Santa Monica Dispatch

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Warm and mostly sunny
Highs: 71-78; Lows: 52-58

Inland
Sunny and hot
Highs: 79-87; Lows: 50-54

Deserts
Hot and clear
Highs: 85-90; Lows: 59-65

And Santa Monica…

November is here,
With days crisp and clear,
And holidays on the horizon.

With cider on boil
And fruits from the soil,
Good thanks are given by all.

The trees lose their leaves,
Wind howls in the eaves,
And children curl up in their blankets.

But here by the sea,
How happy are we,
As beach babes still frolic in bikinis!

In a case watched by housing advocates across California, the California Supreme Court has summarily rejected Apartment Investment and Management’s (AIMCO) petition for review and request for depublication in the case Marlin v AIMCO, Nr. S156376. As a result, the Second District Court of Appeals’ published decision remains intact, providing an important precedent for tenants all over the state, .

Lincoln Place tenants Frieda and Leslie Marlin brought a declarative relief action seeking a determination from the Court that their landlord AIMCO could not lawfully evict them from their apartments. The Marlins contended that AIMCO’s attempt to evict them violated the terms of conditions imposed pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) in connection with a redevelopment project the city approved in November,

Following the recommendations of “Creative Capital: Culture, Community, Vision,” which City Hall defines as “a new long term plan for the development of Santa Monica’s creative sector,” the Cultural Affairs Division is exploring “ways in which the City’s current Cultural/Arts grant programs might be restructured.”

One recommendation would increase support of individual artists through the establishment of an Artists Fellowship Program that would recognize individual Santa Monica artists,

On Wednesday, November 7, artists are invited to take part in a workshop to discuss how this type of funding program might simultaneously serve the local arts community and meet the goals of other City initiatives and plans.

Jerry Yoshitomi of Meaning Matters will lead the discussion, as well as talking about the overall public value of the arts and cultural granting programs for artists and arts organizations.

The workshop will be held from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. in the Main Gallery, 18th Street Arts Center, 1639 18th Street. 310 458 8350.

The City of Santa Monica is seeking public comments on its plans for increased regulation of surfing instruction on the beach.

To that end,, a meeting will be held at 7 p.m. on Monday, November 12, at the Ken Edwards Center, 1527 4th Street,

With Malibu, Santa Monica was the epicenter of surfing in its first halcyon days on this continent, and, from that time to this, it has been integral to this beach town.

A recent increase in surfing schools on the beach has resulted in what the City describes as “significant user-conflicts on the sand and in the water.”

We’ve been watching the City Council at work for years, and have wondered for all those years why the people who are elected to represent us so frequently fail to actually represent us.

The current battle over the trees on Second and Fourth Streets is the most recent example of this odd divide between the people and their alleged representatives.

Then, at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, during a discussion of possible time limits on Council members’ perorations, Councilman Ken Genser, who has been on the Council since 1988, said that when he was elected to the Council, a friend on the School Board, gave him some useful advice. Remember, she said, they’re YOUR meetings, they’re where you deliberate. They just happen to be held in public.

That explains everything – except where the of, by and for the people
principle went – and why.

The Writers’ Guild negotiating committee and the Producers’ Alliance met for some 10 hours Sunday, but the talks ended when the WGAeast declared the strike on at 9:01 p.m. our time. WGAwest struck, as promised,
at 12:91 a.m. this morning.

The New York writers will picket Rockefeller Center today, while the L.A. writers will march at 15 studios.

I’m a member of the Writers Guild. Though a screenplay of mine is adrift out there in the vast spec script sea, and an unfinished script is somewhere on my desk, I have been officially “inactive” since my clearly quixotic return to journalism eight years ago.

I stand with my WGA colleagues, and I’m already angry at the skewed coverage my colleagues in the news media are giving the strike.

One of the Los Angeles County Public Health Department’s free flu shot clinics will be located at the Santa Monica chapter of the American Red Cross again this year.

Flu shots will be given from 9 a.m. to noon, Wednesday, November 14, at the chapter headquarters , 1450 11th Street (at Broadway) in Santa Monica.

People who are over 50 and/or have a chronic condition such as asthma, heart disease, kidney disorder or diabetes, are eligible for the free shots. Anyone who has a child between six to 59 months of age or is pregnant is also eligible for the free shot.

People who are allergic to eggs or have any serious illness are advised to consult their doctors before having the shots.

The American Red Cross of Santa Monica is a publicly supported, 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation that provides health and safety education, youth services, CPR and first aid training, disaster awareness and disaster relief efforts. For additional information or to inquire about other programs or assistance, Phone: 310-394-3773 or go online at
www.redcrossofsantamonica.org.

At Tuesday night’s Planning Commission meeting, the planning staff is scheduled to ask the Commission on “to consider amending” the Municipal Code’s definitions of “Hedge,” “Yard, Front,” “Fence, Wall, Hedge, Flagpole” and “to modify fence, wall, and hedge standards…to establish criteria for the repair and alteration of existing nonconforming hedges, walls, hedges; to establish administrative and discretionary height modification procedures; to clarify the criteria for assessing objections to nonconforming fences, walls, and hedges; to require the maintenance of hedges; and to specify a self-help remedy for overhanging hedges.”

As any sentient resident knows by now, City Hall is bent on controlling and regulating everything – except the things that really matter – such as growth and development and traffic.

In fact, the Planning Commission will be asked to okay a new definition of “hedge” Wednesday night, not tonight, as reported in “City Hall’s Whichy Thicket” (below). That’s “hedge” as in your yard, not as in “hedge your bets.” Our apologies for the lapse.

NEW PAINTINGS

“Evening Becomes Electric,” an exhibition of new paintings by Patricia Chidlaw, opens Saturday, November 11, at Terrence Rogers Fine Arts, with a reception for the artist from 2 to 5 p.m.

Chidlaw is an extraordinarily assured painter. Her subject is Los Angeles -- its obscure corners, side streets and odd corners, and, always, the over-arching sky and the light, the L.A. light. Raymond Chandler knew these streets, and so will you.

The exhibit will run through December 22. The gallery is located at 1231 Fifth Street, It’s open from Wednesday through Saturday, noon to 5 p.m.

The symbolism is devastating, and depressing. Our perfectly rendered City Hall has become a pawn in the City’s continuing planning muddle.

The stunning Streamline Moderne building opened in 1939. In 1958, it was enlarged to make room for the Police Department. The addition was artfully done so as not to diminish the original building.

Fast forward to the near-present. After the Police Department moved out of City Hall and into the new Public Safety building, the City decided to combine the seismic retrofit of City Hall with its complete restoration.

Then, though the City was renting an ever-increasing number of offices around Santa Monica, it ordered the demolition of the addition, rather than using the office space until it was ready to to begin the restoration.

It also chose to demolish the two RAND buildings, which it then owned, rather than converting them into City offices.

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Mostly sunny
Highs: 61-71; Lows: 50-54

Inland
Sunny and gradually warmer
Highs: 60-81; Lows: 44-46

Deserts
Warm and sunny
Highs: 72-87; Lows: 55-62

And Santa Monica…
SunnyBoi25: hey Clowd!
PoofyBunny12: hi Sunn!!! HOW R U??
SunnyBoi25: I’m good, lol. How r u?
PoofyBunny12: I’m good i guess. It looks like they scheduled us to work together in santa monica this weekend!!! isn’t that AWESOMEEEE?????
SunnyBoi25: no way! that is so cool. i haven’t looked at my schedule yet.
PoofyBunny12: yeah, it looks like they want me to make it “partly cloudy” or whatever, so we’ll be sharin’ the sky together!
SunnyBoi25: sweeeet.
PoofyBunny12: ya, i’m excited about it! they don’t need me past Sunday, though. i wonder who they have scheduled for next week? maybe Blowy or Rayn.
SunnyBoi25:….
PoofyBunny12: what?
SunnyBoi25: um I’m looking at the schedule now, and they want me to work all next week. alone. Just me…
PoofyBunny12: THAT IS SO UNFAIR I HATE YOU WHY DO YOU ALWAYS GET MORE HOURS THAN ME???
SunnyBoi25: um, I’m sorry?! it’s SANTA MONICA, you know. they kind of like me to work a lot here.
PoofyBunny12: ya whatever. I hate you I’m moving to Seattle.
USER POOFYBUNNY12 HAS SIGNED OFF.

Once again, the Los Angeles chapter of Veterans for Peace will mark Veterans Day, Sunday, November 11, with special events on Saturday, Sunday and Monday at Arlington West Memorial, the ever-enlarging field of crosses on the beach north of the Santa Monica Pier.

The crosses will be set in place Saturday morning and remain in place through Monday.

In addition to the crosses, which now number over 3860 and honor the American troops killed in Iraq, there is a wall that pays tribute to the soldiers wounded in the war, a marker devoted to the Iraqi people who have been killed in the war, flag-draped caskets in memory of the soldiers killed this week, and walls of photos and names.

On Saturday, at 2 p.m., there will be a concert by the cast of “Hair,” which is
currently at the Met Theater.

The following report was commissioned by Mark Gold, Director of Heal the Bay and Chair of the Santa Monica Task Force on the Environment,nd delivered on November 30, 2005.

Its author, Laurel Roennau, is a longtime resident and traffic expert.

We are running it now because in the meantime nothing has changed – except that traffic is worse than ever, and the Santa Monica Coalition for a Livable City has asked the City Council -- again -- (see “To the City Council,” Archive, October 25) to adopt a more effective traffic methodology, and the question will be discussed at the Tuesday night Council meeting.

Santa Monica’s Traffic Impact Analysis

By Laurel Roennau

In our town, in our time, the environmental topic that causes the most grief is traffic. How did it get so bad? There are too many cars because there are too many people who want to (or have to) live, work, visit, recreate, sight-see or just be in Santa Monica. It has been estimated that our nighttime (mostly resident) population is about one-third our daytime (mostly employees and visitors) population, most of whom get here by automobile.

Another way to say this is that Santa Monica has a lot of desirable destinations. Every time a new building application is submitted to the City, a new destination is being proposed. [When my kids had a body-board rental shack on the beach (no building permit required – just a business license), four car trips were added to the mix – Mom driving to/from to deliver and to/from to pick up the fledgling entrepreneurs -- not to mention their customers’ trips.] A new office building, a new hospital, a new theater, a new school -- all desirable, but all adding uncounted vehicles to our congested streets.

In the beginning, he seemed to be the quintessential Hemingway character – a Harvard boy who became a man in the caldron of World War II.

Then, with the publication of his first novel, “The Naked and the Dead,” he was seen by many as Hemingway’s heir apparent.

But, if Mailer’s long, tumultuous life proved anything, it was that he was an original, who invented and reinvented himself with every book, sometimes for the better, often for the worse. His ego was as large as Hemingway’s, but far healthier, and, until time and a late-blooming ease overtook him, he believed that he was on his way to becoming the one and only Great American Novelist.

Norman Mailer died today, at 84, of kidney failure. He was working on a new book when he died.

Eccentric topography notwithstanding, Santa Monica is a linear town – broad bands of houses and apartment buildings punctuated at remarkably regular intervals by boulevards, each of which has its own distinctive character, and all but one of which are commercial to varying degrees.

The town is split in half by the ten Freeway, which runs downhill and diagonally from the L.A. border to the beach.

Founded in 1875 as a modest real estate, it has become an accurate expression of the aspirations – high and low – of five generations of residents and multiple and diverse business interests, but it was and is,first of all, a beach town with its own imperatives.

The primary fact of Santa Monica, the shaping element is the beach. The bands of houses, the boulevards all run east to west, L.A. to the ocean. In its oceanic light and air, palm trees outgrow the flimsy soil they are set in, and there is a deep balminess in everything. It is what people think of when they think of the storied Southern California coast.

In his latest Los Angeles Times column, “The Big Picture,” Patrick Golstein wrote, “When Tom Freston was fired from Viacom in 2006, he received $60 million in severance pay, more than all of the DVD residuals paid to WGA members that year.”

In a separate instance, a striking writer told a TV reporter that the DVD of a movie he wrote made $40 million. His share was less than $8.000.

Clearly, it’s far more profitable to be a fired corporate executive than a working writer, which may explain the proliferation of producers and their escalating degradation of writers.

Or maybe the producers are just mad as hell that, from the beginning of time, humankind has always needed storytellers, but has never had a demonstrable need for producers.

“We Were Strangers” (1948), a rarely shown John Huston film, will be screened Friday, November 16, as part of the Los Angeles Coalition in Solidarity with Cuba’s film series,

When Cuban-born Tony Fenner (John Garfield) returns to Havana after seven years, he joins a small band of revolutionaries dedicated to ending the reign toppling the tyrannical president. Aided by fellow rebel China Valdes (Jennifer Jones), Fenner sets an elaborate plot in motion. 106 min. Standard; Soundtrack: English. Subtitles: English, Spanish, Japanese, French.

The film will be shown at 7 p.m. at the home of Rachel Sene and Jay Johnson, 601 Ninth Street in Santa Monica. $5 donation for The Cuban Five defense http://www.freethefive.org

RSVP RachelJay@earthlink.net or call 310-451-2752 (first 20)

The Southern California Vocal Association will present the Southern California Regional Honor Choirs in concert at Samohi's Barnum Hall on Saturday, November 17th, at 7:30 p.m.

Over 500 students from all over Southern California audition each year for the SCVA honor choirs.This year, 240 students were selected for the Mixed Honor Choir, the Women's Honor Choir, and the Men's Honor Choir.

Tickets are $10 and will be available for purchase at the door.

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Sunny and steadily cooling
Highs: 56-69; Lows: 45-55

Inland
Clear and warm
Highs: 65-82; Lows: 39-51

Deserts
Warm and sunny
Highs: 66-89; Lows: 47-61

And Santa Monica...
In 1620, the Mayflower landed in Plymouth, Massachusetts. The Pilgrims endured trying times, and eventually thrived, having a celebratory feast with the local Native Americans. They ate turkey, corn, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and sweet potatoes with a flambéed marshmallow topping. The feast was a big event in our country's past, and made history.

In 2007, the sun landed in Santa Monica, California. The residents enjoyed sunshine and warmth for most of the year, celebrating the clear days with joy. They played on the beach, lounged at the park, and dined al fresco. But one November, it got cold. Highs were in the 50s and lows were in the 40s. It was a cold event in our city’s past, and made history.

The staff report on recommended revisions in land use and circulation policies in the so-called industrial lands referred frequently to the need to achieve “jobs-housing balance.”

In addition to all the obvious advantages of such balance, it might alleviate the monstrous traffic mess the City has created, which is probably why it’s suddenly become a City priority.

Of course, it should have been a priority 20 years ago, when the City embarked on its manic economic drive, Now, unfortunately, the imbalance will be with us for the foreseeable future.

Santa Monica always attracted a certain number of tourists. They came for the same things that attracted residents – the beach, the low-key beach town airs, the idiosyncratic style – and it was all very congenial. But, in an effort to increase its revenue, City Hall decided to crank up the volume two decades ago. To that end, it created the Convention and Visitors Bureau (CVB), gave it $1 million a year, oversaw the replacement of small beachfront motels with outsized “luxury” hotels, began referring to the beach as a “visitor-serving facility,” and imposed a 12 (now 14) percent bed tax.

As the number of tourists grew, so did City revenues, traffic and low-paying, menial jobs. From the beginning, many residents have seen the increases in traffic and dead end jobs as a high price to pay for a bump in City Hall’s cash on hand, but City Hall has not listened.

Rand Plewak, who lives near Rustic Canyon Park, has called a meeting to discuss the future of the Uplifters’ “experimental forestry grove” of eucalyptus trees next to the park.

It has been proposed that every dead eucalyptus tree be replaced by an indigenous coast redwood.

The meeting will begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday, November 25, in the eucalyptus grove and will be short.

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Partly cloudy with chilly nights
Highs: 60-71; Lows: 47-50

Inland
Mostly cloudy with a windy weekend
Highs: 66-73; Lows: 38-43

Deserts
A warm weekend and scattered clouds
Highs: 69-76; Lows: 47-52

And Santa Monica…
Oh the weather outside is delightful,
And those extra Thanksgiving calories are frightful,
And since we can go jogging cause there’s no snow,
Outside we’ll go, outside we’ll go, outside we’ll go.

Oh it doesn’t show signs of stopping,
To the sales, we’ll go a shopping,
The sun shines down so low,
Our tans glow, our tans glow, our tans glow.

While the sun shines so bright,
We all feel so nice and warm,
And even when the sun goes down at night,
I know there won’t be any storm!

The clouds are still trying,
But the sun prevents them from flying,
As long as the sun does show,
There’s no snow, there’s no snow, there’s no snow.

Malibu had just recovered from the wildfires that roared down its canyons to the beach about a month ago, when a new wildfire powered by cold Santa Ana winds raced through the canyons and over the mountains early Saturday.

The fire started at 3;30 a.m. at the head of Corral Canyon and ranged wide, burning about 4,600 acres and destroying 49 houses and three other structures. At one point, over 14,000 people had been evacuated.

But, by late afternoon, fire officials reported that the fire had been 25 percent contained, adding that they expected to have it 50 percent contained by Sunday afternoon when the Santa Anas are supposed to subside.

Fire officials also reported that they believed the fire had been triggered by “human action,” but not necessarily arson.

The addresses of the houses that have been destroyed are listed on the Malibu website – www.ciMalibuca.us.

The City has scheduled a community meeting on Thursday, November 29,
At 7 p.m. at the Ken Edwards Center.

According to a City press release, the purpose of the meeting is “to review the design for the Civic Center Village residential project, an approximately 325-unit mixed use housing and commercial project, including both for sale units and affordable rental units, related commercial uses, and public open space in the Santa Monica Civic Center.

“The project is being processed as a Development Agreement requiring approval by the City Council. The meeting will highlight the design progress since the Council’s direction to proceed with the concept presented at the August 14, 2007 Council meeting.”

Residents’ comments on the design will be solicited at the meeting or can be made in writing. For further information, contact Sarah Lejeune, Senior Planner at (310) 458-8341.

RSVP to (310) 458-8341 or sarah.lejeune@SMGOV.net

The Ken Edwards Center is located at 1527 4th Street.

Generally, when the City schedules a “community” meeting at the Ken Edwards Center, it expects a low turn-out, It’s also given us very short notice. But we hope regiments of residents show up and reiterate the complaints of the many residents who have previously criticized the project – to no discernible effect.

This year's Santa Monica Conservancy holiday party will be held in one of Santa Monica’s most beautifully restored and renovated Craftsman houses.

The house is owned and has been meticulously restored by Diane and Victor Fresco. It’s located at 514 Palisades Avenue.

Among the party’s highlights will be refreshments, live piano music, and a silent auction of artworks to benefit the Conservancy's Shotgun House restoration project.

The party is free to members. Non-members who wish to attend may join online or at the event if they make a reservation in advance. Non-members who attend as guests will be, in the words of the Conservancy “strongly encouraged to join.”

The silent art auction is a special feature this year. Several local artists have donated original artworks with Santa Monica themes. Auction proceeds will help fund an important historic preservation project.

RSVP to (310) 496-3146, or rsvp@smconservancy.org.

by Brian Bland
Friends of Sunset Park Board member

Years of community effort to make the Santa Monica Airport safer for residents and pilots paid off when the City Council unanimously approved a ban on the largest, fastest, jets currently using the airport.

The move came Tuesday night on the first reading of an ordinance that will become law after a second reading in January.

The 7-0 vote to approve the ban came despite a last-minute threat from the Federal Aviation Administration to use "all available means'' to fight the ordinance so that "no aircraft is denied access to SMO (Santa Monica Airport).''

The FAA's Kirk Shaffer, Associate Administrator for Airports, used that phrase despite acknowledging that having homes at each end of the runway "increases the potential for injury from an aircraft accident off the end of the runway.''

As has happened at almost every City Council meeting recently. Mayor Richard Bloom re-opened the public session of Tuesday’s City Council meeting by apologizing for the Council’s tardy return. Then he and other Council members examined the evening’s agenda for items that might be continued to a future meeting in order to end the session by midnight. The examination included lengthy conversations about several agenda items, so even as the Council members talked about shortening the meeting, they lengthened it.

When that was done, the Council heard the first item, an appeal of a Landmarks Commission designation. The staff recommended that the appeal be denied. The Council clearly agreed with staff, and was about to vote when Council member Pam O’Connor beau to talk.

Apparently she either hadn’t understood or had forgot the discussion of the need to move briskly through the agenda, as she launched into a tedious and extended dissertation on the landmarks designation process, and its flaws.She wasn’t making a case for her vote. She wasn’t even making a point. She was just…talking.

And another Council babble-on was underway,

Though there are all manner of rules governing how long members of the public can talk and what they can say or not say, there are no such rules for the Council embers, They can babble on endlessly, and they do.

They explain their votes – before and after they vote. They praise the staff fulsomely, and frequently. They nitpick and generalize. They lecture. They digress, waffle, fulminate and think out loud. They vamp. They show off, They snap at each other. They reminisce. They scold. They preach. But they do not listen.

In addition to hearing the first reading of an ordinance banning larger jets from Santa Monica Airport (story below), the City Council made some other significant decisions at its Tuesday night meeting.

First, it denied an Appeal of the Landmarks Commission designation of a garden apartment at 423-431 Ocean Avenue as a City Landmark.

Later, despite eloquent appeals by its residents and the objections of other members of the public, the Council directed the staff to pursue a velopment Agreement negotiation and review process with the owners of the Village Trailer Park to determine whether an appropriate project can be identified for the site on Colorado Avenue east of Stewart Street.

The Council also authorized the execution of a Memorandum of derstanding that holds the pending notice of closure that would have been effective January 31, 2008.

The Santa Monica Democratic Club will host a campaign fundraiser for Dennis Kucinich, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, on Sunday, December 9.

Kucinich, who will be joined by his wife Elizabeth, will meet the public and speak on his candidacy and issues facing the country and the world from 1 to 3 p.m. at 939 San Vicente Boulevard.

Everyone is welcome. Free parking is available. Refreshments will be served.

Contributions will be requested,.

By Ava Tramer

Beaches
Extreme
Highs: 58-70; Lows: 43-50

Inland
Ranging from cool to hot
Highs: 57-77; Lows: 36-46

Deserts
Mostly sunny and warming
Highs: 57-79; Lows: 40-55

And Santa Monica…
Well, ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for the unexpected, the very harsh, the most extreme, and the hardcore: this weekend will prove to be intense. Friday will bring a 30 percent chance of showers. Yes, showers. So drag out your rainboots and raincoats and umbrellas – it might very well be wet. And as for Saturday, that’s when things really get wintry: expect strong winds with icy temperatures as low as 43 degrees. Yes, 43 degrees. So whip out your scarves and sweaters and jackets and blankets and bear furs. And if you plan to actually venture outside on Saturday, make sure to wear an Eskimo snow suit or two. Sunday will usher in period of rest from extreme weather, so enjoy the partly cloudy day. And the rest of the week should be pretty mild, calm, sunny, clear, and boring.

The City of Santa Monica will hold a citywide community workshop focusing on how, in its words, transportation can help meet the community’s goals of sustainability, affordability and active recreation”
on Thursday, December 6, from 6 to 9:00 p.m..

Part of the Planning and Community Development Department’s community outreach for the revision of the land use and circulation elements in the General Plan, the workshop will, in the City’s words, “build on previous community input and analysis to guide transportation policy for the city over the next 20 years.”

The focus of the discussion will be on “ways to reduce employee, school and resident trips, parking “strategies” for downtown, neighborhood commercial, and residential areas, sustainable resource allocation, and approaches to transportation that promote green streets and recreational opportunities.

The workshop is open to residents, the business community and employees. . Registration will begin at 6:15 p.m. and the program will start at 6:30 p.m. at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium East Wing, 1855 Main Street. Auto and secure bicycle parking will be provided. Participants are requested to RSVP to shapethefuture2025@smgov.net or call (310) 458-8341 in order to ensure an accurate refreshment count.

To the City Council:

A couple of years ago I read a City publication which boasted that Santa Monica was the fifth most sustainable city in the U.S. More recently I came across literature from City Hall which crowed that our town was one of the top ten sustainable municipalities in our country.

Last I checked they don't give out medals in horse races or beauty pageants to finishers out of the top three, so I don't see why the government and the residents of Santa Monica should be satisfied with anything short of being considered equivocally the most sustainable city around.

Unfortunately, we're falling short of this goal and will never achieve it until the precepts of sustainability are integrated into every decision made at City Hall. Yet even at the breakfast meeting at the Main Library this fall announcing the latest edition of the Sustainable City Report Card, visitors who arrived by car were given passes for free parking while those who took the bus were not rewarded for their more sustainable choice of transit. Clearly, we have a ways to go when these old habits linger.