SR 01-23-2024 16F
City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: January 23, 2024
Agenda Item: 16.F
1 of 1
To: Mayor and City Council
From: Nikima Newsome, Interim City Clerk, Records and Election Services
Department
Subject: Request of Councilmember Davis, Councilmember Torosis, and
Councilmember Zwick that the City of Santa Monica acknowledge the one-
year anniversary of City Council’s adoption of the Statement Apologizing to
Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their Descendants by (1)
agreeing to annually acknowledge and read the Statement at the beginning of
the first City Council meeting every November, (2) allocating $10,000 in City
Council discretionary funds to the Santa Monica High School Black Student
Union to provide financial support to seniors aspiring to attend college in the
form of application fees, scholarships, and other costs associated with the
transition to college, (3) direct the City Manager to explore the installation of
the Statement outside of City Hall so the statement can be publicly accessible
for all to read, and (4) direct the City Manager to survey reparations efforts in
other jurisdictions and direct the City Attorney to identify any potential legal
issues and report back to the City Council within 180 days
Prepared By: Nikima Newsome, Interim City Clerk
Approved
Forwarded to Council
Attachments:
A. Statement of Apology
B. Written Comments
16.F
Packet Pg. 1014
STATEMENT APOLOGIZING TO SANTA MONICA’S AFRICAN AMERICAN
RESIDENTS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS
The City of Santa Monica acknowledges over a century of racial injustice and discrimination
against African Americans that have resulted in systemically racist policies that continue to
exclude and discriminate against African Americans :
Beginning in the 1880s, African Americans migrated from the southern United States to Santa
Monica to escape Jim Crow racial restrictions lured by advertisements promoting the be nefits
of Southern California, which included employment, good climate, health, beautiful landscapes,
and a more liberated lifestyle.
Santa Monica’s first African American residents settled near the railroad tracks on the edge of
Santa Monica’s original townsite, which is adjacent to the freeway in downtown today , and
established their own church in Santa Monica at Fourth and Bay Streets in 1908, leading to a
migration south as far as Strand Street and including the area known as the Belmar Triangle,
where the Santa Monica Civic Center and parts of Santa Monica High School are today.
Santa Monica is believed to have been the first African American settlement in any seaside
community in the region. Due to racism and de facto segregation, African Americans could only
enjoy the sand and sun at Bay Street Beach, also known as “The Ink Well,” a place of
celebration and pain for the Black community.
In 1922, Santa Monica created its first zoning ordinance, and rushed its adoption before it could
be completed for the purpose of denying building permits to a group of wealthy African
Americans who wished to establish a bathhouse on a Santa Monica Beach; and further
weaponized the new ordinance to close down a popular Black-owned jazz club in the Belmar
Triangle.
Public meetings reported in Santa Monica papers in the 1920s presented how zoning could
ensure that white wealthy and middle-class residents could keep people of color out of their
neighborhoods without violating United States Constitutional provisions for equal rights by
rationalizing exclusionary provisions in the name of safety and protection of property value.
Single-unit residential zones referred to today as R1 did not permit additional units on site to
bring in income to support the property, ensuring that only the wealthiest could move in; and
for the same reason, commercial uses of any kind were barred from residential districts .
The industrial zone, up the middle of the city adjacent to the railroad tracks where noxious uses
of all kinds were permitted, also allowed single and multi-family residential uses; establishing
the only area in the city where Blacks and other people of color were permitted to live and
establish businesses.
16.F.a
Packet Pg. 1015 Attachment: Statement of Apology (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
Unabashedly racist realtors of the 1920s who wanted to ensure the new zoning provisions were
successful at segregating races in the city committed to the insertion of a Caucasians-only
clause in every deed they wrote for a Santa Monica property from that point forward.
The 1920’s was a time of enormous population growth in California, which included a surge of
new African American migrants to Santa Monica, resulting in a new Black neighborhood that
thrived east of Fourteenth Street between Santa Monica Boulevard and Pico Boulevard with
new churches and a commercial corridor to serve it along Broadway.
To boost recovery from the Great Depression in the 1930s, the Federal Housing Authority
began to offer mortgage insurance for homeowners on 30-year amortized loans that allowed
the purchase a home for what it would cost to rent, but in order to “protect” the government
from risk, loan requirements included a compulsory Caucasians-only deed restriction resulting
in a federal-government-subsidized, nation-wide racial segregation program that created new,
all-white neighborhoods in Santa Monica.
The Homeowner’s Loan Corporation created maps that marked neighborhoods where people
of color lived and worked in red to indicate they were poor loan risks, barring African Americans
and other people of color from home improvement or business loans for property they already
owned, forcing responsible, employed homeowners of color to endure decades of deferred
maintenance as they watched their property values fall.
The result of deed restrictions, prohibitive zoning, and racist realtor practices, African
Americans only found homes to rent or purchase in certain integrated sections of Santa Monica
between Santa Monica Boulevard and Pico Boulevard, at the edge of downtown, in the Belmar
Triangle, and in a discreet section of Ocean Park through the 1950s.
Participating enthusiastically in a nationwide program of urban renewal in the 1950s, City of
Santa Monica targeted neighborhoods of color for condemnation; Santa Monica African
Americans who were thriving in the Belmar Triangle had homes and businesses condemned and
taken away by eminent domain to make way for the city’s new Civic Auditorium and Santa
Monica High School expansion; and some structures that had been owned or occupied by
African Americans were burned down on site.
In the 1960s the new Santa Monica Freeway cut through the heart of the city predominantly
occupied by African Americans and people of Mexican descent, depriving 550 families of long-
time investments in homes and businesses ; and cutting off Black-owned businesses on the
Broadway commercial corridor from the community they served so they dwindled away.
Santa Monica Blacks endured laws and policies that enforced racial inequities and selective
access to rights including choice of profession, choice of housing, and opportunities for land
ownership by a well-organized movement both nationwide and in Santa Monica in particular ,
the dreams and aspirations of Santa Monica’s Black families were thwarted; in 1948 the
16.F.a
Packet Pg. 1016 Attachment: Statement of Apology (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
Supreme Court declared restrictive covenants to be unconstitutional, but redlining and other
forms of discrimination continued until the Civil Rights Act of 1968 made them illegal.
The effectiveness of racial deed covenants and zoning kept Santa Monica’s African American
population at only 2% through the 1930s, much lower than the national average that ranged
from 11-13% and has crept up to only about 4% today.
Throughout the history of the City of Santa Monica Afri can Americans showed resilience and
strength by establishing a strong community with structures to support each other as they
endured the onslaughts of racism including numerous churches, a local chapter of the
N.A.A.C.P., clubs and organizations including the Philomatheans and a chapter of the Masons,
and the wisdom and leadership of African Americans from Santa Monica who broke through
discriminatory structures to become educators, doctors, real estate brokers, postal workers,
union organizers, and more.
The legacy of racial discrimination and exclusion through single-family R1 zoning which covers
significant land area in Santa Monica, prohibits apartments or multi-family housing in certain
areas continues to embed racist and exclusionary mechanisms in our laws.
The legacy of restrictive covenants still mars the Santa Monica landscape today with patterns of
racial segregation in that the city’s highest resource neighborhoods remain disproportionately
populated with white people.
The legacy of racist policies and systems in Santa Monica has resulted in a number of families
who have generations of history with the city but were forced to leave and cannot afford to
return.
The legacy of racist policies and systems that were rationalized as ways to promote safety and
protection of property value in Santa Monica is a conviction that those polices actually do
promote safety and protection, when in fact they are the tools of segr egation and exclusion.
In the recent years, across the country, we are witnessing a national movement of grassroots
leaders pushing and advocating for all levels of Government to demonstrate commitment to
the systematic change necessary to dismantle structures responsible for racial disparities and
white supremacist policy.
Cities all over the country are realizing that communities lose their character when they lose
their socio-economic and racial diversity and are taking time to reflect on the municipal a nd
state-level decisions from the past that had the impact of significantly reducing the
communities of color and Black people.
16.F.a
Packet Pg. 1017 Attachment: Statement of Apology (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
THEREFORE, THE CITY OF SANTA MONICA:
Apologizes to all African Americans who have lived in the city and endured racism engendered
through government codes and racism tolerated by city policies.
Understands that real change will occur when all people recognize the impacts of systemic
discrimination in the City of Santa Monica and recognizes and takes responsibility for personal
and direct contributions to discrimination whether intentional or inadvertent, culminating with
an apology that comes from both the City of Santa Monica, as well as every citizen enjoying her
advantages.
Acknowledges over a century of racial injustice and discrimination against African Americans
that have resulted in systemically racist policies that continue to exclude and discriminate
against African Americans.
Recognizes the contributions and resilience of the African American community and its
commitment to fostering reconciliation and friendship, and to protecting civil rights for all.
Resolves to rectify the lingering consequences of discriminatory city policies, and to use this
Statement of Apology as a teaching moment for the public to move forward towards justice for
all.
Commits to programs, policies, and investments that can educate the public about this history
of discrimination and its ongoing consequences, and to ferreting out and overturning
systemically racist policies to ensure that the pain caused by several decades of racial injustice
and discrimination against African Americans and other people of color is mitigated to the
extent possible.
16.F.a
Packet Pg. 1018 Attachment: Statement of Apology (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
1
Xavier Mota
From:Debra Shepherd <daysonthespectrum@gmail.com>
Sent:Monday, January 22, 2024 4:59 PM
To:councilmtgitems
Subject:Items 10B and 16F(4)
EXTERNAL
Good day:
I’m waiƟng for Ashton Kutcher to jump out of the bushes at the City Hall. I feel like I’m being punkd in a cruel prank. I
have filed two fair housing/ tenant harassment complaints against the property owners where I reside as a Black and
disabled, voucher holder. Both of my daughters are also disabled.
These people have literally been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in public money. I have had to get Code
Enforcement to get the window in my kitchen repaired, aŌer asking nicely for two years. I also had to get Code
Enforcement to get our toilet repaired. The property owner wanted to know “how many days” we could go without a
“working toilet.”
But wait, there’s more, because there’s always more when it comes to people being evil. In 2019, Gary Rhoades wrote a
beauƟful leƩer to the property owner warning them about violaƟng fair housing law and tenant harassment. I thought
surely that my family would be protected. AFTER that, the other property owner stated that she does “not have to
respect tenants” and that “she (referring to me) always talking about her right. I don’t give a f*** about her right.” The
Consumer ProtecƟon Division is refusing to do anything on my current complaint. I was told that I should have
negoƟated a beƩer contract. So much for Black Lives MaƩer and the Black Apology. Social JusƟce has leŌ the building.
That girl does not work here anymore.
Debra Shepherd
Santa Monica resident
Sent from my iPad
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1019 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
From:Wittig, Michele A
To:councilmtgitems
Cc:Phil Brock; David White
Subject:Jan 23, 2024 City Council Items 3A, 4C and 16F
Date:Tuesday, January 23, 2024 5:55:29 AM
EXTERNAL
To: Santa Monica City Council
From: Michele Wittig
RE: Jan 23, 2024 Council Meeting Items 3A, 4C and 16F
Dear Mayor and Council,
Thank you for agendizing the following Items:
3 A Black History Month
4 C Litigation regarding policing of 1st Amendment protests on Ocean Ave
and looting in the downtown retail district on May 31, 2020
16 F Steps toward implementing our City’s 2022 Black Apology
Each February, across the US, we celebrate the contributions of African-
Americans. Here in Santa Monica, we face the challenge of fulfilling the terms
of the City’s 2022 Black Apology.
1. As you move through tonight’s agenda and every Council agenda, let
your work stand as proof that you act on behalf of all Santa Monica
residents who share the Black Apology’s resolve “… take responsibility for
personal and direct contributions to discrimination…”
2. Use the recent Board and Commission restructuring and the 2021
launch of the Public Safety Reform and Oversight Commission as avenues
for implementing the promise made in the Black Apology to “…to rectify the
lingering consequences of discriminatory city policies…”
3. Enlist the meaningful involvement of our local business community,
faith-based organizations, governmental agencies, non-profit civil rights,
educational, health and housing institutions and grassroots organizations to
“dismantle structures responsible for racial disparities…”
Thank you for your past, current and future leadership in furtherance of these
resolutions, promises and commitments.
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1020 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
From:Joanne Berlin
To:councilmtgitems
Subject:Item 16F on the Jan. 23rd city council agenda
Date:Tuesday, January 23, 2024 11:21:45 AM
EXTERNAL
Dear City Council Members,
I write to urge you to support item 16F in your council meeting tonight.
I’m sure you all can remember the 2 meetings it took to get the Black Apology officially passed
and the many community members who congratulated you and those who urged you to make
it real by taking some actions that followed through on the commitments to that document.
More than one speaker actually asked the question, “Is this going to be more than just
words?” Both of those confirming meetings were powerful nights, with commitments, and
even tears on the dais, over the desire to acknowledge and redress injustices done to the
Black Santa Monica community by city policies.
Committee For Racial Justice (CRJ) did more than one survey to gather ideas from the
community about things that could be done to make the Apology real. All those suggestions
were given to the city and to council members in 2023, but initial meetings that discussed
some naming possibilities came to nothing and the city was saying there wasn’t money for any
significant initiatives.
More recently, CRJ was promised a list of accomplishments related to the Black Apology, but
no such list has been given – instead, it seems there will be another round of attempts to
survey the community again for ideas.
Tonight you have a chance to show that Santa Monica is trying to start making concrete its
promises to attempt to make the Black Apology more than words. I thank the 3 members who
are bringing this to you and ask that you all support these small steps toward redresses of
injustice. I wish I could be there, but am battling a virus at the moment.
In hope,
Joanne
Joanne Berlin, Coordinator
Committee For Racial Justice
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1021 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
From:Karen Wise
To:councilmtgitems
Cc:Phil Brock; Lana Negrete; Gleam Davis; Christine Parra; Jesse Zwick; Caroline M. Torosis; Oscar de la Torre
Subject:Council Agenda Items 3A, 4C, 16F January 23, 2024
Date:Tuesday, January 23, 2024 7:28:29 AM
EXTERNAL
January 23, 2023
Dear City Council Members:
I write today in reference to three items that appear on tonight’s City Council Agenda:
3 A Black History Month
4 C Litigation regarding policing of 1st Amendment protests on Ocean Ave
and looting in the downtown retail district on May 31, 2020
16 F The City of Santa Monica’s 2022 Black Apology
These items are related, and they should be considered as such, since they all stem from our
City’s ongoing legacy of racist policies and practices, as well as the fallout, never truly
addressed, of the horrors of May 31, 2020, after which we were featured on the front page of
the New York Times as an example of local police using military weapons against peaceful
protesters, many of which where our own youth – some even known by Police Officers who
fired “non-lethal” weapons at them.
1. As you move through tonight’s agenda and every Council agenda, let your work stand as
proof that you act on behalf of all Santa Monica residents who share the Black Apology’s
resolve “… take responsibility for personal and direct contributions to discrimination…”
2. Use the recent Board and Commission restructuring and the 2021 launch of the Public
Safety Reform and Oversight Commission as avenues for implementing the promise made in
the Black Apology to “…to rectify the lingering consequences of discriminatory city policies…”
3. Enlist the meaningful involvement of our local business community, faith-based
organizations, governmental agencies, non-profit civil rights, educational, health and housing
institutions and grassroots organizations to “dismantle structures responsible for racial
disparities…”
Words are not enough. It is time to act - actually to dismantle ongoing inequities in housing,
education, and treatment by the police here in Santa Monica today. We need proactive,
creative action to revitalize our downtown and bring true equity to our city.
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1022 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
We can be a better city, a city that shows the way for the future, but this will require all of us,
and you as our elected representatives, to look to the future and not to the past as models for
what our city can be, and will be.
Thank you for all you do on behalf of all of us.
Sincerely yours,
Karen Wise, Santa Monica
Karen Wise
kwise2@gmail.com
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1023 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their
1
Xavier Mota
From:Natalya Zernitskaya <nzernitskaya@gmail.com>
Sent:Tuesday, January 23, 2024 2:30 PM
To:councilmtgitems
Cc:Phil Brock; Lana Negrete; Christine Parra; Caroline Torosis; Jesse Zwick; Gleam Davis; Oscar de la
Torre; David White
Subject:1/23/2023 CC Agenda Item 16F
EXTERNAL
January 23, 2024
Re: City Council Agenda Item 16F
Dear Mayor Brock, Vice Mayor Negrete, and City Councilmembers,
Thank you for considering item 16F and continuing to make progress to rectify the mistakes of the past and
develop new opportunities to support Santa Monica’s African American community members.
I appreciate that the City has continued to move forward to address inequities in our community and this
proposal is a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge and work towards becoming a more equitable city. I
support all 4 of the requests laid out in item 16F and would also like to make some additional suggestions for
your consideration:
With regards to the request to allocate $10,000 of Council discretionary funds to the SaMo Black
Student Union to provide financial support to seniors aspiring to attend college, I think this is a fantastic
idea. I encourage you to also direct staff to explore other opportunities to support Santa Monica
students who are aspiring to attend college and are part of historically marginalized communities
perhaps through other fiscal contributions to local scholarship funds (such as, but not limited to, the
Virginia Avenue Park Teen Center’s annual scholarship fund). [Full disclosure- I serve on the Advisory
Board of Virginia Avenue Park]
With regards to the request to explore the installation of The Black Apology statement outside of City
Hall, I would suggest that the City Manager also explore the feasibility of installing the statement at the
site of the Belmar Triangle. Also, it would be great if it could be translated into other languages. As we
know, Santa Monica’s African American community is not a monolith and many speak other languages,
such as Amharic. Santa Monica is also a tourist destination for many international travelers and it would
be impactful for visitors to learn more about what Santa Monica stands for in their own language(s).
I am grateful for the City’s efforts on this issue and look forward to supporting future efforts to make this city a
more equitable community. Thank you again for your consideration of this item.
Sincerely,
Natalya Zernitskaya
Natalya Zernitskaya (she/her)
nzernitskaya@gmail.com
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
ITEM 16.F.
January 23, 2024
16.F.b
Packet Pg. 1024 Attachment: Written Comments [Revision 1] (6221 : One-year anniversary of apology to Santa Monica’s African American Residents and their