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Lana Negrete Newsletter — September 22, 2026
🌟 Santa Monica Weekly with Councilmember Lana Negrete
📅 September 22, 2026
Hi neighbors,
Saturday started with a ribbon at Club Studio in Santa Monica Place, rolled into office hours where we talked housing insecurity, living conditions, and how to open a business here, continued at Franklin Elementary where twelve of us running for office took questions from residents, and stopped by Social Compassion in Legislation's Justice for Animals celebration. It ended with the most important assignment of all: getting photos of my daughter and her friends before Samohi Homecoming, then serving proudly as Mom Uber to my oldesr. Business, residents, democracy, animals, mom life. That is not just my Saturday; that is this city, all in one day. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Louie and I quietly marked 21 years married on Thursday. He remains my favorite constituent.
And tonight, the Council Chambers take center stage: our new City Clerk's very first meeting, a study session on our water future, a review of the Palisades Fire after-action report, and a proclamation that hits close to my heart. Let's get into it.
🚔 Public Safety
🔹 The "hands are tied" era at the Metro platforms is ending. After months of persistence from Chief Jacob and our Police Department, the City is nearing finalization of an agreement with Metro that will let SMPD officers patrol all three E Line stations in Santa Monica, platforms included, for the first time. Our officers will be able to ride trains, support fare compliance operations, remove riders without valid fare, enforce Metro's Code of Conduct, respond to emergencies on Metro property, and connect people in need with care-based services. Deployments happen at our Chief's discretion, and both agencies will track the same performance data. This week, SMPD leadership meets with Metro's new Deputy Chief of Public Safety to lock in training so our officers can deploy the moment the agreement is signed. This is something I championed in 2024/2025 and meetings I took part in all throughout my mayorship. I’m glad the city manager took action and supported the groundwork.
→ 🎯 My take: For years, the answer on the train platforms was "not our jurisdiction," and residents paid the price for that shrug. We stopped accepting it. Hosting the end of the line comes with real quality-of-life impacts, and this is what refusing the status quo looks like.
→ 📊 By the numbers: Metro's new reinforced fare gates are coming to our stations by mid-2027 too, and the early systemwide results are striking: a 69 percent drop in reported security, vandalism, and cleanliness incidents at the first 28 upgraded stations, and at the first two, paid entries more than doubled while incidents fell 75 percent with no added personnel.
🔹 Sharp police work, block by block. This week officers arrested a suspect after a hot-prowl burglary at an occupied home on 11th Street, arrested a driver who repeatedly tried to strike an older victim near Yale Street, and worked with Culver City police to arrest a suspect who robbed one of our Traffic Services Officers. A felony battery and animal cruelty investigation on Ocean Front Walk led detectives, the Crime Impact Team, and K9 Mylo to recover fentanyl and an unserialized handgun, and a SMART Center alert helped officers recover a stolen vehicle on Bay Street without incident. Every one of those cases is a neighbor protected, and I will keep saying so.
🔹 Detectives are asking for your help. Following an indecent exposure arrest this week, SMPD believes there may be additional victims and is asking anyone with information to come forward. If something happened to you or someone you know, please speak up. You will be heard.
🔹 This week's data, because you deserve the numbers.
Metric (latest report week) | Number
|
Traffic stops | 186 |
Traffic citations / advisals | 106 / 70 |
Homeless Liaison Program radio calls | 94 |
HLP self-initiated contacts | 79 |
Encampments addressed | 11 |
HLP arrests | 14 |
SaMo Bridge / Samoshel referrals | 8 |
SMFD total calls for service | 327 |
SMFD homeless-related calls | 53 |
→ 💡 What this means: Traffic teams focused on school drop-off and pickup at Franklin Elementary and on overweight construction vehicles near 21st and Wilshire, exactly the everyday enforcement neighbors ask me about most. Keep reporting: 911 for crimes in progress, 311 for quality-of-life issues. It genuinely shapes where resources go.
🔹 Homelessness response, with both hands. Two outcomes this week stay with me: HLP officers walked a recently hospitalized individual through intake and got them transported directly into recuperative care, and they partnered with the Salvation Army HOPE Team to arrange lodging for a young woman until her flight home to family in Washington, D.C. Enforcement continued too, with 14 arrests on warrants, parole violations, and narcotics offenses. The hand and the law, together, every week. That combination is the whole strategy.
🔹 25 years, never forgotten. Our Fire Department hosted a solemn ceremony marking the 25th anniversary of September 11, joined by retired FDNY firefighter Jimmy Hanlin and closed by an LAFD flyover. The cost of that day is still being paid by responders and survivors, and I am grateful to everyone who gathered to remember. Back on the prevention beat, SMFD completed 217 annual fire inspections this week alone. Quiet work, saved lives.
🏛️ At City Hall
🔹 Tonight: Council meets at 5:30 p.m., and the agenda is packed. We open with a commendation for Senator Ben Allen, recognition of our outgoing board and commission members, and proclamations for Filipino American History Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Then comes the substance: Council review of the after-action report on the January 2025 Palisades Fire and Windstorm, a study session on the 2026 update to the Sustainable Water Master Plan that guides our water self-sufficiency, and acceptance of a $1 million grant from the Wallis Annenberg Legacy Foundation to support the Beach House.
→ 💗 A personal note: I will be at the dais for that Breast Cancer Awareness Month proclamation as a survivor, not just a councilmember. When October arrives next week, do one thing for me and for the people who love you: put the screening on the calendar. I know from experience how much the timing of detection matters.
👉 Find agendas and staff reports
🔹 Welcome to Team SaMo, Walfred Solorzano. Our new City Clerk started Monday and sits for his first Council meeting tonight, weeks before a November election. Walfred brings more than 20 years of local government experience, most recently as City Clerk in Sausalito and Interim City Clerk in Lodi, plus a 2021 Special Award of Distinction from the City Clerks Association of California. The Clerk's Office is the connective tissue of local democracy: elections, agendas, public records, board appointments, even passports. And a heartfelt thank you to Denise Anderson-Warren, who came out of retirement to steady the office while the recruitment ran.
🔹 City Hall is rearranging the furniture, on purpose. The reorganization of how your city government works continues: starting January 4, 2027, staff move to one consistent schedule with in-person work Tuesdays through Thursdays, and this week crews began reconfiguring the City Hall Campus itself, adding about 50 workstations so there is a seat for every person every day, roughly 25 shared meeting rooms, five quiet spaces, and, for the first time in a long while, whole teams sitting together. I share the operational stuff because transparency should not stop at the org chart, and because a City Hall built to collaborate serves you better.
🔹 A decision on 20th Street. Following up on the hearing I flagged last week: at its September 14 meeting, the Landmarks Commission voted to deny the designation application for the Unfried House, the 1913 Craftsman airplane bungalow at 1921 20th Street nominated by the Santa Monica Conservancy. Not the outcome the Conservancy hoped for, but this is preservation working the way it should: in public, on the record, with everyone heard.
🔹 Helping buildings plug in. Our Office of Sustainability hosted an EV charging webinar for multifamily properties on Wednesday, walking property managers, HOA boards, and residents through contractors, permits, and when to loop in the utility. Renters deserve access to charging too, and as one of the roughly 70 percent of us who rent here, I am glad we are tackling the hard buildings, not just the easy ones. A session for commercial properties follows this Thursday, September 24.
👉 View the city events calendar
🔹 A national nod for the Great Park dream. The Olmsted Network, the national organization protecting the legacy of the designer of Central Park, will honor the Santa Monica Airport2Park Foundation and the Great Park Coalition with a 2026 President's Award this Friday in Portland, recognizing how community vision is shaping what could be the next great American park on our airport land. Decades of resident advocacy just got a national stage.
💼 Economic Development
🔹 Nine days left: $5,000 microgrants for our small businesses. The application deadline for the Small Business Relief Microgrant Program is Thursday, October 1, and our Economic Development team just ran two step-by-step workshops, with Spanish-language assistance, to help operators apply. Twenty one-time $5,000 grants, a $100,000 investment in the brick-and-mortar businesses that give our corridors their character. I brought this program forward because I know exactly what a flexible $5,000 means when you are the one unlocking the door every morning: a storefront repair, a tech upgrade, a marketing push, another season rooted in Santa Monica. If you know a business that qualifies, forward this to them today.
👉 Apply for a Small Business Relief Microgrant
🔹 Montana Avenue is gearing up for Art Walk, October 3. This year's edition, running 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., doubles as our official centennial celebration of Route 66, honoring Santa Monica's place as the western terminus of the Mother Road. The City trained Montana Avenue businesses this week on the new Entertainment Zone, our third, which lets participating restaurants and bars serve to-go drinks for the day so visitors linger and local registers ring. Art, live music, history, and commerce on one street. See you there.
👉 Browse arts and culture in Santa Monica
🔹 Three corridors, three bets on Santa Monica. Window signs are up for The Punchbowl Juice and Smoothie at 2218 Main Street. Bacio di Latte opened its second Santa Monica gelateria Friday at 1510 Montana Avenue, a sweet vote of confidence two weeks before Art Walk. And Saturday morning I got to officially welcome Club Studio to Santa Monica Place: 48,000 square feet of boutique fitness, recovery services, and a juice bar filling the former Bloomingdale's, the first new-generation anchor since the mall entered receivership, with ARTE Museum working to open in the months ahead. After two years of headlines about dark anchor boxes, this is what a turning tide looks like, and I plan to celebrate every single opening because it shows out support to the business owners. The gelato research, I will handle personally.
👉 See my Saturday recap (Instagram)
🌊 The Beach & the Beach House
🔹 The sand is already moving back. Our Public Works crews began repairing the beach south of the Pier this week, moving sand to the Pico-Kenter outfall area, building a protective berm ahead of the coming king tide, and opening all five beach storm drains before an anticipated El Niño winter, with County and contractor muscle on the way. The City also released a full fact sheet with photos, drone video, and site overlays showing exactly what Hurricane Marie did, including a high-tide line pushed 96 feet inland. The stakes are on the calendar: ESPN broadcasts Super Bowl Week live from our Pier starting February 8, 2027, Ocean Way returns in 2027, and LA28 hospitality houses like Club France and House of Switzerland follow in 2028. Meanwhile, the beach is open and beautiful right now. Go soak up these last summer-ish weekends.
👉 Read the beach repair update
🔹 The festival postponed. The benefits did not. The City announced Monday that the Ocean Way community benefits package with Goldenvoice is moving full speed ahead: dublab Open Air is now two free evenings at Reed Park, this Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25, from 5 to 8 p.m., followed by Continuum, honoring the history of Belmar and Black Santa Monica, on October 11 at Historic Belmar Park, plus free youth water safety workshops with Surf Bus Foundation at the Beach House on October 11 and 18. Goldenvoice also funded upgrades at our community gardens, from new fencing and drip irrigation at Reed Park to café lighting at the 19th Street Community Farm, and is providing $15,000 each for Pier youth programs and Surfrider's One Watershed work.
→ 🎯 My take: I have spent my life in the live music business, so believe me when I say this is not how these stories usually go. Promoters do not have to keep community promises when the show gets washed out. This one did, and that tells you the 2027 partnership is built on something real.
👉 Read the full benefits announcement
🔹 Step inside the Marion Davies Guest House this weekend. For the second year, the Beach House joins the statewide Doors Open California weekend, Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, from 12 to 4 p.m. Visitors get an up-close look at rarely displayed pieces, including a section of the nearly 100-year-old original wood flooring, historic wallpaper, and a personal item that belonged to Marion Davies herself, co-produced with the Santa Monica Conservancy. History you can stand inside, for free, at the beach. Only in Santa Monica.
🔹 The Beach House pulled up a seat with LA Tourism. Team members Nan Friedman and Adam Schanke attended the 2026 Market Outlook Forum at the Academy Museum, the Beach House's first outing as a new LA Tourism member. The takeaway that caught my eye: nearly half of event planners are hunting for non-hotel venues, which is a genuine growth opportunity for a one-of-a-kind, City-owned space, plus lessons from Paris tourism leaders on building an Olympic legacy ahead of LA28. Kudos to a team finding new ways to make our facility earn its keep.
🎓 Education, Arts & Our Youth
🔹 The Pico Branch showed up for Hispanic Heritage Month. Our Library team spent part of last weekend at Virginia Avenue Park's celebration of Mexican Independence Day, coordinated by Familias Latinas Unidas: mariachi, posole, and cultural displays honoring Mexican and Guatemalan traditions. Staff connected with about 50 community members, led a folklórico dancer craft for kids, and gave away bilingual books celebrating Latino heroes, funded through the SMC Glass Pumpkin Sales. The results I love most: three teens joined the Library's volunteer program, four families enrolled in the new Student Success Card pilot, and four adults left with LEAF class information. I built a nonprofit around getting kids access to the arts, so watching our librarians hand a child a book and a craft in their family's language? That is the whole mission in one afternoon.
🔹 Library Card Sign-Up Month got crafty. Sixty-one patrons decorated their own library card holders at the Main Library, helped along by fourteen teen volunteers, and by the end of the event we had seventeen brand-new cardholders plus four upgrades to the special edition design. Small event, big habit: a library card is the best free membership in town.
🎉 Around Town & Community
🔹 He made it home. Last week I shared an SMPD alert about a missing young neighbor, a recent Samohi grad and SMC student, and this weekend came the news we were all hoping for: he was found safe. Thank you to every single person who shared the post and kept an eye out. That is this community at its very best.
🔹 A heartbreaking loss. Our community is mourning the death of Presley Gerber, just 27 years old, who passed away Sunday here in Santa Monica. My heart goes out to his family and everyone who loved him. Please hold your people close this week, and check on the ones you have not heard from in a while.
🔹 Ten million rides, two years running. Big Blue Bus announced it has delivered 10 million rides for the second consecutive year. Behind that number are operators, mechanics, and planners showing up before dawn, and thousands of neighbors choosing transit every day.
👉 Read the Big Blue Bus update
📅 Dates to Know
🔹 Tonight, Tuesday, September 22, 5:30 p.m.: City Council meets in Council Chambers. The big agenda is above.
🔹 Wednesday, September 23, 6 to 8 p.m.: My fundraiser and meet-and-greet at Prime Pizza, 1811 Pico Blvd, with Ashley Oelsen and Doug Trussler joining. 6-8pm
🔹 Wednesday, September 23, 7 p.m.: The Restorative Justice Commission receives the Historical Harms Report in Council Chambers.
🔹 Thursday, September 24: EV charging webinar for commercial properties.
🔹 Thursday and Friday, September 24 and 25, 5 to 8 p.m.: dublab Open Air, two free nights of music at Reed Park.Come join me on my picnic blanket! I’ll bring plenty of snacks to share!
🔹 Saturday and Sunday, September 26 and 27, 12 to 4 p.m.: Doors Open California at the Marion Davies Guest House, Annenberg Community Beach House.
🔹 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: Small Business Microgrant applications close, and the Housing and Human Services Commission meets.
🔹 Saturday, October 3, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.: Montana Avenue Art Walk and the Route 66 centennial celebration, plus the new Beach House Gallery exhibition reception from 4 to 6 p.m.
🔹 Saturday, October 10: Block Fest Vol. VIII on the Promenade.
🔹 Sunday, October 11, noon to 5 p.m.: Continuum: Honoring the History of Belmar and Black Santa Monica at Historic Belmar Park, plus youth water safety workshops at the Beach House October 11 and 18.
🔹 Every Wednesday and every weekend: The farmers markets are open, and weekends are still where you will find me.
💙 All In Through November
🔹 Twelve candidates, one stage, zero microphones afterward. Saturday's NOMA Candidate Forum at Franklin Elementary put all of us in front of residents to share our plans and take your questions. I stuck around after the formal program because, honestly, the best conversations always start when the mics turn off. Thank you to everyone who came and asked the hard ones.
🔹 A long conversation, on the record. I sat down with Joe Goodhue for the first official episode of The Real Westside Story podcast, talking about the eight square miles we call home ahead of November 3. The first clip is up now and the full conversation lands on YouTube this week.
👉 Watch the first clip (Instagram)
🔹 Facts, not fear. Campaign season means political text messages, and some crossing your screens about me are simply misleading. Disagree with my votes, challenge my policies, that is democracy and I welcome it. But I was born and raised here by parents in rent-controlled housing, my family still lives in the building I grew up in, and I am a rent-controlled renter today. When special interests spend this hard, election after election, to defeat an independent voice, ask yourself why. Then do exactly what I ask of everyone: look at the record, ask questions, and do your own research. Transparency and civility are not campaign slogans for me. They are the job.
👉 Read my full response (Instagram)
🔹 Tomorrow night: pizza with a purpose. Join me Wednesday, September 23, 6 to 8 p.m. at Prime Pizza on Pico. Want to host a gathering of your own? A backyard, an apartment courtyard, a street corner: nothing is too big or too small, just reach out. Ballots begin arriving the first week of October, drop boxes open October 24, and in-person voting runs through Election Day, Tuesday, November 3. Every conversation and every contribution helps me reach more neighbors.
👉 Get involved at LanaNegrete.com
📱 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: Change Is a Choice
Almost everything in this letter is something changing. Desks moving at City Hall. Sand moving back onto our beach. Officers stepping onto train platforms we were told were forever off-limits. A new Clerk taking his seat at the dais tonight. A mall coming back to life one anchor at a time.
Here is what I have learned in five years on this Council, twenty-five years behind the counter of our family music store, and one fight with cancer I did not choose: change itself is not the story. How we meet it is. A storm does not get to decide what our beach becomes; our crews do. A jurisdiction line does not get to decide how safe our platforms feel; our officers do. And no text message blast gets to decide this city's future; you do, with a ballot arriving in about two weeks.
So come to the Chambers tonight, or catch me at Prime Pizza tomorrow, or find me at the market this weekend. Bring your questions. I will bring straight answers.
With gratitude and determination,
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica
Lana Negrete
Councilmember, City of Santa Monica