Wilshire-Montana Coalition Addresses Traffic Problems At Its Annual Meeting 

Mirror Staff

At its annual public meeting on July 4, the Wilshire Montana neighborhood coalition which represents the densely populated area that’s roughly bounded by Wilshire, Montana, Ocean and 21st Street, devoted most of its attention to traffic issues. Jaywalking, stop signs, one-way streets, enforcement and parking were the focus of eight out of 12 resolutions discussed at the gathering.
   City manager John Jalili, two current and one former member of the City Council, members of the Rent Control Board and the Santa Monica College boards attended the meeting.
   The membership unanimously approved one resolution asking that “the city update us on the progress of an investigation begun last year in response to a resolution at our last year’s meeting over persistent parking problems in the area of 21st Street and Wilshire Boulevard, caused by the Church of the Movement of Inner Spiritual Awareness, aka the University of Santa Monica aka Insight Training (2101 Wilshire Boulevard) which lacks parking.”
   A second resolution also won unanimous approval. It placed the coalition “on record as supporting filming in our neighborhood, recognizing that the occasional inconvenience caused by filmmakers is a small price to pay for keeping our neighbors’ jobs (such as crew, craft, rental and equipment supply and support service work lost by ‘runaway production’ relocating to Canada and elsewhere)...We urge the city to keep this in mind when it comes to granting film permits to production companies who wish to shoot in the Wilshire/Montana neighborhood.
   Two trash related resolutions also passed unanimously. The first requested that the City increase the number of collection days for both trash and recycling containers. The second asked that the city devise a different method of recycling in buildings which are responsible for their own recycling bins, giving “multiple dwelling neighborhoods an adequate number of collection bins.”
   Rejected in general membership votes were resolutions calling for 5th street to be made one-way again and opposing such traffic inhibiting measures as curb extensions and medians. Other resolutions, passed on split votes, requested that the City “enforce jaywalking laws and educate pedestrians, expand city use of radar signs to show traffic speeds and provide the budget to hire more traffic enforcement officers.”
   Resolutions calling for more stop signs and traffic lights and for parking officers to issue jaywalking tickets were tabled. At its June 6 meeting, reflecting the sense of a June 2 general meeting, the Coalition board passed a resolution asking the Planning Commission and the City Council to reject a conditional use permit for a 10-unit condominium at 834-838 Sixteenth Street on the grounds that it would “exceed city standards and be incompatible with the surrounding, low density community.”
   The Coalition board will hold its monthly board of directors’ meeting Wednesday, August 4, at 7 p.m. in the Ken Edwards Center at 1527 Fourth Street in downtown Santa Monica. Founded in 1988, the coalition, as well as membership in it, is open to anyone with an interest in the area. Both mayor Pam O’Conner and Council member Kevin McKeown are former chairs of Wilshire-Montana.