Evan Meyer welcomes Albin Gielicz to this edition of Meyerside Chats. Are you interested in any of the civic topics below? Please tune in to Meyerside Chats on the Santa Monica Daily Press.
Santa Monica Travel and Tourism Chairman, Park and Recreation Commissioner, and past president and board member of nearly a dozen of Santa Monica’s various sustainability, economic development, neighborhood, and business committees, Albin Gielicz speaks about:
- His vision for Santa Monica,
- Tips for new businesses in Santa Monica,
- The state of and plan for tourism here in Santa Monica.
- Al Fresco dining,
- And much more goodness.
Meyerside Chats is an attempt to destroy the “us and them” narrative through virtuous community leadership, praising those who lead by example, starting right here in Santa Monica.
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Listen to the podcast here
Evan Meyer & Albin Gielicz
We have Albin Gielicz, one of my closest friends over these years, and I have all of our community to thank for it. We become bros. It’s something I’m truly grateful for. We do have community involvement.
We have a lot of successes and a few battle scars, but it is the type of bonding you get in high school with your friends, fraternities with your brothers or college friends, and any big life experiences that happen when you are doing the same thing, and you are in the same track. You are climbing the same hurdles together and have common interests that go a long way, especially if they are not easy.
This is some of the least thankful work but some of the most rewarding. We do it because we care.
We enjoy it. When it’s you and I, we are always having fun. You make most of it. In orchards full of lemons, you find that one place where there’s serving lemonade, and you go.
What makes it much fun sometimes is the idea that we get to do this stuff together often. Not all of our projects are together, but a lot of them have been. We have been able to bounce ideas through each other, and when we are out hanging out, we have this common purpose and passion.
Everything from brainstorming the next great things to venting about what happened.
You have always inspired me because I remember when I first started this journey in community service, you were there. You were the President of the North of Montana Association, the neighborhood group there. That which was eventually my path in Ocean Park. Shout out to Jim Lawson. You were that guy for me. You were the person who I saw as someone who was deeply invested, involved, and did it because you cared. It wasn’t about anything else except being there for your community.
I noticed how important this was to you, and you have now been on fifteen boards and commissions. You have been in parks and recs for many years. You are now the Chair of the Santa Monica Travel and Tourism. You give yourself to this community first. I want to praise you for that, but more importantly, I want to know, and I want the world to know why.
I get that a lot. Those boards multiply in this town. You do one, and suddenly, you are invited to do others. I have a hard time saying no, which is how I got to do beyond so many. I enjoy them all. The reason is that’s how I’m wired. It’s how I was raised. Every place I have lived, I have gotten involved to some degree. More steroids here in Santa Monica, but it’s also the most interesting, fascinating, and the best place I have ever worked too.
You get here, it’s beautiful and wonderful in many ways, but it is a real place. It’s not 100% perfect. We do have our own problems and challenges. They don’t fix themselves. If you chose it at a relatively young age, when I moved here in my early to mid-30s, I have a long haul with this place. If I don’t like it at 35, I’m not going to like it at 75. What is my role in the solution?
There are many people around the world and in this country, especially who sit on their couches and complain about how things are and how they don’t like it. Sitting on the couch complaining doesn’t change anything. What is your role in the solution? I ask that of my parents when they go off on stuff. I ask that of my good friends. Anybody who has the time in golf to complain about something that is their democracy, too, plays a role in fixing it.
While we might not be in elected positions and or positions of power per se, we do still live, breathe here, work here and pay taxes. We do have a say, role, and power of the vote. When you keep all that in mind, and you realize, “I’m living in a place, and there is this issue and that issue.” Sorry, the government can’t fix everything all the time. It’s up tossed the role of our sleeves and get involved.
That is what creates most of the local laws, at least that we even have. All of these nuanced laws that are created for the communities we live in come from the community’s voice. Sometimes it’s great and sometimes it’s not great. If you are not the one vocalizing, what you end up with is the squeaky wheel syndrome, and those people get their way.
They create the laws that you have to live with, and that’s your taxpayer money paying the city to implement these policies. It’s even more imperative if you want your money to go to a good place and take what you have and you can. You are voicing what is important for people to understand. There is this little bit of people who generally think that their voice is not heard. Where does it go? It’s easy to get involved. You have to care enough and try to do it.
It’s easy everywhere, especially here, even on the website for the city on how they get volunteers.
You could throw a rock and hit a group that’s making a change in your community.
Especially in our 8.3 square miles of 95,000 people, a good chunk of us are involved in doing something and know what’s going on. You don’t have to look too hard to find a cause or passion that can use your help.
How have you experienced this during the COVID era?
It was more intense on the one hand, and you were there with it. Everything slowed down. It was quieter. We got to understand what 95,000 people meant because we didn’t have daily visitors. We didn’t swell up to the 250,000 with tourists and the daily workforce coming to town. It was us. It was something nice about that. It got maybe a little too quiet when you kept in mind the economic and health impacts of what was going on. None of that was good.
With that in mind, it intensified some of the stuff I do. As you know, here in town, we have four business improvement districts. I’m on the board of one of them and probably the one that came through the most unscathed, but the one I was most worried about when this all started because my street is full of small business owners, a lot of it is unique boutiques with handcrafted items. High-priced items that, if consumer spending stops or slows down. Those are the types of things people are at least likely to buy versus groceries and more basic essentials. Not to mention we had a lot of non-essential businesses on that street, which had to close.
That combination kept other members of our board and me awake at night, trying to figure out if we were going to have a street left at the end of all this. Thankfully, we did. The city rallied and fast-tracked the outdoor dining and provided some of the materials. We could have a safe environment for that. Restaurants got behind that opened up, and we had some semblance of street life throughout this pandemic. That has been great and kept it afloat.
My neighborhood, as you know, is probably the most tucked away of all the commercial areas of Santa Monica. It became crystal clear that it was the local residents who believed in the bi-local message and kept those businesses going. We didn’t have many outside people coming into Santa Monica at all and, least of all, to that part of town.
It showed the power of supporting each other power of keeping the tax dollars in the community and going out for that extra cup of coffee, that extra donut, breakfast burrito, or whatever it is you like to do. We were all looking for somewhere to go and do something. We were trapped at home. Those little outings meant a lot.
I know my experience was seeing, even in the Ocean Park Association, the weekly connect calls or paperwork. It was great to see people looking for that sense of community and trying to do what they can. It was the first time I had seen where, because people weren’t going far anymore, they were relying on their local community buildings. We were having people get to know people within their apartment complexes. It was cool to see, and Santa Monica exhibited a lot of that. It was nice.
We had our 6:00 PM minute of thanking the essential workers, banging our pots and pans, and screaming. That was fun. Those calls you mentioned started in the Ocean Park neighborhood. It went citywide and became the talk of a lot of people. That was one of the few real-time news sources that a lot of us have, aside from the length of the county and stuff. People don’t know if they want to read or know how to digest. Hearing your friends and neighbors talk about what’s going on was helpful. Motivating those people who live on their own or are more susceptible to loneliness and isolation got them out of that, at least for the hour or so that all existed.
It was a beautiful experience. It was one of the silver linings of this time period. During this time period, you continue to evolve your involvement, as you always do. You are now the Chair of the Santa Monica Travel and Tourism.
That has been great. It’s now my task to help welcome everybody back. Our city council adopted a measure or priorities and has put some nice funding behind keeping everything clean and safe. We need that not only for us who live here but for everyone we intend to welcome back. Whether it be individual travelers, family trips, business travelers, or whoever it is, we want them to come back. We want them to spend the night in one of our great hotels, eating our restaurants, enjoy other amenities, hang out at the pier, or visit the beach. To do that, we have to be ready. The pandemic has set us back with that. We’re working on that.
Explain a little bit about the cleanliness portion. Trash is left around, which I imagine is not local people dumping their trash on the street. Usually, what I see is not one of our neighbors here throwing trash but rears a lot of it coming from, and what do you see for solving that?
It’s hard to point the finger. There are different cultures. Different people have different practices where they’re from. Maybe not everyone is as little conscious as we are. That could be part of it. In the city, they had to cut its budgets pretty majorly. I have a feeling that they haven’t been able to keep up with a lot of the maintenance and the daily or every other day cleaning that we’re used to having. Street cleaning was reduced to once a month for a long time. That’s where trash collects in the curves, the gutters, and stuff where it’s more visible. That’s gone back to weekly. We will see less of that.
We’ve also had a sizeable homeless population here in the transient community, which was horribly impacted by COVID-19. In addition to the other things they face, they have that to deal with too. With them comes whatever they bring with it, and if things aren’t cleaned up, they are not. It’s no one’s fault. It’s the way it is. For those of us who care about this place, we have to figure out how to fix that.
It is a multidimensional issue as safety. What is your current positioning and disposition on where we are and where we need to go?
I heard a new police statistic that crime is down. in
I guess that with everything, we had a tough time the last couple of years.
May 31st, 2020, was probably one of our worst days.
We were on the phone on separate sides of town.
It was awful, but what turned my mood around and helped prevent longer-term scarring was what happened on June 1st, 2020. I was told not to come out until 9:30 to help clean up. By the time I got there, I couldn’t find anything to clean up. People had arrived at 6:00 in the morning with brooms, bags, gloves, rakes, and everything they needed to clean up everything. It was done by noon. If we can do that as a result of rioting and looting, why can’t we do that as a result of being a little messy?
Why is that? Let’s explore that for a second. That’s probably the heart of what may give us the opportunity to encourage more community involvement, but also the reason why people are not getting involved. We see this supercritical incident that changed how we see most of our communities and items at this point. We have to figure out what we want to make of that, and where does it go from there?
It is a trigger to remind everybody. You were out there cleaning up. I didn’t know anybody. I was buoyed by the fact-based total strangers, not the people who are usually involved, not the people at our community fest or events or on other boards and commissions, but residents that we have never met before out there doing this.
We need the call on them again and be like, “It’s that time of twice a year, spring cleaning and fall cleaning.” Whatever you want to call it. We will treat you like the homeless count, where you go to a central deployment area and are given a few blocks or a specific territory. You clean up whatever you find in that area, and you’re done.
Do you think we can motivate? Given the emotion, the sentimental situation there seemed to be the impetus.
Everyone felt that day. That incident, the whole thing with George Floyd, made the country feel sick. When it comes to your doorstep, you go from sick to scary. This is real. It’s not happening somewhere else. That’s human nature to respond, and let’s correct it.
It was human nature to be reactive and not proactive. What we’re talking about potentially is the proactive portion of community involvement. Not when there’s real trauma, damage, or problems, but when you need to protect and keep things good and make things incrementally better, that was one of the most destructive things that have ever happened here, if not the most destructive thing. It felt like a bomb had hit downtown. It felt like we were attacked.
All the reasons notwithstanding, our lovely peaceful, orderly community became messy that day, and everyone showed up to clean. We can do that again. We’re not talking about anything of similar proportion. We’re talking about things that aren’t the way they used to be and aren’t ready to welcome visitors back. Let’s face it. When we all have guests over to our homes, don’t we tidy up a bit before they come over? It’s the same thing.
More people come here than live here every day from out of town. Why don’t we think of it like that? Don’t we want people to experience our space or backyards? I don’t know. Do we need an emotional trigger to set off people to say, “This is why you need to be active?” To me, a lot of it’s about the complaining thing that you mentioned earlier, where people would complain but not do anything.
Especially watching the news, you get caught up in whatever story you believe in and whatever side you’re on, and you get invested in the narrative that other people are telling you. Sometimes, people think they are doing something by listening to that and sharing it on social media or something. Is that the emotional thing that they need? Is the news providing that emotional trigger that lets them feel enraged or excited and gets them to share it? The sharing is the action they are taking. They think that is good enough.
It seems to be. That is easy. You don’t have to get off the couch to do that. It takes a little more effort to get up, clean up, and pick up stuff. You don’t want to touch and be outside. You have to ask yourself. This is your home. Especially people who own property in this town spend a considerable amount of money to do that on yearly taxes.
What do you want your home to be like? Can you get a couple of hours a year or every few months to go out and clean up a few blocks? Sure you can. As long as you’re capable and able-bodied to do that, what is the reason not to? You make it fun like some of the other stuff we do in town. There are prizes, mingling, lunch and all that. You turn it into an event. It’s not all work. There is work and social.
How do we do it? How do we start doing it? I could see the drop off of community involvement after the George Floyd event and after the difficult time of COVID. We are in a lull now. I’ll call it a lull, but it’s a positive thing. It feels like it starts to drop off. I know a lot of people who aren’t involved yet involved. How do we keep that up? Is it something we need to put in place at the city level? Is it marketing at the city level to people? Is it about getting people involved in the neighborhood associations or their bids? Who needs to market this, and who needs to get this into the years of the 95% of the community who’s not part?
All those groups you mentioned need to be on board with it. Now is a time when we need to put our differences aside and focus on what we all agree on. Clean and safe is hard to argue with. If it’s dirty and dangerous, there is no denying that, and no one wins when that is the situation. I don’t care if you like tall buildings or you don’t like tall buildings, you want this, or you want that in the parks. If it’s dirty and dangerous, no one is going to get any of that. No one is going to use the parks, build here, or visit here and spend their money here.
Let’s face it, a lot of these solutions that we talk about require funding. Our funding comes from trans occupancy taxes that are paid by people who spend the night in our hotels, in addition to other revenue sources. We have to get that back so that we can continue to pursue and achieve our priorities. We’re not going to get it back until we start to show that we’re working on these priorities.
You have been on the city commission, part of the bids and the neighborhoods, business-related, bi-local sustainable works, and traveling tourism. You understand, in a sense, the gamut of different areas of the city that help and the constituent pieces that help make the city whole. It gives you a holistic perspective on the way the city works.
That is helpful to know because you understand how the decisions are made. That is one thing, and you can also understand how to impact them. The type of rationales you need if there is something going on that you don’t like.
What’s your vision for Santa Monica? We will start now but draw it out in ten years.
Short to medium turn is returning to clean and safe and getting back to as normal as we can be in a post-COVID world or a world that has to manage with COVID-19 moving forward. Whatever lies ahead of us with that. We’re not going to solve homelessness, but we need to make an impact so that it does not continue to affect the actual homeless individuals or the residents of the businesses the way it has.
[bctt tweet=”Whatever lies ahead of us post-COVID, we’re not going to solve homelessness. Still, we need to make an impact so that it does not continue to affect stakeholders the way it has.” via=”no”]
This isn’t good for anybody, at least all the people who are experiencing it. What is our solution as a community? What is our solution as a region and as a country for something that congregates here in Los Angeles? Once we get back to that and we’re running full throttle with 85% plus occupancy rates in our hotels, and that revenue’s back, consumer spending returns to some of our shops. We get the problems sorted out with whatever next iteration is coming for there.
These will be great financial, economic, and psychological wins for all of us to know that we are moving in the right direction. Santa Monica, at least in the years I have lived here, has long been in my mind and most people’s minds, an incubator of best practices, trying new things and experimenting with what government should do and what it shouldn’t do. We have had a lot of wins with that.
We’re great at building leaders, bringing people out of a situation that they might be in, and offering new opportunities. It’s good to be small and wealthy. We are that as a community and we use those strengths well. Getting back on track post-COVID will allow us to get back to those missions and continue with that. I look forward to more interesting things coming from us. Realms of sustainability, equity, housing, lot of the tenants are our main values here.
How about some of the areas that are less privileged in Santa Monica? How do you feel we can make sure that those unheard voices are heard? Santa Monica is not all glittery. It’s a lot of glitter, but it’s not all glitter.
Thankfully, a lot of the programming city-funded programs for those communities were not cut and canceled. Everyone in a decision-making area position or on the periphery of those made sure not to take those away during the budget cuts. We continue with those, expand on them, continue to build leaders in those neighborhoods, and give people a voice. It’s working with the kids and making sure education is a focus.
One of our parks here, we have this college-going community mentality over there that maybe a four-year college isn’t your thing, but a two-year could be, or a vocational school or some education. You are continuing your education after high school is pretty necessary. They get that message when the kids hang out in this place and all that. We get to continue with all of that.
In the few years I have been involved, I have seen progress. I have seen some people benefit and flourish because of those. There is only more of that to come. These things don’t happen overnight, and it’s in 10, 20, 30 years, we live back and be like, “That did work.” That is when you know. I’m never into reinventing the wheel. Let’s find out what other places are doing. We are unique in many ways, but not all the ways. Other cities in our country around the world that have a similar population and budgets to us, what are they doing?
Who are some of them? Santa Barbara is always a nice compact. People love to compare Santa Monica and Santa Barbara. I think what the population and the landscape.
Santa Barbara is a good one. There are probably few pockets in Orange County, maybe not politically but socioeconomically, or it could be similar. Around the country and places in Florida. If you look at other beach communities where you know you have a diverse socioeconomic resident population, what have they been up to?
We have a sister city in Japan.
In places like that, what have they done? Why are they our sisters? What do we have in common with them, and what are we good at? You don’t have to look much further than places like that internationally.
It is nice to find that common ground with some of these places and see how they’re doing things. Where do you think Santa Monica fits in general around? All governments are a bureaucracy. That makes it challenging. Sometimes it’s for the right reasons. There are rules in place for a reason legally because people take advantage of things, whatever.
There is a balance on the other side, like, “Why can’t we get things done, try new things, take risks, try out new solutions to problems and be nimble?” Somewhere in there is a balance. How do you think Santa Monica does with that? Do we have room to improve? Are there some things that you like that we have done that showcase this behavior?
I like a lot of what the results of what we do. It does make me sometimes wonder why it takes longer to get there. I do believe that things can be sped up, but when you have legal impacts, local, county, state, and national laws to deal with, there is a team of lawyers who have to look that over. Unions and all the players we have in town.
When you are spending government money, that’s also scrutinized. You have to make sure it’s 100% on the up and up. When you combine all of that, there are only many hours in the day, and you lose a third of the people who work here. That gets added to someone’s to-do list and may not be on top of it. It’s staying true to what our priorities are, and our priorities are dictated by our council. Whatever it is we are talking about falls into that. It should happen faster. It does it, and it’s extra. It’s nice to have, not a need to have.
What about one of the things we have been working on, especially in our main street, is getting businesses to be able to open faster? Not only on Main Street, but I know from where I am, dealing with that firsthand is a big thing. Where do you see that going? Do anything you think we need to improve? Is it improving?
My understanding is slightly it is for the pandemic, and we had that addition put onto city hall, which was supposed to streamline a lot of these processes and put all those groups in the same place. For someone applying for a business license and different permits, making an appointment with code compliance, and all that could do it all in one go. That all closed down or didn’t even officially open because of the pandemic. My understanding is some of that now is online. You can handle some of those processes from home via the internet.
You’re not going to find anyone in this town, from the city manager and council all the way down to the business owner, who is going to disagree with you. It’s how you change it. We have such strong inertia behind the way things have been done, and it’s tough to change. People don’t like change, and if you’re rocking the apple cart, you might get some resistance.
It is possible, and I do understand it’s getting better. The good news is that if you are opening a business here and you do hit a roadblock or two, it’s not hard to find somebody who will listen to you and will know how to advise you where to go. It can be straight to contact at the city who can answer some questions, fellow neighboring business, or the chair of a business improvement district or the chamber of commerce. There’s plenty of information around that helps you through that journey and reminds you of the things you have to pay attention to along the way.
There is a saying that the planning or economic development team uses a lot. It’s like no before you sign. What do you have to do to your retail space in order to open up? It’s months of renovations, ADA compliance measures, and things like that. You may not want to rent that space. You may not want to be paying rent on it all the time while you’re doing that because you’re not open for business. The onus is on the business person to know what they are walking into before they get started.
There is a mutual responsibility. I always think, “Where does more of the responsibility lie? Who gets more of the value?” The business gets to sell stuff to people. The business gets value, and the people living here get value. The only selfish part of that is it’s a business owner trying to do business here and make money.
The selfish part of the city would be the city collects tax revenue. The selfish part for the community would be they get to shop at this place and take advantage of a new merchant that has something good to offer faster. You are getting more value to the consumer and city faster. When we’re looking at this, we have to measure who needs to make it more of their responsibility. Why and how fast do we need to think about this? There are over 40 vacancies. It’s tightening up a little, but there was a lot. You say, “Who suffers when a business is not there fast?”
We all do in one way or another. At the end of the day, I would see if you are the business person, you are investing money, you are starting this off, you don’t make money on day one, there is a bit of an investment in upfront costs and stuff. It’s on them to know what’s going on. If they don’t, it’s their first time, and they’re new to Santa Monica. We get it, but the information is there. You might have to dig. Talk to your neighbors.
Find a spot on Main Street. Who’s to your left, who’s to your right? What was their experience? Take a block time, go hang out in the coffee shop and find out who is the mayor of that street, and have those conversations beforehand. If you’re launching a product, don’t you do your market research before to see what the consumer demand might be? Who is it you are selling to? What the magic price point is, and what stores to put it in? It’s the same thing.
You don’t want to go blindly into anything that’s going to cost a lot of money and not be an enjoyable experience. It might be difficult and a lot of work, but it still can be enjoyable. If it turns out to be a nightmare and X amount of months longer to open because you didn’t know this, you didn’t do that, and you forgot this, and no one told me. At the end of the day, you’re the one who wants to deal with it. Not anyone else.
There is a mutual responsibility. My feeling is there is always work to be done, but it has brought it back to the idea that you can’t always point fingers.
We’re all in it together. We had the advantage of being a small town. Even though it’s 95,000 people, it’s a small town. It does look and feel like a small town here in many ways. You don’t have to look too hard or too long to find answers to things.
I suppose it’s harder if you don’t live here too. If you’re opening up a business from out of town and you come in here, it’s probably a huge pain. If you have lived here for a little bit, understand how things are. It probably moves a bit quicker.
Born out of a quiet little place buried in the middle of farm country somewhere else, we’re a world-renowned destination. There is a lot of information about us. There are a lot of websites about us. There are places to go online. Within 30 minutes, you can find out who some of the decision-makers are. If you are going into a place that doesn’t have the draw that Santa Monica does, they can understand being a little lost, but it’s there if you’re looking.
How do you feel we’re doing now?
I feel like we’re doing better. We do other pockets that need more improvement in terms of businesses opening up, but there are plans for those. It needs a bit more life going on there. We opened up our first cannabis store in town, which is a big thing for us.
Don’t you find that interesting? There is something interesting about Santa Monica. The image of Santa Monica, but we don’t have any tattoo parlors or cannabis dispensaries. I always found that interesting. We still have some cash checking places., Do we have bail bonds? Do we have pawn shops? We got these edgy sex shops. I know a few of those. We have a couple.
Those businesses are needed. They exist for a reason. It’s because there is a demand, and customers want them. We’re only 8.3 square miles. Are those the types of businesses that are going to bring foot traffic to our street? In some cases, maybe. If you need a tattoo, this is down the road. You can go there and get one. That’s probably more of an experience to say, “I got this in Venice, California.” If you look at our city as a destination, it’s a desire by tourists. We treat it as a brand in many ways. Is that part of our brand to have all that?
Do you think tattoo parlors as part of our brand?
I have to see what that would look like. What type of parlor, how it’s set up and all that. I’m tattoo free, so I would not be a customer for that. My immediate reaction will be, “No, I don’t know if that’s a business that we need on the promenade. At the same time, you would have told me a few years ago we have car dealers on the promenade that were left to do, and those have done well. It’s keeping up with the times and staying relevant.
How about gun shops? We don’t have any of those.
We used to. It was one store that sold hunting rifles. We’re all about democracy here and pro-constitution and all that.
It’s in the blog. You said it. There is a reason why we were a family-friendly place.
That’s how we want the world to know and the world to experience when they get here. There is plenty to do for everybody. Some of those activities are maybe skew a bit older and adult-only type of thing, and we don’t have many things here that other adults only do except for maybe mini bars for 21 and up.
There are no shooting ranges in Santa Monica.
We also don’t have the space for it. Some of these businesses take up space.
We’re pretty tight on space.
I would like to see an ax-throwing place. That would be fun.
That ends up being a novelty sport. It’s not quite in the hunting category.
It is still in the realm of bowling or golf.
It does have the feeling of hunting a little. That is what makes it interesting. It’s like you can feel like you’re hunting. You can throw an ax at something like the head of a deer or whatever you would normally do if you were living a long time ago. You get the feeling, but you don’t have to do it. It’s b*****, not quite hunting.
We’re surfing, swimming, beach community, physical fitness, and active lifestyle outside. The activities we promote here are all ones we can do outside. There is no reason to be indoors here.
That brings up why didn’t we do all fresco seating and dining several years ago.
This was tossed out into a conversation when I had this before. It wasn’t always this warm. The nights would get chillier. When I moved here, I remember that it was a certain time of day, especially in the off-season, where if you’re wearing this, you would suddenly be cold. Maybe you would not want to sit outside anymore, and you forgot the jacket at home. It could have been that. Cold here is not cold to most of the rest of the world. I’m not looking for sympathy, but that could have been a reason why it was unattractive to a restaurant.
It was still relatively cold for some people.
That part aside, if things are warming up, that’s good for all of us at night. It certainly seems like it’s here to stay.
It certainly feels like it is one of the least controversial things that I have experienced in community development. Art has been another one, but there’s almost no resistance that I have experienced with taking something that was previously boring, bland, or blighted and putting something nice up. You don’t get a lot of resistance. Al fresco has been similar. It’s universally a good thing. These are the programs that would be great to think about what else is out there in those categories where it’s like, “How many people don’t like al fresco?” I don’t even think I remember hearing one.
It’s little to complain about.
It’s a non-polarizing piece of community development in an age where it feels like polarity is almost cool, very uncool, but for whatever reason, the people are putting it out there. It feels like they want you to be polarized. How do we create more things like this? What do we need to do to depolarize, find common ground, create consensus, find the things we all agree on, and pursue that because, ultimately, that would create a semi-utopian experience in Santa Monica political realm?
Borrow ideas from other places that have been doing this forever. Do a pilot program to see if it works. When it does, and the complaints have been non-existent or minimal, there is your new way.
That seems easy. You think we would be like, “Let’s go find those things and do them.” What creates the challenge there?
Time, will, and need. Let’s face it. We don’t have to do al fresco dining because we woke up one day and thought it would be a good idea to do it. This meant economic survival for those business owners, the community, and our own sanity because we were stuck inside all the time. If that was the one way we could get out and do something semi-normal, have at.
We were forced into this good idea. Everyone has the same conversation we’re having now. I was like, “Why haven’t we been doing this forever in Los Angeles? How is not every rooftop either covered in solar panels or activated an outdoor experience way for the customer or the residents or whoever type of building it is?”
People like to be upset with people and complain about their personal problems or the fault of the institutions, and somehow, we have to get out of that narrative.
I don’t know that anyone would admit to liking that, even if you are the one doing it, but it is, unfortunately, part of human nature. If something is not right in your life, it’s got to be someone else’s.
It’s not even the liking. It’s the feeling of importance. It’s a feeling of meaning and purpose that makes you feel like your words count and your voice is heard. If you can end that, you don’t have to take responsibility for getting out there and making a difference. You could blame someone else, and you feel better about it. It’s not that they like it, but there is some reward. There is some dopamine there.
That is their nature, or they feel like they are hurt if they say something contradicting rather than agreeing.
We got to get out of that. It’s so toxic. It’s not Santa Monica experiencing that, but it’s terrible, and there are many things we can all agree on. We got to get there.
It’s engaging people and knowing your neighbors. It is having those connections. People who spend a lot of time on their own don’t have enough to do or don’t have enough going on in their personal lives tend to gravitate towards that type of negativity with too much time on their hands. Think about it at all. Some of the things I hear people complain about, “I beg for the day that I have enough time to sit there and think about that.” I am overwhelmed with different things going on that to think about this particular thing is a luxury, much less have an opinion about it and go tell somebody else about it. It doesn’t fit into my day.
[bctt tweet=”People who spend a lot of time on their own, who don’t have enough to do or don’t have enough going on in their personal lives, tend to gravitate towards negativity.” via=”no”]
I don’t know how people get the time to do that stuff. It feels like you could easily convert that into constructive behavior.
It goes back to what’s your role in the solution. If you didn’t like it, what do you want to do instead? How do you make that happen?
What do you want to leave people with here if you had to give some final words on what we need and what you see?
I always encourage people to get involved in their communities. If you’re attached to a place, you’re raising a family there, you love where you live, and it has been good to you, you owe it something back to make sure that that continues, especially if you have children and grandchildren. What are you going to leave them with?
[bctt tweet=”Always encourage people to get involved in their communities. If you’re attached to a place, raising a family there, you love where you live, and it’s been good, then you owe it something back to make sure that that continues.” via=”no”]
You don’t have to go overboard and be on fifteen different boards of commissions like I do. That gets a little crazy. Do something. Do speak 1 or 2 or whatever it is that you are passionate about and you feel like you can add value. Is it in line with your professional career? If you’re a lawyer and some group needs legal advice, maybe that’s where you put in your $0.02 or whatever it might be. Pick it and go for it. Check it out. Nothing’s forever. Give it a few months. Give it a year and see if you like it. If it sticks, you find something. If not, you try something different.
One of my heroes is Eleanor Roosevelt. She said a lot of great things and a lot of quotes from her that people can live by. One was, “Intelligent minds talk about ideas. Average minds talk about events. Simple minds talk about people.” When we’re in these meetings, in part of these groups and working towards something, we’re talking about ideas. You are around intelligent minds, we may not always agree, but we are talking about an idea to make a place that we all love better.
Let’s reiterate this because it’s super important. Intelligent people talk about ideas. Average people talk about events. Simple people talk about people.
How do you want to spend most of your time?
What does your pie chart look like?
Where do you spend the most time, intelligent, average, or simple? Maybe you could try a different activity.
Shift some of your time. Thanks for being here. Thanks for always being an inspiration to the rest of the community and me. You have done so much here. It is noted, valued, and appreciated.
Thanks for having me.
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About Albin Gielicz
Loving where I grew up is how I realized I was meant to be a community leader. I was born and raised in another idyllic, happy city called Arlington Heights, Illinois, outside of Chicago.
Over the years, out of my love for human connection and culture, I learned to speak three languages, traveled the world extensively for both work and pleasure, and quickly realized 18 years ago that Santa Monica is where my heart – and community engagement – belongs.
Community Leader
My community leadership involves working to improve the quality of life for all residents. We still need to overcome some of the lingering effects of Covid to feel like ourselves again. Together we will get there.
Marketing and Branding Expert
My experience as a professional marketing and branding expert has supported my efforts to work with our local businesses and help them thrive in creative, inventive ways. I believe in the essential symbiotic relationship between residents and neighborhood-serving retail. We need both for a strong local economy.
Local and Global Perspective
My global perspective allows me to see Santa Monica as the popular destination it is for so many around the world. We must continue to remain leaders in hospitality and welcome our visitors from near and far. Our #1 industry directly contributes to our high quality of life.
Passion for Sustainability
My passion for sustainability and respect for the environment is evident in everything I do. As a passion project, I co-authored and published a children’s book about sustainability and climate change called The Super Sustainables: Facing the Drought. I’ll channel this passion into more progressive policies to ensure a sustainable future.
Member of the LGBTQ+ Community
My identity as a member of the LGBTQ+ community allows me to understand and have great compassion for the very real issues facing this group and other marginalized communities. I am committed to building more equity and inclusiveness so that historically unheard voices have a seat at the table. I will always use my voice to speak loudly for you.
Heart for those Less Fortunate
My heart for those less fortunate recently brought me to Poland to work with Ukrainian refugees who fled the war with Russia. My time there was intense and difficult, but worthwhile and helpful. I did my part to help Ukrainian women and children transition to a new life and reality. It was a stark reminder that we need to protect what we have and be grateful for our lives here, every single day.
More than any words on a website, the best way to get to know me is to chat with me sometime, perhaps over the phone or face-to-face over a coffee. I’d be happy to share my views one-on-one and discuss my very real passion and creative solutions for Santa Monica’s future.