Beach and Parks - Santa Monica Councilmember Kevin McKeown

(Don’t forget that any TV set graphic on my website links to a video)

We’ve just marked the 100th Anniversary of the famous and rather wonderful Santa Monica Pier -- and we’ve opened the gem of our coast, the Annenberg Public Beach Club, at 415 Pacific Coast Highway.

I’m committed to better, cleaner beaches and to expanding and improving Santa Monica’s parks.

Below are some successes, and

some of our remaining challenges.

Parks are for playfields and recreation, but they’re also spaces for quiet time and remembering we are of the earth, not just of the city. One of my goals as your Councilmember is to establish a park within walking distance of every Santa Monica home. We still have neighborhoods with no park within a half mile radius, and that’s too far for small children and seniors. We can, and will, do better.

Knowing there’s still work to be done, we nonetheless have much to celebrate in the growth of our Santa Monica park system. Since I’ve been on our City Council, we completed a beachfront project that helped win us an American Planning Association award naming Santa Monica Beach as one of the best public places in America. And we’ve added and expanded parks all over the city: Airport Park (including a new dog park!), Euclid Park, Virginia Avenue Park, and the Cove skatepark at Memorial Park. The best may be yet to come – our purchase of 11.4 acres of additional land at our Civic Center makes room for much more open space and an arboretum, still in the planning stages. I’m also working on ways to expand our much-in-demand community gardens.

Santa Monica’s parks and beaches are made even more special by volunteer cooperation and creative innovation. At left, volunteers help in the annual Heal the Bay beach clean-up. At right, our experimental “greening” of a beach parking lot to create new family picnic and park space. Barefootin’!

When the subject is parks, I consult with the experts!

Their first United States performances were at the Santa Monica Pier in 1987, and last year Cirque du Soleil returned with their new show “Kooza.”