About three months remain before we can start a new year. I dread to think what else might happen before then. What a September!

We are seven years after the evil attack on the World Trade Center. And this year brought Fire, Flood, Hurricanes, and Earthquakes. Devastation in Louisiana & Texas. Huge fires in Northern California, earthquake and after shocks in Orange County. And here in California– a $15 billion state deficit. Panic on Wall Street. Sub-prime mortgage disasters, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and AIG bail out. Notices of default and Foreclosure rampant. Banks in foreclosure, banks in bankruptcy, Sub-Prime mortgage holding companies tanking. Stock markets here and abroad taking huge hits. Fremont and Indy Mac kaput. Thousands of other banks on a watch list.

Ugly. But we are a resilient nation. We will press forward. We involved ourselves in a bruising national Primary election and now we will involve ourselves in yet another bruising election on November 4th. Putting aside national politics, let’s focus on elections in the Peoples Republic of Santa Monica.

There are four open City Council seats: Mayor Herb Katz, Mayor Pro Tem Richard Bloom, and council members Ken Genser and Bobby Shriver. SMRR endorsed only two candidates (first time in 30 years): Bloom and Genser.

Making yet another try are Jonathan Mann (ninth time), Jerry Rubin and Linda Armstrong (third time) Newcomers attempting a seat are RIFT proponents Ted Winters Recreation and Parks Commission and Susan Hartley (Airport Commission.). See this issue’s Market Place for more about RIFT, and read more from me about it in the next issue.

Four newcomers for Council include Herbert Silverstein, Linda Piera-Avila, John Blakely, and Michael Kovac. I don’t personally know them.

School Board: Two open seats and one hold over. Incumbents Maria Vasquez and Jose Escarce, and Ralph Mechur will run uncontested to serve the final two years of an appointed term. Also on the ballot Ben Allen and Chris Bley. Bley failed to get the SMRR endorsement. We heard a few words from Chris Bley at our last meeting and we will invite him and other candidates for our October meeting.

Rent Board: Two open seats. SMRR backed Joel Koury and Christopher Braun. ACTION member and former challenger two years ago Robert Kronovet would be an excellent choice. He is actively involved in the Pico Improvement Organization. It is time to have a voice of reason on this SMRR-dominated rent board.

As if we aren’t taxed enough, there are two additional measures on our local ballot. One is a proposed Utility Users Tax and a $295 million Santa Monica College Bond. I will talk about these in my next column.

Citizens to Protect Privacy has registered with the Secretary of State to oppose the City of Santa Monica’s ballot measure to extend the 10% “utility” tax to non utilities. Measure SM on the November ballot would extend the 10% utility tax to cell phones, text messages, OnStar, all satellite communications, internet subscriptions, TiVo, DSL and FiOS services, VIOP, Blackberry, On Demand Movies, cable TV– and if you are short of money and hit with a late charge, they’ll tax the late charge.Go to KeepInformationFree.com for complete information and how to make a donation to oppose this regressive tax on the poor. Because they can tax internet activity the City will see what you are buying

Our meeting in September was an exceptionally informative one. Our guest speakers were Santa Monica Fire Chief Jim Hone and Fire Marshall and Senior Inspector Paul Radomsky. They discussed everything from budget to preparing for a major disaster, fire prevention, unit inspections and Knox boxes. In this issue you will find more fire safety information on fire extinguishers, addresses, security bars, and fire inspection.

I look forward to seeing you at the owner education meeting in October for our Candidates Night.

ACTION sends out its condolences to the family of Angela Bourcier, seen here with her grandchildren.