Closure of I-Bathrooms: The what, where, when and why?
Since the beginning of the school year, multiple Samo bathrooms, primarily those in the Innovation building, have been closed to the student body for extended periods of time. School administrators cite vandalism and vaping as some of the main reasons behind the bathroom closures.
E-bikes rise in popularity
E-bikes have experienced massive growth in the years following the COVID-19 pandemic. With sales exceeding $ 1 million in 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, this increase has been supported by government initiatives.
Netflix vs. Pentagon: the boots controversy (Copy)
A new reshaping effort for the city of Santa Monica has been approved by the Santa Monica City Council, promising to reinvigorate tourism while stabilizing the local economy. This ‘Realignment Plan’ was proposed by City Manager Oliver Chi on Oct. 27 and aims to make neighborhoods safer, keep streets cleaner and rebuild a solid foundation for generations to come.
Chi recently transferred to Santa Monica after a four-year role as the city manager of Irvine, being the latest in a string of leadership turnovers for the position. Chi shared his beliefs that this Realignment Plan could create a ‘Santa Monica Renaissance’ and help the city get back on its feet.
“I think when you start looking at what's happening in the city… we’re in a moment… It feels almost like the city has been knocked down,” Chi said. “The local economy, right now, is in a place where you can almost describe it as a crisis situation, since COVID-19.”
The Santa Monica Daily Press estimates that the cash reserves of the city have dropped by nearly $300 million since 2018. Chi’s plan intends to respond to this economic downturn by targeting five key areas: ensuring safe and clean neighborhoods, economic growth, affordable housing, organizational capacity and organizational health. All parts of Chi’s Realignment Plan lead back to a central goal of boosting the local economy through making the city more inviting for locals to live in and for tourists to visit.
“You listen to business owners, you listen to residents, consistently what I heard was this pervasive sense of disorder creating an environment that folks felt like Santa Monica wasn’t a place you wanted to be at,” Chi said.
This downturn in tourism, touched on by Chi, is a major part of the Realignment Plan, with new business-focused programs intending to make it easier and more efficient for smaller businesses to follow city policy. In theory, more small businesses could help tourism and use it as a form of support if tourism became more dependable. In addition, the plan seeks to bring event culture to Santa Monica through so-called ‘activation’ events.
“Of the things we're looking to do, a monthly activation in the downtown core, where every month, there's some larger-scale event built around food, music and culture that people can rely on and work with the downtown business district to create events,” Chi said.
The creation of recurring activations indicates an intention to draw more people into the Santa Monica area, promoting tourism in a local sense, making Santa Monica a monthly hotspot. The city is already looking to expand these events, with a proposed Santa Monica Music Festival attempting to draw a large crowd of up to 30,000 and future activations utilizing existing events like the Olympics and the World Cup for promotion.
The true backbone of this Realignment Plan, according to Chi, is the series of organizational changes which intend to support the structure of the local government. Improvements to the staffing capacity of the city, and to staff benefits in general, are meant to improve the organization capacity through greater unity.
“Those external things can’t happen unless an organization is healthy enough to execute. And if we're going to execute, we have to create an environment that is consistent… and driven towards a mission to create an outcome that everyone is unified behind,” Chi said. “I think the most important element in my mind is creating organizational capacity… The plan calls for reinvestment into adding additional public safety personelle… Reinvesting in our maintenance teams… All of the things that we aim to do have to be done by people, people that are part of this city organization.”
Housing stability is also acknowledged within the plan through various policies that attempt to force usage of empty land. One student, Josephine Kim-Pearson (’27) speaks on the city dealing with housing in this way.
“I think a really important problem that the plan focuses on is affordable housing [not to be confused with government-sponsored affordable housing programs]. I’ve talked to a lot of people our age about this issue of housing and we all feel sort of hopeless. I’d prefer living here when I'm older... and I think that the work in this plan needs to be done to preserve this affordable housing,” Kim-Pearson said.
As a way to both support these new housing additions and construct a larger confidence in the community, the remaining part of the plan looks at neighborhood safety and cleanliness. Chi explains how changes instated by the Realignment Plan seek to improve these aspects of Santa Monica.
“When you walk around the city, I think one of the reasons it feels a little disorderly is we haven't been taking care of our stuff as a city, and a lot of public infrastructure hasn’t been invested in in a number of years,” Chi said. “We have a $4 million capital plan that we're deploying… that's going to fix all of our busted sidewalks, plant trees where the trees have died… start trimming our trees again… change out signs, paint crosswalks, all of the basics to refresh the downtown core.”
Other safety-based programs within the plan include an expansion of the Downtown Service Unit, doubling the amount of patrolling officers in this unit and altering patrol assignments throughout the city to prioritize the downtown core. This comes with the addition of a police substation in the center of Santa Monica Place, at the end of the promenade.
According to Chi, residents of Santa Monica should expect to see some of these more surface-level improvements within two to three months from now; projects such as sidewalk improvements and other aesthetic changes brought about by the plan should be recognizable to the public by this point in time. The general monthly activation events are expected to begin in Feb. 2026, with more specific events like the Olympic– and World Cup–based activation events occurring closer to the dates of those events. In addition, the Santa Monica Music Festival is intended to occur in fall of 2026 and become a yearly event.
The Realignment Plan, still in its early steps, aims to improve the city of Santa Monica on many different fronts, with safety and economic concerns at the forefront of its changes.
Is Mamdani the right direction for American politics?
Zohran Mamdani won the New York Mayoral election on November 4th, 2025. The 34-year-old Democratic Socialist ran an unconventional campaign characterized by grassroots fundraising, a strong social media presence and the advocacy of radical policies. His decisive victory has generated conversations surrounding the future of American politics.
The reality of stereotypes around safety gear in sports
This year, new advancements of safety technology in a variety of sports have been introduced, including cooling vests in Formula One (F1) racing and specialized goalie helmets in water polo. While these inventions are effective in preventing potential injuries, they bring up questions on stereotypes around the use of extra safety equipment. Do athletes prioritize their reputation over safety?
Netflix vs. Pentagon: the boots controversy
“Our standards across the board are elite, uniform and sex neutral because the weight of a rucksack or a human being doesn’t care if you’re a man, a woman, gay or straight,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said. “We will not compromise our standards to satisfy an ideological agenda, unlike Netflix whose leadership consistently produces and feeds woke garbage to their audience and children.”
The play that goes wrong....goes right???!!!!!
On Nov. 14, Samo Theatre’s ‘Scotch’ Cast performed “The Play That Goes Wrong,” written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields for their first of six showings, followed by the ‘Paint Thinner’ Cast on Nov. 15. The cast and crew did an excellent job bringing a massive catastrophe to the parents and students of Samo. The humanities center was filled with laughter as soon as the lights dimmed to begin the show.
college admissions culture is too competitive
Last year, many Samo students were accepted to prestigious colleges like Stanford and the Ivies. That kind of success sets a high standard for future graduating seniors, which can inadvertently cause considerable stress. Students will stretch themselves thin, and too often, seniors tie their self-worth to which college they are accepted to.
Questionable calls lead to growing criticism of referees
The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) has recently experienced a surge in popularity over the past couple years, following polarizing new stars like Caitlin Clark entering the league. During the current 2025 season, the WNBA has made sports headlines across the nation. Not because of the athletes, but stemming from intense criticism of the referees.
Fujinomiya and Santa Monica celebrate 50 years of friendship
On Oct. 23, Santa Monica–Malibu Unified School District (SMMUSD) and the city of Santa Monica welcomed the delegates from the city of Fujinomiya in Japan to Samo, commemorating 50 years of the sister city partnership between the two cities.
Protecting your mental health at Samo
As the winter months progress, bringing colder weather and heavier work loads, Samo students may benefit from taking time to decompress through activities offered on campus. Whether it's resources that support mental health, or creative outlets like arts and crafts workshops, there are a variety of opportunities for students to use in order to find balance during these challenging months.
Mediocre media marketing: it’s boring please make it stop
Advertisement is the off-the-record make-or-break of any film. A movie can be serene and meticulously crafted beyond comprehension, but make absolutely nothing in box office if it's poorly advertised. Good marketing creates word of mouth and anticipation for all forms of cinema, television, movies and even music videos. Without it, the spotlight ceases to shine, leading potentially monumental films to be utterly disregarded. We are all taught at a young age not to judge a book by its cover. However, in the hyper-commercialized world we all live in, if a billboard is bad, it’s simple: just look elsewhere. Recently, it seems the marketing of up-and-coming blockbuster films with notable actors and beloved directors have been falling flat.
Girls soccer is off to an exciting start
Last season, the Samo girls’ soccer team finished second in the Ocean League with a record of 8-2, while advancing to the first round of the CIF playoffs. During the first round of CIF, they faced a 1-2 loss against Notre Dame Academy, which concluded their season with an overall record of 11-10-1. The team coaches, Jason Daglis and Alyssa Pazzi, hope to build off of last season to strengthen their future performances, as well as the new five team captains that were named; LB Caldwell (’26), Audrey Howard (’26), Nyla Ryf (’26), Becky Scholze (’26) and Kayla Yee (’26)
Wrestling team shows promise in pre-season
Samo’s co-ed wrestling team is back and ready to prove themselves once again. The season ended strongly last year, with Arata Sakamoto (’26), Fred Ekberg (’25), and Kenji Ineno (’25) all qualifying for the CIF Masters Meet. The team’s commitment was evident in their early fall and summer training, with intense practices to build strength and cohesion.
What happens to stolen art: in lieu of the louvre
From the Ocean’s franchise to classic Pink Panther films to the real-life phenomenon, the concept of a museum heist has always been something that pulls the public's attention. The elaborate plans and suspenseful escapes are bound to draw in a crowd, whether or not the story is fiction or reality. In recent years, however, art heists had become far less common-until Oct. 19, 2025, when $102 million worth of historical jewelry was stolen from the Louvre Museum. Immediately, social media exploded, mocking the Louvre’s security, memeing the event and even coining the heist as ‘chic’. Among this uproar, almost nobody seemed to be concerned about the stolen items; millions of dollars worth of culturally significant jewelry was taken, quite literally pieces of history, but despite this, there appears to be no concern for the future of these jewels.
Free Art Opportunities on the Westside
All of the following art experiences are free and located on the West side of Los Angeles.
Samo boys’ soccer sets sights high for the upcoming season
Boys’ Soccer looks to build off of a successful ’24-’25 season, ending with a perfect 9-0 record in Ocean league and a 22-4-2 record overall, which qualified Samo for the open division of the CIF playoffs.
Students unite for climate action
On Nov. 14, students from Samo and Palisades Charter High School gathered for a joint climate rally in front of the Santa Monica Pier. The rally centered around the “Make Polluters Pay” campaign, which aims to hold large companies accountable for environmental and health issues that they have contributed towards.
The development crisis in santa monica
As new buildings take over the streets of Santa Monica, it is now more urgent than ever to rethink the development of the city. With increasing frequency, multi-use high rises and apartment buildings are swallowing up entire blocks and dulling the city’s character. The charm of Santa Monica is fading at the hands of urban developers and something must be done before it is too late.
To those who keep our campus safe, seasoned, and sanitary
Everyday, you endure cleaning up food fights, breaking up angsty teen aggression and dealing with a non-stop stream of peckish students. Your significant efforts as Samo’s security, custodians and cafeteria staff go overlooked too often. With your consistency, students can easily forget that it’s hired hands, not magic, that keeps the campus so well tended to. It’s not absurd to think that without your management, much of Samo would fall into chaos. Bathrooms would soon turn into biochemical hazards and lunch lines would transform into a high school edition of “The Hunger Games”. The impact that you have made on our school is beyond comprehension.