At last night’s City Council meeting, one of City Hall’s constant critics, Joy Fulmer, fulminated against the City’s plans for the pumping up of downtown Santa Monica in general and the Third Street Promenade in particular.

Following “Managing the Future of Downtown Santa Monica,” the staff report, which featured Bayside’s long-running consultants, Fulmer scolded the Council, noting that residents keep asking for the City to do less in the way of growth and development, but the City persists in doing more.

As it was a discussion item, the Council took no action, and at the conclusion of the discussion, Mayor Pro Tem Richard Bloom, who was presiding in Mayor Herb Katz’s absence, said the Big Blue Bus, the beach, Santa Monica Pier and the Promenade were all Santa Monica “treasures.”

The beach and the Pier are authentic treasures. As buses go, the Big Blue Bus is nice, but no nicer than the MTA or Culver City buses. And by no measure can a three-block stretch of high end chain stores/traffic magnet be called a “treasure.” Indeed, like Fulmer, many residents see it as a nightmare.

But City Hall loves it and. among its many recommendations, is the allocation of $850.000 for “enhancements and additional marketing.”

“Additional marketing?” The City’s daily population is now 300,000, or 37,500 people per square mile, which makes Santa Monica the densest city in America.

Given that, the City should instantly cease marketing downtown Santa Monica, cancel “enhancements.” and allocate the $850.000 to the City’s cultural funding programs, which were also on last night’s agenda.

Council members, City staff and some of the 26 residents who spoke during the public hearing all spoke of the arts as a vital part of the City’s economic development – as if their intrinsic value were not reason enough to support them.

Surely, then, all those people would support transferring the $850,000 earmarked for selling the Promenade to funding more arts programs.

Happily, the artists who spoke, including a very lively troupe from the Ruskin Group Theater, focused on the necessity of the arts in our town, our lives and the lives of our children and the need for the City to fund them.

If the Arts Commission were to demand the $850,000, and the City were to hand it over, Santa Monica would be a far better and happier place.

(See Arts Commmisioner Fred Dewey’s view of an arts crisis below)