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Lana Negrete Newsletter — September 15, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 September 15, 2026
Dear Santa Monica,
The Negrete four-pack was bought, the countdown was on, and our family playlist was already arguing over who we would see first. Then came Friday's announcement: the Ocean Way Festival will not happen this year. I own a not just a music store but a family music business that includes booking musicians and DJs and putting on events, so a canceled show lands differently in my house, and I know it landed hard in thousands of yours too. Below, I walk you through exactly what the ocean did to our beach, why this was the only responsible call, and what comes next, because you deserve the full picture, not a shrug.
That is not all the week held. Council went until 3 a.m. on Tuesday and I owe you the why behind three votes. Wednesday hit 99 degrees. Three new bakeries opened their doors. And today, September 15, Hispanic Heritage Month begins right here at home. Let's get into it.
🌊 Ocean Way: The Surf Took the Site, Not the Partnership
🔹 The festival moves to 2027, and here is the honest math. On Friday, September 11, the City and Goldenvoice announced that the inaugural Ocean Way Festival, planned for September 26 and 27 on the beach south of the Pier, is canceled for this year. Hurricane Marie's Labor Day swell stripped sand from the site and left a four-foot erosion shelf at its south end. A lower beach means every tide reaches farther inland, so the festival's water-side edge would have moved 96 feet in and its southern boundary roughly 500 feet north. Either change alone would have forced a redesign; together, the shrunken footprint could not meet our public safety standards for tens of thousands of guests, and with load-in set to begin September 15, there was simply no time to restore the sand and still build the site.
→ 🎯 My take: I have spent my whole life around live music, and this one genuinely hurts. But I will never trade your safety for a stage, and neither will our City team. The beach is open, the Pier never closed, and both the City and Goldenvoice are already working on the 2027 return. The surf took the site for a season. It did not take the partnership, and it did not take our plans.
🔹 What happens now. All 2026 tickets will be refunded automatically from the point of purchase. The City is compiling a full report this week with photos, exhibits, and drone footage of the beach impacts, and Public Works is building a repair plan with a very big beach calendar in mind: ESPN for the Super Bowl in early 2027, Ocean Way's return next fall, and the LA28 Games the year after. Best of all, the community benefit initiatives developed alongside the festival are still moving forward this year, starting with a free dublab open-air dance party at Reed Park on Friday, September 25, made possible by Goldenvoice in partnership with the City.
👉 Read the City's full announcement
🚔 Public Safety
🔹 By the numbers: how summer 2026 stacked up. SMPD closed out the season with sustained demand and sustained work. Across June through August, the department logged 32,353 calls for service, roughly 352 per day, and made 1,387 arrests, with August arrests running 16.4% above June. Here is the picture, including the most recent reporting week:
Period (2026) | Calls for Service | Arrests
|
June 1 to June 30 | 10,625 | 414 |
July 1 to July 31 | 10,697 | 491 |
August 1 to August 31 | 11,031 | 482 |
Summer total | 32,353 | 1,387 |
Current week (Aug 30 to Sep 5) | 2,519 | 112 |
→ 💡 What this means: Consistency is the story. Enforcement did not spike and fade with the headlines; it held steady all summer, month after month. I share these numbers every week because you should judge public safety by the data, but also what you see and feel is important! Please report criminal behavior via 911 and quality of life issues via 311 or non emergency line.
🔹 A week of sharp police work. Officers patrolling near Pearl Street stopped a car running dark with an obscured plate and found catalytic converter theft tools inside, arresting all three occupants, one of whom had an outstanding robbery warrant. On Berkeley Street, officers recovered a 100-foot roll of stolen copper wire and arrested two suspects. A Main Street robbery victim got his phone back after officers set a perimeter, chased down the suspect on foot, and made the arrest. A traffic stop near PCH and Entrada took a loaded handgun off the street. And after someone hurled rocks at a statue at St. Monica's Church, City cameras helped officers identify and arrest the suspect. That last one is a reminder that our camera investments are paying off in real cases, not just press conferences.
🔹 Transparency you can actually watch. On Saturday, SMPD released its Critical Incident Community Debriefing Video on the August 22 fatal officer-involved shooting in Palisades Park, including body-worn camera footage and a walkthrough of the preliminary investigation, which remains ongoing.
→ 🎯 My take: I wrote to you about that terrible afternoon three weeks ago, and I told you then that you deserved facts, not spin. Releasing this video is exactly the kind of accountability I will keep pushing for. It is not easy viewing, and it is not supposed to be. You have a right to see how your police department operates in its hardest moments and I am proud we have a department leading the nation in the work they do.
🔹 Homelessness response, with both hands. The Homeless Liaison Program handled 155 radio calls, logged 128 self-initiated contacts, addressed 20 encampments, issued 26 citations, made 13 arrests, and connected 6 people to SaMoBridge and Samoshel. The week's quieter wins matter most to me: officers drove a veteran directly to the West LA VA Welcome Center, located a missing juvenile at Virginia Avenue Park and got them safely home, and joined the Salvation Army for overnight outreach at Tongva Park.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Enforcement and outreach are not rivals; they are partners. We extend the hand and we uphold the law, every week, and that combination is how people actually get help.
🔹 Traffic teams stayed busy where it counts. Officers made 207 stops with 106 citations, ran a grant-funded DUI saturation patrol on September 4 as Labor Day weekend began, and focused on school zones including Franklin Elementary and construction areas near 26th and Wilshire and 20th and Pearl. You know my sermon by now: slow down, look twice, leave five minutes early. The kids are worth it.
🔹 SMFD is on the front lines of the Plaskett Fire. Our firefighters remain deployed near Big Sur, and this week I can tell you what they are actually doing there: a four-person Rapid Extraction Module specializing in high-angle rescue, critical in that steep and unforgiving terrain, plus a Cal OES Type 6 engine on a strike team with LA City Fire, a strike team leader trainee, and members in logistics, planning, finance, and command roles. As of September 7, the fire stood at 29,862 acres and 37% containment with 2,211 personnel assigned. Back home, prevention never paused: 162 annual fire inspections, 22 alarm and sprinkler checks, and 34 plan reviews for new construction and special events in a single week. Quiet work, saved lives.
🏛️ At City Hall
🔹 Three votes at nearly 3 a.m., and the why behind each one. Tuesday's Council meeting on September 8 ran almost until sunrise, and I want you to know not just how I voted but why. On the 14th Street project, I voted to continue the design work and the community and school engagement: I support safer routes for kids, families, and cyclists, and I will keep demanding honest answers about lost parking, bottlenecks, and traffic pushed onto neighboring streets before designs become concrete - literally and figuratively. On a difficult zoning question, I backed the option I believed carried the least real-world displacement risk, because protecting renters is non-negotiable for me and because single-family homes are part of our housing stock too, including some of the more attainable homes we have. And I supported letting the Trapeze School, a longtime local business, keep operating in the park under a licensing agreement rather than a long-term lease, preserving the City's flexibility as the Great Park advances, with no trees removed, parking monitored, and free public classes built in.
→ 🎯 My take: None of those were easy calls, and I will not pretend they were. My job is to listen, ask hard questions, and decide for the people who live here. You deserve the vote and the reasoning, every single time.
👉 Read my full vote breakdown (Instagram)
🔹 Hispanic Heritage Month starts today, and it starts at home. At that same meeting, Council joined The Mexican Presence in Santa Monica Project Committee to proclaim September 15 through October 15 as Hispanic Heritage Month in Santa Monica. The Library has launched a digital collection documenting the history and genealogy of Mexican-American families in this city, families whose stories are woven into every neighborhood I grew up in, and the month brings free events: Baila Baila at the Main Library and Mexican Ballet Folklórico at the Pico Branch, both Saturday, September 19, plus that dublab dance party at Reed Park on September 25. This is our history and our present, and I hope you will come celebrate both.
👉 See the Hispanic Heritage Month lineup
🔹 The Great Park is about to get a face. The Airport Conversion Project is entering its most tangible stretch yet. Survey 3B results are in, and community feedback on the Framework Diagram, which organizes the future park site into eight connected districts under Measure LC, was overwhelmingly positive. Staff present those results to four commissions this month: Planning on September 16, Airport on September 17, Sustainability on September 21, and Recreation and Parks on September 28. Then comes Phase 4: a draft Illustrative Masterplan, ready for public review in October, when we will all see for the first time what the park could actually look like rather than just how it is organized. Environmental review is now underway on two fronts, targeting completion in early to mid 2028 so the City can move the moment the airport closes at the end of that year.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Voters set this direction in 2014. Watching it turn from a diagram into a design is a once-in-a-generation civic moment, and your input in October will shape it.
👉 Explore the Airport Conversion Project
🔹 The Historical Harms Report arrives September 23. Next Wednesday at 7 p.m. in Council Chambers, our new Restorative Justice Commission receives the Historical Harms Report, prepared by Nina Fresco and Dr. Kyle Mays for the former Landback and Reparations Task Force, documenting the harms experienced by Santa Monica's marginalized communities. A $3.5 million Restorative Justice Fund created in January, and seven resident commissioners sworn in this August.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
🔹 A Craftsman bungalow gets its hearing. On Monday, the Landmarks Commission took up the designation application for the Unfried House, a 1913 Craftsman-style airplane bungalow at 1921 20th Street in the Pico Neighborhood, nominated by the Santa Monica Conservancy. Preserving the physical story of our older neighborhoods is slow, detailed work, and I am glad it is getting done in public view.
🔹 99 degrees, and a plan to match. Wednesday, September 9 tied the fourth-hottest day ever recorded in Santa Monica at 99 degrees, with an Extreme Heat Warning covering the coast and our libraries opening as cooling spaces. Fittingly, that same day our Office of Sustainability convened the first meeting of the Extreme Heat and Resilience Working Group, community members from across the city who will help shape an Extreme Heat and Resilience Action Plan. A beach town hitting 99 is not a fluke to shrug off; it is a planning assignment, and we have started it.
🏠 Housing: Virginia Avenue
🔹 Real information, in two languages, before a big decision. Community Corporation of Santa Monica is exploring Project-Based Vouchers from our Housing Authority as one way to close the higher-than-expected rehabilitation costs at its Virginia Avenue apartments, attaching rental assistance to units once residents return and strengthening the building's long-term finances. Because that choice belongs to each individual household, our Housing Division held an informational meeting at the Pico Branch Library, presenting the rules and eligibility in English and Spanish with CCSM and Rent Control staff on hand, and made sure every interested family left with a contact for one-on-one follow-up.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: Decisions this personal deserve information this clear. We will keep standing with the Virginia Avenue residents through every step, and if you have questions about this one, ask me directly.
👉 Browse City housing programs
💼 Economic Development
🔹 Three new bakeries. Three neighborhoods. One very difficult decision. In the span of a few weeks, Santa Monica gained Louma Bakery on Wilshire, Des Croissants Paris on Ocean Park Boulevard, and Petitpain... et Chocolat on Pico. Each has a story worth knowing: Louma is run by a nonprofit creating paid work for people with learning and developmental differences, and it is named for the founder's sister. Des Croissants Paris brings Parisian-born baker Samuel Manar's farmers-market-famous croissants to the old Panadería Antequera space near Bob's Market. And Petitpain, the new 500-square-foot walk-up sibling of Petitgrain Boulangerie, bakes the bread for both shops while a 100-year-old house out back now hosts a bean-to-bar chocolate workshop. The hardest vote I will cast this month is which one to visit first.
→ 🎯 My take: Three local entrepreneurs betting on three different Santa Monica neighborhoods in the same month is not a coincidence. It is confidence, and it is exactly the shift from Realignment to Revitalization we have been working toward.
🔹 Block Fest is officially a monthly tradition. On Saturday, Block Fest Vol. VII took over all three blocks of the Promenade with live electronic music and a food night market along Arizona Avenue. After a summer where these events averaged more than 20,000 attendees a night, Downtown Santa Monica announced the series will continue monthly through December, on the second Saturday of each month. That is tens of thousands of people choosing Downtown, spending locally, and rewriting the story of the Promenade one Saturday at a time. Next up: October 10.
👉 Read the Block Fest announcement
🔹 Route 66 ended its tour where the road begins: here. On August 28, the City partnered with Grow with Google, Downtown Santa Monica, and GO-Biz to bring a free, hands-on AI workshop for small businesses to the Annenberg Community Beach House, the final stop on Google's Route 66 centennial tour ahead of the highway's 100th anniversary this November. More than 30 local businesses worked directly with product experts, and the whole thing grew out of our Economic Development team picking up the phone and pitching Google. If you missed it, the same training is free and on demand.
👉 Get the free small business trainings
🔹 ✨ Business Spotlight: Curated Campus Tours. This week I sat down at SMC with my friend and fellow local mom Julie Pearl Slater, founder of Curated Campus Tours, who helps families navigate the college search without drowning in it. With one daughter newly launched into adulthood and another moving through Samohi, I can confirm the college conversation is very alive at my dinner table, and Julie's point stuck with me: the goal is not the "best" school, it is the school that is best for your kid. We also talked community college, the California College Promise, and why starting close to home can be a brilliant and affordable path to a four-year degree.
👉 Watch the spotlight (Instagram)
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 1,800 kids, 60 trained professionals, one mission. Our Human Services youth and families team spent several days in comprehensive training this August to welcome more than 1,800 young people back into out-of-school-time programs through CREST, the Police Activities League, and Virginia Avenue Park. These programs build skills and friendships while connecting families to resources, and they pull their financial weight too: CREST programs and Virginia Avenue Park rentals brought in nearly half a million dollars in a single season, real money as we work toward a balanced General Fund. Safe kids, supported families, sound budget. That is the trifecta.
🔹 Last call: Case Study: Adapt closes Saturday. The inaugural exhibit at the Santa Monica City Gallery, the first municipal art gallery in our history, wraps its run this week at Bergamot Station. It picks up the spirit of the postwar Case Study House Program, when architects like Neutra, the Eameses, and Koenig reimagined the California home, and turns it toward a harder question: how do you rebuild after disaster with resilience and beauty? Ten LA architecture firms designed homes for sixteen families who lost theirs in the January 2025 Palisades and Altadena fires, with USC architecture students building the models on display. Sharing a border with the Palisades, this one hits close to home for all of us. See it Wednesday through Saturday, September 16 to 19, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Suite F2 at 2525 Michigan Avenue. Up next: works from the City's own Art Bank collection.
👉 Browse arts and culture in Santa Monica
🔹 Library corner: eyes, pens, and a movie. Eighteen older adults completed the Library's new two-part "Eye-ducation" series with local optometrist Dr. Irina Yakubin, leaving with practical tools to spot early warning signs of glaucoma, cataracts, and macular degeneration.
🎉 Around Town & Community
🔹 Tongva Twilight took its final bow. On Saturday, September 12, roughly 500 neighbors filled Tongva Park as soul singer Myra Washington led the lawn through the Electric Slide and closed with a roof-raising Proud Mary, followed by a screening of Questlove's Oscar-winning Summer of Soul. Across six Saturday evenings since August 8, more than 2,700 people gathered for this brand-new free series with producer Rum & Humble, and many came back week after week. As the music store kid in me will tell anyone who listens: free live music in a public park is not a luxury, it is civic infrastructure, and activating Tongva Park is exactly the revitalization strategy working as designed. Here's to season two.
🔹 The Beach House closed summer number 17 in style. Labor Day Monday packed every corner of the Annenberg Community Beach House, from the pool to the sand mound, capped by a spectacular sunset and an actual double rainbow. The stat I love most: one single 30-minute pool closure all season, a testament to our Aquatics, Recreation, and Guest Services teams. Weekend Learn to Swim classes and the popular Floating Fitness class continue, and keep an eye out for the Beach House on an upcoming Spectrum News "SoCal Scene."
🔹 How does a transportation department picnic? By electric bus, obviously. About 40 Department of Transportation team members rode a battery-electric Big Blue Bus to a picnic near the beach, got updates on the charging infrastructure now under construction and our FIFA World Cup service success, and then settled things with a cornhole-trivia relay. A team that practices what it plans is a team I am glad to have.
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Wednesday, September 16: Planning Commission reviews the Airport Framework and Survey 3B results, and the monthly mahjong night returns to the Main Library, 6 to 7:30 p.m., advance registration required.
🔹 Wednesday to Saturday, September 16 to 19, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.: Final days of Case Study: Adapt at the City Gallery, Bergamot Station.
🔹 Thursday, September 17: Airport Commission takes up the Framework results. (And the Negrete’s wedding Anniversary ! We celebrate 21 years married ! 9/17/05 @ St. Monica’s!)
🔹 Saturday, September 19: Baila Baila at the Main Library at 11 a.m. and Mexican Ballet Folklórico at the Pico Branch at noon, both free for Hispanic Heritage Month.
🔹 Monday, September 21: Sustainability Commission reviews the Airport Framework, and Moomat Ahiko Way closes for roughly two months as Pier Bridge work advances.
🔹 Wednesday, September 23, 6-8 p.m.: Prime Pizza 1811 Pico Blvd. We are having a fundraiser and meet and greet for my re election and the candidates I am supporting will be there as well! So come meet Ashley Oelsen and Doug Trussler as well!
🔹 Wednesday, September 23, 7 p.m.: The Restorative Justice Commission receives the Historical Harms Report in Council Chambers.
🔹 Friday, September 25, 5 to 9 p.m.: Free dublab Open Air dance party at Reed Park, a Goldenvoice community benefit.
🔹 Sunday, September 27: Final day of Water is a Currency at the Beach House Gallery.
🔹 Monday, September 28: Recreation and Parks Commission reviews the Airport Framework.
🔹 Tuesday, September 29: League of Women Voters candidate forums begin, with City Council forums October 4, 9, and 14.
🔹 Thursday, October 1: Housing and Human Services Commission meets.
🔹 Saturday, October 3, 4 to 6 p.m.: New exhibition reception at the Beach House Gallery.
🔹 Saturday, October 10: Block Fest Vol. VIII, now monthly on second Saturdays through December.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you will find me.
💙 All In Through November
🔹 29 neighbors, a stroller, and a whole lot of doors. On Sunday, 29 volunteers ranging in age from 16 to 70, including friends from our police and fire unions and yes, one stroller, hit the streets with me and my husband to knock on doors, answer questions, and hear what matters most on your blocks. We capped it off together at Americana in the Park at Gandara Park, courtesy of McCabe's. I am grateful for every step, and a heartfelt thank you as well to the hosts and co-hosts who brought our community together at Friday evening's gathering. Our next volunteer day is this Sunday, September 20; reply to this email and I will send you the details.
🔹 An endorsement I do not take lightly. This week I earned the endorsement of the Peace Officers Research Association of California, representing more than 85,000 public safety members across the state. Public safety has never been a campaign-season issue for me; it has been my priority every day I have served on this Council, and it will stay that way.
👉 See the announcement (Instagram)
🔹 Mark your calendars. Join me Wednesday, September 23 at Prime Pizza on Pico for a fundraiser and meet-and-greet. October events are filling up fast, and if you want to host one, nothing is too small; I will happily come meet you and your neighbors. Ballots start arriving October 3, and in-person voting runs through Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Want a lawn sign or a window sign for your business? Just reply and I will drop one off myself.
👉 Get involved at LanaNegrete.com
📱 Stay Connected
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🔹 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: What the Tide Can't Take
A hurricane hundreds of miles away reshaped our shoreline in a single weekend, and it cost us a festival we were all counting down to. That stings, and I will not dress it up. But look at what the same seven days held: a city planning a Great Park, a commission preparing to face our history honestly, three bakeries opening their doors, 1,800 kids walking back into safe programs, and 29 neighbors knocking on doors in the September heat.
Sand comes back. Beaches are rebuilt, and so are plans. We will look forward to 2027 with this experience I see our belt. October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and as a survivor I will ask just one thing of you a little early: book the screening you have been putting off. Late detection served me a path I don’t wish upon anyone. Early detection gave my friends a route less taxing. Either way, being persistent and getting checked gave me the chance to keep serving this city I love, and I want that chance for every one of you.
The stage will rise on our beach next fall. Until then, the show is us: at the commission hearings, at the markets, on the doorsteps. See you out there.
With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica