Santa Monica to power-wash gunk off downtown sidewalks
The city is merging maintenance teams and hiring through Chrysalis to scrub commercial corridors that have gone uncleaned for years.
Santa Monica has seen its downtown decline as shoppers abandon the once-shi-shi shopping area.
Hey, here's an idea — clean the streets.
The city council now plans to clean the gunk off sidewalks downtown and on commercial corridors: Montana Avenue, Main Street and Wilshire, Pico and Ocean Park boulevards. Regular pressure washing of sidewalks and public spaces will be employed for the first time.
There are some places in Santa Monica that have had the same melted ice cream goo for years. City officials say that will be cleaned.
Santa Monica is hiring workers through Chrysalis, a job placement agency for the poor and homeless that helps provide the services in the downtown core. Santa Monica is also merging its downtown and beach maintenance teams under a unified structure, officials said. They have already put homeless people to work.
In the last three months of last year, the teams collected over 744 tons of debris. Santa Monica city crews have also pruned 603 trees, planted 37 new large-specimen trees, repaired 7,000 square feet of sidewalks and installed more than 300 native plants at gateway locations.