Dear Mayor Negrete and City Council Members,

The organizing committee of the Santa Monica Great Park Coalition strongly endorses and supports the staff report on the airport conversion process and the Guiding Principles it contains. We urge the council to approve the Guiding Principles as written.

The Great Park Coalition, was formed just 3 months ago to bring together all the varied groups that support the creation of a Great Park. It is a broad Coalition encompassing groups representing park enthusiasts, sports organizations, recreation, arts and performance, culture, the environment and climate action, public gardeners, youth organizations, sustainability, PTA and neighborhood Councils, and many others.

Nearly 40 local organizations in all, representing over 20,000 people between them. We also have the explicit support of 13 prior Santa Monica Mayors and hundreds of Santa Monica residents. Our goal is simple, to bring about an LC-compliant Great Park. We anticipate an incremental build-out plan to accommodate funding constraints. We are a ‘positive’ organization, here to help the city, staff, and Council in any way we can to realize this long held dream (since the 1920’s).

City staff and Sasaki are to be commended for the outstanding quality of the public outreach up to this point. At each stage of the process, the number of people participating has grown dramatically, so that at the most recent public event to present the draft guiding principles over 800 people attended in person, likely the most for any City outreach event in living memory.

The lengthy and complex phase-2 online survey was attempted by over 6,000 people. This rapid growth in engagement at each outreach stage correlates directly to increasing public trust and belief that the process is working and will lead to the Great Park outcome people expect. In the current climate of public distrust in government of all forms, this outreach alone is a remarkable achievement.

It now falls on Council to move this process to the next stage by honoring the public’s mandate as identified by the process.

To determine what the public wants, we need look no further than the top-50 requested items in the phase-2 survey. Of these 50 items fully 98.8% represent “common park uses”. Only one non-park use made an entry at #39 with 1.2%. The public overwhelmingly wants an LC compliant Great Park.

As outlined by the accompanying City Attorney’s report “RE:Airport Closure and Measure LC”, the definition of what is LC compliant is based on the zoning code, and this has led to some 8 of the top-50 survey items that represent a “common park use” (e.g., a performance amphitheater) being classified as non-LC-compliant.

However, the City Attorney also points out that there is ample precedent for overlaying a unique zoning district like the Beach Overlay District (SMMC Chapter 9.02) to correct these anomalous “common park use” issues by clearly defining “recreational uses”, so completely avoiding the need in the design of the park to have a ballot measure to amend LC prior to closure. We urge Council to instruct staff to pursue this approach.

Those of us who took part in the epic 2014 Measure D/LC fight can testify to the fact that the last thing the City should do is contemplate such a ballot measure. The national aviation lobby (who brought measure D) has made abundantly clear their strategy is to return to the fray should Santa Monica show any sign of wavering in its park resolve, particularly the bringing of an airport related ballot measure.

We won resoundingly last time despite the historic influx of $millions by the aviation lobby (more than was spent by all other measures and candidates combined that election cycle), precisely because LC was “pure park”. A pre-closure ballot measure to change that would destroy public trust and so play into, and likely lose to, the “only an airport can protect you from them” meme D was based on.

We are very happy to see the statement by the City Attorney that the decision to close was legally made in 2017 (resolution 11026) and no further action is required for closure. It has long been a tenet of aviation lobby misinformation that the decision has not been made, and closure can be avoided.

In summary, the GPC believes the public outreach process to date has been exemplary, that public hope and trust is returning, and that a swift Council decision to move the process forward as presented in the staff report is key.

Every great city has a great park. Santa Monica had one, but lost it. It is this generation’s obligation to future generations in a densifying environment to bring it back.

Thank you for your consideration.