and connected to shelter, treatment, mental health care and recovery services. Accountability and compassion are not mutually exclusive. The goal should always be safer streets and better outcomes for everyone.
🔹 El Niño is a probability, not a prophecy. Prepare anyway. On Thursday, County officials kicked off the 2026-27 storm season with a status report: flood channels cleared, all 14 County dams readied, and door-to-door outreach underway in wildfire burn areas, all backed by a local emergency proclamation ratified this week. The National Weather Service was refreshingly honest that a strong El Niño raises the odds of flash floods, debris flows, and coastal flooding without guaranteeing any of it. Here at home, our crews already built the protective berm at Pico-Kenter and opened all five beach storm drains.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: We share a border with a burn scar, and our shoreline took a beating in September. Preparation is cheap. Regret is not. Clear your gutters, know your drains, and make a household plan before the first storm, not during it.
👉 Read the SMDP storm season story
💼 Economic Development
🔹 The comeback got an audit, in public. At the second Builders Breakfast, hosted by the Community Collective Association at 1212 Santa Monica on September 29, city, tourism, and business leaders laid out where our Realignment Plan actually stands: a $60 million investment over 24 months that has generated $29 million in new programmatic revenue, a 12.5 percent drop in crime, a police department fully staffed for the first time in two decades, 17 new businesses committed to opening, 7 housing projects in the pipeline, and a $3 million tenant improvement fund to help fill big vacant storefronts. All of it ahead of ESPN broadcasting Super Bowl Week from our Pier and LA28 on the horizon.
→ 🎯 My take: I have been telling you the Realignment-to-Revitalization story one new business at a time, and now the citywide numbers are on the table where everyone can check them. That is how it should work. Do not take my word or anyone's word for it: the public Santa Monica Scorecard exists so you can verify the progress yourself.
👉 Read the Builders Breakfast story
🔹 That extra 50 cents on your receipt, explained. As of October 1, Santa Monica's total sales tax rate rose from 10.75 percent to 11.25 percent. That is Measure ER, a temporary half-cent County tax: proposed in January by Supervisors Holly Mitchell and Hilda Solis, placed on the June ballot by a 4 to 1 Board vote, and approved by County voters 50.64 to 49.36 percent. It expires in October 2031, the revenue flows to the County general fund, and a spending plan directs it toward health care, public health, school-based health programs, and human services, with an advisory oversight committee and annual independent audits.
→ 💡 What this means: This was a County decision, not a City Council one, and I know how easy it is to lose track of who taxed what. Whether you voted for it or against it, you deserve to know where it came from and where the County says it is going. I posted the full fact-checked timeline so you can see every step.
👉 See the full Measure ER timeline (Instagram)
🔹 Gott's gave Santa Monica a taste. I attended the Gott's Friends & Family night, and I am happy to report the food, the wine, and the soft serve are all worth the wait. Another respected operator choosing to open here is another vote of confidence in our corridors, and I plan to welcome every single one.
🔹 Microgrants: pencils down. Applications for the $5,000 Small Business Relief Microgrant closed October 1. Thank you to everyone who applied and everyone who forwarded it to a business owner who needed it. I will report back as the grants go out the door.
🏛️ At City Hall
🔹 Facts, not flyers. A flyer about the Main Street parking lots made the rounds recently, and it raised understandable alarm. So here is the record: the City has no plans to issue an RFP, the development concept pictured has never been discussed by anyone at City Hall, and the image itself is AI-generated, not a City rendering. The lots were identified through the state-required Housing Element process, and identification is not a proposal and is not an approval.
→ 🎯 My take: Keep asking questions. Seriously, never stop. But demand sources, and know that I will always bring you verified information over viral information. Transparency is not a slogan for me; it is the job description.
🏗️ DEVELOPMENT WATCH
Architectural Review BoardI know residents want to know what is being proposed in their neighborhoods, so I’ll continue flagging projects as they move through our public boards and commissions.
1147 23rd Street
Proposed addition to an existing duplex.
1238 7th Street
Proposed four-story, 28-unit, 100% affordable housing development, with no vehicle parking.
1318 Lincoln Boulevard
Proposed eight-story development with 110 market-rate residential units and subterranean parking.
1238 Lincoln Boulevard
Proposed eight-story, 232-unit residential development, including 208 market-rate and 24 affordable units, with subterranean parking.
These projects are appearing before the Architectural Review Board as part of the City’s public development review process. I’ll continue sharing projects as they come forward so residents can stay informed about what is being proposed and where.
👉 Read my full fact check (Instagram)
🔹 Tomorrow: trade your car for gelato. Try-a-Commute lands at Ken Genser Square on Wednesday, October 7, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. for California Clean Air Day: e-bike test rides, vanpool tours, Big Blue Bus and Metro info, raffle prizes, and yes, free gelato. One midweek scoop could change your whole commute math.
👉 Explore getting around Santa Monica
🔹 Council returns Tuesday, October 13 at 5:30 p.m. The agenda includes the Downtown Community Plan alignment updates, which will shape how our city center grows for years. Read ahead and come tell us what you think.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 From a classroom rug to a ballet scholarship. Westside Ballet, now in its 60th year, and California Dance Institute just launched the Pathways Partnership: free six-session dance residencies right inside TK through second grade classrooms, free Sunday Dance to Dreams classes, a free summer camp week, and full scholarships covering tuition, ballet attire, and even transportation for kids who show the spark. More than 200 first and second graders danced in the pilot year, the first Pathways scholar started training in August, and the partners want to reach 20 schools. As Westside Ballet's artistic director put it, the goal is that "talent, not circumstance, is what determines how far a child can go."
→ ⚡ Why this matters: I built Outreach Through the Arts on the exact same belief, because I know what access to the arts did for the music store kid writing this newsletter. Cost, dancewear, and a ride to class should never be the reasons a child's gift goes undiscovered.
🔹 A proud mom brag, with a civic point. My daughter Mia found a professional training program at Center Theatre Group, applied on her own, interviewed, and was selected as one of just 14 students. She has a dream, she is chasing it, and I am here for every second of it. The civic point: every kid in this city deserves the infrastructure to chase theirs too. That is what Pathways, the Student Success Card, and youth arts funding are really about.
👉 See my proud mom post (Instagram)
🔹 Two exhibitions are now on view, free. Saturday brought a doubleheader of openings: "Portraits: Faces and Waves" at the Beach House Gallery, with photography trained on our coast and the people on it, and "Once There Were Millions" at the Airport Arts Center's Propeller Gallery, tracing the western monarch butterfly's collapse from millions to fewer than 2,000. One celebrates what we have. The other warns what we can lose. See both.
👉 Browse arts and culture in Santa Monica
💗 Pink October: Walk With Me on the 24th
You know my story by now: I rebuilt my business after it was leveled, cared for my dad and lost him while I was in chemotherapy, and served as your mayor during the fires while fighting cancer myself. What carried me was a community of warriors I did not know I needed, many of whom I met through the American Cancer Society. So this month I am asking for more than awareness. Walk with me on Saturday, October 24 at Making Strides Against Breast Cancer, on my team, which is unapologetically named The Tough Titty Committee. Walk, donate, share, or just show up and cheer. Every dollar funds the research and programs that help people like me not just survive but thrive.
And since this is my third newsletter asking: have you booked that screening yet? I am nothing if not persistent, and early detection is the reason I get to be. Keep an eye out for pink patches on SMPD uniforms this month too, as the Pink Patch Project rolls out across the department.
🎉 Around Town & Community
🔹 Fifty years of champions, delivered. On Saturday, Airport Park belonged to more than 125 Special Olympics athletes and twelve teams at the 8th Annual Westside Soccer Tournament, a program that traces straight back to Rafer Johnson and SMC's Jo Kidd in 1976. Thank you to every coach, volunteer, and neighbor who cheered. Fifty years in, this community still shows up for its athletes, and that makes me proud of us.
🔹 Route 66 turned 100 on Montana Avenue. Saturday's Art Walk doubled as our centennial salute to the Mother Road, with art, music, and the new Entertainment Zone letting visitors sip and stroll. Honoring where the road ends by filling the street where it happens: that is a very Santa Monica way to celebrate.
🔹 Nonprofits, there is money on the table and the deadline is Friday. The Rotary Club of Santa Monica is accepting Community Grant applications through 5 p.m. this Friday, October 9, with grants from $500 to $3,500 for equipment, program expenses, and sustainable projects serving Santa Monica. As someone who runs a small nonprofit, I can tell you $3,500 is not small; it is a semester of programming. Apply.
👉 Apply for a Rotary community grant
🔹 This Sunday: Continuum at Historic Belmar Park. From noon to 5 p.m. on October 11, this free community event honors the history of Belmar and Black Santa Monica, part of the Goldenvoice community benefits package that kept its promises even after the festival washed out. Bring your family. Bring your questions about our history. Both belong there.
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Wednesday, October 7, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.: Try-a-Commute at Ken Genser Square for California Clean Air Day.
🔹 Wednesday, October 7, 6 p.m.: Join me at Rustic Canyon on Wilshire with Ashley Oelsen and Doug Trussler.
🔹 Friday, October 9, 5 p.m.: Rotary Club Community Grant applications close.
🔹 Friday, October 9 and Wednesday, October 14: League of Women Voters City Council forums continue.
🔹 Saturday, October 10: Block Fest Vol. VIII on the Promenade, now monthly on second Saturdays.
🔹 Sunday, October 11: Great Pumpkin Adoption at the Main Street market, Continuum at Historic Belmar Park from noon to 5 p.m., and youth water safety workshops at the Beach House (also October 18).
🔹 Tuesday, October 13, 5:30 p.m.: City Council meets, including the Downtown Community Plan alignment updates.
🔹 Wednesday, October 14: All You Can Carry Pumpkin Patch at the Downtown market. Stretch first.
🔹 Wednesday, October 21: Bilingual tenant rights workshop and LAFLA legal clinic at Virginia Avenue Park.
🔹 Saturday, October 24: Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, and ballot drop boxes open across the county.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you will find me.
💙 All In Through November
🔹 Check your mailbox. Ballots began going out yesterday, October 5. Drop boxes open October 24, and in-person voting runs through Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. My ask never changes: do your own research, watch the remaining forums on October 9 and 14, read the record, and ask me the hard questions directly. You will get straight answers, because transparency and civility are not seasonal for me.
👉 Find voting information at LAVote.gov
🔹 The budget episode is live. My full conversation with Joe Goodhue on The Real Westside Story is now up, and this one gets real about what a city budget can actually control and what it cannot. If you have ever wondered why some problems get fixed fast and others crawl, this is 40 minutes well spent. Watch it, then share it with someone who needs it before November 3.
👉 Watch the budget conversation (Instagram)
🔹 Backyards, storefronts, and one bridal shop. Nearly every night I am in a room with residents and small business owners, sometimes five of us around a kitchen counter, sometimes packed wall to wall. This past week that included a mini candidate panel at En Blanc Bride with Ocean Park neighbors, and I am grateful to the owner for opening her doors. Tomorrow it is Rustic Canyon at 6 p.m. with Ashley Oelsen and Doug Trussler. Want to host your own gathering? Five people in a living room counts, and I will be there. Want a lawn or window sign? Send me your address and I will deliver it myself.
👉 Get involved at LanaNegrete.com
🔹 Backed by the people who run toward trouble. I am proud to have earned the endorsements of the Santa Monica Police Officers Association and Santa Monica Firefighters Local 1109, joining PORAC's statewide support. You should feel safe stepping off the train, walking downtown, and supporting the businesses that make this city special, and my push on Metro platform safety is exactly that belief turned into action. Safe streets and a thriving local economy are not competing goals. They are the same goal.
👉 See the announcement (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: The Kitchen Table
Sometime this week, a ballot is going to land on your kitchen table. I love that image, because the kitchen table is where this city's real decisions have always been made: which bills get paid first, whether the family business can risk another season, whose turn it is to drive to rehearsal. Watching my own daughter chase her dream this week reminded me that nothing in a family, a business, or a city moves forward without someone deciding to follow through.
So follow through. Open the envelope. Do the research. Ask me the hard questions at the market, because I will be there with answers and probably a pumpkin. And if the pink everywhere this month nudges you to finally book that screening, then October will have done its job twice.
With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica