Meet our Steering Committee: Laurene Von Klan Growing up in cities, Laurene saw plenty of urban grit But why were cities seen as separate from nature, she wondered. Thriving…
Meet our Steering Committee: Kent Strumpell In the mid 90s, Kent drove a primitive electric vehicle that only went 40 miles on a good day. Nonetheless, it still served…
Meet our Steering Committee: Judy Abdo Judy Abdo is a founding member of Climate Action Santa Monica. However, Judy Abdo’s experience and accomplishments show her wide reaching commitment to…
Growing up in cities, Laurene saw plenty of urban grit But why were cities seen as separate from nature, she wondered. Thriving green cities for city people became Laurene’s passion, one that she pursues still today and that is central to her work and everyday life.
For sixteen years she worked to bring to life the polluted and ignored River back to life and to make it a living centerpiece of Chicago. She also helped launch a national movement to restore urban rivers. She was named one of Chicago’s most influential people for her work.
When Laurene and her family moved to Santa Monica 15 years ago, she also became a certified dog trainer. All the while, she built a native plant garden at home, and volunteered in the Santa Monica Mountains and for events such as her neighborhood block party.
The urgency of the changing climate, however, brought Laurene back to her professional experience and passion for healthy cities. She joined CASM in 2017 and is now a Steering Committee member and its Executive Director. One of her first activities was helping to organize community brunches for people to learn about solar power. For the last several years, she has helped CASM strategically focus on high-impact solutions, expand its youth programs, and build a strong community organization. “I love doing this work in Santa Monica,” she says. “Everyone seems to care or take some action. And we have the talent and creativity to be leaders for cities around the world.”
Judy Abdo is a founding member of Climate Action Santa Monica. However, Judy Abdo’s experience and accomplishments show her wide reaching commitment to the Santa Monica community and to the region.
A Santa Monica City Council member from 1988 to 1996, Judy Abdo served three years as the Mayor. She retired as the Director of Child Development Services for the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District in 2012. Currently, she is Vice Chair of the First 5 LA Commission. She is a member of the Santa Monica Early Education and Childcare Task Force Steering Committee and is a member of the Committee for Excellent Public Schools Steering Committee in Santa Monica. She taught kindergarten and primary grades for 13 years.
She earned a B.A. degree in Early Childhood Education from the University of California, Santa Barbara and has done graduate work in Human Development at Pacific Oaks College. She holds a lifetime Early Childhood Credential. She attended Hollywood High School, Le Conte Jr High, and elementary school at Warren Lane in Inglewood.
She has served on the Metropolitan Water District Board for 25 years, representing the City of Santa Monica. She is also currently a member of the Steering Committee of Climate Action Santa Monica. She was a founding member of Santa Monica Forward, and is chair of the Electric Vehicle subcommittee of the Santa Monica Environmental Task Force. Finally, she has served on the Board of the Ocean Park Association for almost 8 years.
Previously, Abdo was the Assistant Director of the Norton Family Office and Peter Norton Family Foundation. She also served four years as a Council Deputy for the City of West Hollywood. She served as Executive Director of the nonprofit Ocean Park Community Organization. She was the Administrator of the Church in Ocean Park for 37 years.
She was a founder of Sojourn Shelter for battered women and children, a founder of the Santa Monica Pier Restoration Corp, a former Board Member of the Neighborhood Support Center, and of the Santa Monica AIDS Project. She was a member of the Ocean Park Community Center Board of Directors for 19 years. She was a long-time member of the Steering Committee of Santa Monicans for Renters’ Rights. Finally, she served as Chair of the Urban Forest Task Force.
Judy’s favorite climate action: reducing water usage.
Since moving here in 2007, he’s chaired the Social Services Commission, North of Montana Association, Virginia Avenue Park Advisory Board, and Santa Monica Travel and Tourism Board. He also serves on the Recreation and Parks Commission, the Montana Avenue Merchants Association Board, Buy Local Santa Monica Executive Committee, and CASM Advisory Committee.
Albin is committed to improving the quality of life for all Santa Monicans and visitors. He is a strong advocate for all things sustainability and has authored a children’s book about water conservation, called The Super Sustainables, Facing the Drought. You can often find Albin biking around town, running along the beach bike path or walking his dog Zoe in Palisades Park.
Albin graduated from Miami University (Ohio) and received an MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management.
Albin’s favorite climate action: installing solar and converting lawns to be drought-tolerant plants.
Jim is a passionate energy and sustainability expert with over 25 years of successful experience in the energy and environmental services industry. He has held leadership, business development, management, and consultative roles with a broad group of market participants including microgrid control solution providers, energy/advisory consulting firms, electric utilities, recycled product manufacturers, and environmental service firms. Jim is currently the Principal of Silent Running, a California-based Energy and Advisory firm focusing on renewable energy project development, energy efficiency program management, and equity in clean energy programs. Jim has an M.B.A. in Strategy/Finance from the UCLA Anderson Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Science Degree in Energy Studies/Mechanical Engineering from Brown University.
Natalya Zernitskaya has been part of the Santa Monica community since she moved to the LA area after earning her B.A. in Economics from UC Santa Cruz. Natalya has always been passionate about making a positive impact in her community and as such, she has been an advocate for housing, the environment, voting rights, and other policies that support inclusion and equity in her local and regional communities for over a decade. She was born in Belarus and moved to the United States in the mid-1990s with her family as Jewish refugees after the fall of the USSR.
Natalya’s favorite climate action is minimizing her carbon & GHG emissions by choosing to walk, bike, take a scooter, or public transit instead of her car whenever possible.
John Zinner’s experience in green building, policy development, entitlement support, project and program planning, and project management make him an asset to the CASM team. Prior to founding Zinner Consultants, John served as Energy Coordinator and Planning Advisor for the City of Los Angeles Office of the Mayor, and founded the Los Angeles office of an environmental consulting firm. He founded Zinner Consultants in 1990 and served as its Principal until it was folded into Zinner Consultant Services in 2021.
Zinner has been recognized for his accomplishments. He has developed and managed groundbreaking sustainability and green building programs for the City of Los Angeles, Playa Vista, Whole Foods, Boeing Corporation, the Los Angeles Unified School District, and the cities of Rancho Cucamonga, Santa Monica and Fayetteville, North Carolina. He served as the Principal-in-Charge of over 70 LEED certified projects, including 12 that earned Platinum, for clients such as UCLA, the City of Los Angeles, URW (formerly Westfield), Tishman Speyer and Worthe Real Estate Group.
He was awarded status LEED Fellow status by the U.S. Building Green Building Council.
Did you know?
CASM advisor, John Zinner, became an environmentalist while backpacking in the Sierras as a teenager and seeing behavior that troubled him.
On October 19, 2023, SAMOCAN will be having Dana Nuccitelli, the Research Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby. Dana is an environmental scientist and climate journalist with a Master’s Degree in physics. He has written about climate change since 2010 for Skeptical Science, for The Guardian from 2013 to 2018, and since 2018 for Yale Climate Connections. In 2015 he published the book ‘Climatology versus Pseudoscience’, and he has also authored ten peer-reviewed climate studies, including a 2013 paper that found a 97% consensus among peer-reviewed climate science research that humans are the primary cause of global warming. With Dana’s experience he will be discussing what National Permitting Reform is and why it will help us reach our climate goals.
Dana joined CCL’s staff in 2021 after 9 years as a volunteer with its Sacramento chapter. During that time, he gave dozens of presentations all around California about climate change impacts like wildfires and droughts, and policy solutions like carbon fee and dividend. Dana has also led CCL’s Science Policy Team since 2017. In his free time, Dana enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his dogs. In recognition of his climate journalism and education work, Dana won the prestigious SEAL Environmental Journalism Award in 2022 and the National Center for Science Education Friend of the Planet Award in 2016.
Share your comments on how to improve bike connections in these Westside Mobility Projects!
The Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT) is partnering with Council District 11 to plan a network of four bikeways connecting Westside neighborhoods and adjacent cities. The bike routes will feature traffic calming measures to make them comfortable for riders of all ages and abilities.
Share your thoughts for a chance to win a FREE bicycle! You’re invited to join LADOT at a community event for a chance to participate. For more information on the project and ways to participate, please visit LADOTWestsideMobility.com
To: Santa Monica City Council, Santa Monica Planning Commission, City Manager David White, Mobility Manager Jason Kligier, Director of Public Works Rick Valte,
Subject: Protecting our bikeways from motor vehicle incursions
Dear Council Members and City Leaders:
Santa Monica has become an exemplar of far-sighted bikeway design and implementation in our region. Recent innovations seen on Ocean Ave. and 17th St. have raised the bar for creating protected bike facilities that provide the safety and comfort to allow many more people to bike for their everyday mobility. Additional protected bikeways planned in Santa Monica’s Bicycle Action Plan will bring us ever closer to realizing a citywide bikeway network that will be a game-changer for mobility, traffic reduction and meeting our Vision Zero and climate goals.
Unfortunately, some motorists are undermining the benefits of recently-installed protected bike lanes (and standard, striped bike lanes) by parking in them and sometimes even driving in them. This behavior is photo-documented almost daily in social media posts.
When motor vehicles block these lanes it forces cyclists to divert into traffic lanes, sabotaging the safety and utility of these facilities, spoiling their potential to provide safe, equitable mobility choices for greater numbers of people. Further, when cyclists need to divert around vehicles blocking bikeways, this induces unsafe cycling behavior that might expose the city to liability as a result of negligence in maintaining proper bikeway access.
Therefore we, the undersigned organizations strongly urge the city to take steps to address this epidemic of bikeway incursions. There appear to be several strategies that could be explored:
– Physical barriers where they are safe and appropriate to prevent or discourage drivers from entering bikeways, such as bollards at entrance points, concrete separators and modular curb elements (like seen on Broadway).
– Additional signage and pavement markings to make it blatantly clear that bikeways are off limits to cars at all times.
– Signs that stipulate substantial fines for violations.
– Enforcement by parking and traffic officers, especially where vehicles park on the sidewalk or driveway aprons. But as a general rule, officer enforcement is sporadic and therefore less effective than physical elements.
– Perhaps photo enforcement, using something like the Automotus camera technology recently deployed in the Zero Emission Delivery Zone program.
– A literature search to explore best practices being used by other municipalities.
Clearly, physical barriers that prevent motor vehicle incursions 24-7 without the need for enforcement personnel is the superior and likely most cost-effective choice. And it makes sense to implement effective solutions to this problem before new bikeways are installed, so that this problem is not perpetuated and to save from having to make costly retrofits.
Please direct staff to find effective solutions to this vexing problem so that we can fully realize the many benefits of our growing bikeway network, especially public safety, and prevent this critical investment from being compromised.
Send Council a message in support of the motion by Councilmembers Zwick and Torosis and Mayor Davis to keep our city’s bike lanes safe with a combination of enhanced parking and traffic enforcement, reducing double parking, and quickly building safer bicycle infrastructure.
