Westwood South of
Santa Monica Blvd.
Homeowners Association
About WSSM
A letter from WSSM President Barbara Broide
Dear Neighbors,
Most of you receive the printed Westwood South of Santa Monica Blvd. HOA (WSSM) newsletter each year prior to our Annual Meeting. As a result, a few hundred will send in membership dues, about 200 – 300 will attend the Annual Meeting (the number depending on the “heat” of current issues) and others will sign up to receive our email notices that go out to announce timely hearings, crime alerts, planned traffic detours, etc. (Please sign up to receive those email notices at: wssmhoa@gmail.com.) With the advent of email, WSSM no longer sends out traditional newsletters more than once a year; the postage and printing costs are significant and by the time a newsletter is sent we find that new issues with new deadlines are upon us. The use of our website has also helped us to get information to our community members.
Some of you will contact us during the year by letter, email or phone to report a local problem and others may drop in at one of our monthly board meetings held the first Tuesday of each month. Our organization enjoys a long history of community activism since it was incorporated in 1971 and now represents about 3,800 single family and condominium households. We strive to protect, maintain and improve the quality of life in our community and find that to do so we must become well versed in issues pertaining to land use, zoning, traffic management and environmental regulation. It has become our job to stand before the City and demand that protections that should be ours under existing legislation including the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) and our own City’s ordinances including the Pico Westwood Neighorhood Oriented District (NOD) are not violated. And, in the absence of good citywide policy, we find that we must challenge individual project proposals as they arise. We find that battles rarely disappear; rather, they keep resurfacing and must be fought again and again.
Our efforts at City Hall rarely result in a perfect outcome; however our contributions can lead and have led to significant improvements in the measures being adopted. And, with the advent of the internet and emails, it has become much easier for citizen groups across the city to exchange ideas and share info so that we can address important measures with one voice. Victories give us new energy to fight on.
We invite you to attend our monthly meetings, to volunteer to track an issue, to serve as a block captain, to champion a project in the community. There are many needs; there are many opportunities. In this time of budget cutbacks at all levels of government, it will likely be up to the residents to do more and be more involved. This is, after all, our community. We live here and sleep here and see what works and what doesn’t work. We have made a large financial investment here. Through WSSM we can build a stronger community not just by reacting to City proposals, but by having our own vision for what we want our community to be.
My thanks to all those who have participated during the past year --- to our board, block captains, CERT participants, those who have attended hearings, sent in comments or testimony, and/or paid dues. We appreciate YOU!
Sincerely,
Barbara BroidePresident
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ANNUAL MEETING SPONSOR
We are grateful to Real Estate Agent MIKE COCKINOS of Coldwell Banker, Brentwood for his continued sponsorship of our Annual Meeting and for the provision of mailing lists for our newsletter mailing. Mike can be reached at: 310 442-1399 or at: MC@MikeCockinos.com.
