By Jorge Casuso

March 23, 2026 -- A third neighborhood group on Thursday declined to participate in a new City grant program that bans them from using funding to communicate directly with residents or recruit members.

The North of Montana Neighborhood Association (NOMA) -- one of Santa Monica's seven neighborhood groups -- called the City's new rules "unnecessarily restrictive and punitive."

Unlike Northeast Neighbors and Friends of Sunset Park, which have pulled out of the program, NOMA has not endorsed candidates in local elections, one of the key prohibitions instituted by the City.

Formed 28 years ago to fight the proliferation of "monster mansions,"
the group noted it has had a positive, mutually beneficial relationship with City Hall and has used City funding to educate residents and boost community involvement.

"The current City Council disregards this longstanding relationship, mandating unnecessarily restrictive and punitive changes with no clear objective as to what the changes are meant to solve," NOMA's Board wrote in an email to City Manager Oliver Chi.

In the letter, which was copied to the City Council, NOMA's Board strongly objected that funds must now be pre-approved and can only be used for "event-related purposes."

"The new restrictive requirements," the Board wrote, "solve no identifiable problem, but have the effect of reducing NOMA to a social club, limiting our ability to advocate for residents."

The Board objected to the Council's contention that a fundamental reason the guidelines were needed was to increase "transparency" regrading the use of City funds.

"This ignores the fact that neighborhood groups were already required to provide City Staff with annual accounting and receipts for every dollar of grant money spent," the Board wrote.

The letter also objected to a prohibition against using City funding for newsletters, which NOMA mails to "every resident in the area" informing them of new city and state policies and programs, as well as new local businesses.

"Eliminating this use of funds will result in less-informed residents, fewer engaged dues-paying members, and a greater dependency on City funding," the NOMA Board wrote. "That is contrary to our mission."

Under the new funding guidelines, the independent newsletters will be replaced with City controlled content in "Seascape," a City newsletter mailed to every Santa Monica household at least once a year at a cost of some $200,000.

The new guidelines also require groups to collect demographic information from their members, which the NOMA Board called "arguably the most troubling new rule for receiving grant money."

"The idea, posited by City Council, that the City needs member demographics in order to see how it lines up with Census Bureau statistics, suggests that groups are somehow excluding people or are restrictive.

"This is an utter fabrication," the Board wrote. "Council's new demographic rules show a distrust of our commitment to inclusion among our residents, and imply that Council will judge the value of our groups based on who we are rather than what we say."

Like Northeast Neighbors and FOSP, NOMA said it plans to continue its mission to represent residents without the use of City funding.

The other four neighborhood organizations -- Mid City Neighbors, the Ocean Park Association, the Pico Neighborhood Association and Wilmont -- have not indicated whether they plan to participate in the City's new funding program.