Editor's note: The following letter was sent by former Councilmember Christine Parra to Mayor Caroline Torosis and City Councilmembers who tonight will take up final approval of an ordinance that paves the way for large transit-oriented (TOD) housing developments in the Pico Neighborhood.

Mayor Torosis and Members of the City Council,

Mayor Torosis, after re-reading your Pico Corridors of Opportunity project, I am no longer simply disappointed. I am angry! How dare you!

Your presentation is filled with beautiful words about restorative justice, community ownership, anti-displacement, homeownership, generational wealth and listening to the people most affected.

But principles are easy to proclaim in a Harvard fellowship presentation. Character is revealed when you are actually given the power to live by them. And that is where, in my view, your words and your actions become impossible to reconcile.

You describe Pico's low homeownership rate as an injustice. You argue that ownership gives families stability, an appreciating asset and generational wealth. You propose increasing homeownership as part of repairing decades of harm.

Then what do you say to the Pico families who already achieved exactly what you claim to want for us?

Apparently, our homeownership matters when it supports the narrative in your presentation, but our voices matter considerably less when we object to what the city council wants to do to our neighborhood.

You write extensively about the damage government inflicted on Pico: racist covenants, eminent domain, destruction of Belmar, the freeway and generations of displacement.

And somehow the lesson you appear to have taken from that history is that today's government should once again decide what is best for this community over the objections of the people who actually live here. That is breathtakingly contradictory.

You wrote that this work "must be led by the people most affected." You wrote, "Nothing has been decided, and nothing will be decided without the input from our residents."

So why is it so hard for you to listen to us? Why is it so hard to hear the residents standing directly in front of you telling you what they are experiencing and what they fear for their neighborhood?

And please don't confuse allowing residents two minutes at a microphone with giving residents a meaningful voice.

You cannot build a political identity around restorative justice while dismissing the people asking you to practice it. You cannot champion homeownership while treating existing homeowners as impediments to your land-use vision.

You cannot condemn previous generations of City leaders for imposing decisions on Pico and then expect today's residents not to recognize the contradiction when their own government tells them, once again, that it knows what is best for their neighborhood.

And you certainly cannot write that "Pico residents deserve investment that lifts them, not displaces them" without answering a very basic question:

Which Pico residents? Do homeowners count? Do multigenerational families count? Do the residents who stayed, invested, raised families and built generational wealth here count? Or do we only count when our stories are useful in a fellowship presentation?

Mayor Torosis, you wrote that repair is "not mine to define." On that, we agree. Neither is this neighborhood yours to define.

I intend to make sure my neighbors and the broader Santa Monica community know what you wrote, what you promised, what you acknowledged about Pico's history, and how you governed when the people living in that historically harmed community challenged your decisions.

People can read your words. They can examine your record. And they can decide for themselves whether the two match. Because accountability does not end when the Council meeting adjourns.

If "community ownership," "anti-displacement," "community-led governance" and "resident input" are truly your principles, then demonstrate them when residents disagree with you.

Otherwise, stop using our neighborhood's painful history as the backdrop for lofty promises you are unwilling to apply when exercising your own political power.

Pico's history is not a case study. It is not a fellowship project. And it is not a political talking point.

It is our history. This is our community. And these are our homes. We are paying attention. And we will make sure Santa Monica is paying attention, too.

Christine Parra
Pico Neighborhood Resident, Former Santa Monica Councilmember and now one of the 89 Homeowners Affected by YOU