By Jorge Casuso
July 31, 2025 -- A group of Downtown property owners has vowed to fight back after the City Council Tuesday evening ousted the six Council-appointed members of the board that runs the central business district.
The Santa Monica Coalition, an activist group of property owners, is drumming up support to dismantle Downtown Santa Monica Inc. by dissolving the area's Property-Based Assessment District (PBAD), according to the group's leader, John Alle.
Some business and property owners on the Promenade are also "getting together" to hire armed security guards to patrol the public walk street, Alle said.
The Council's unprecedented action to remove several activist business and property owners from the Downtown Board and temporarily replace them with former City officials "was a wake-up call for property owners," Alle said ("Council Purges 'Dysfunctional' Downtown Board," July 30, 2025).
Alle, who has broadcast his ongoing fight against City Hall on newscasts and with a banner that hangs from a vacant space on his Promenade property, said the Council's emergency action "made our efforts go faster. People can't wait to get out of DTSM."
That, however, may be a difficult task. The private public non-profit is largely funded by the City and assessments paid by more than 250 property owners in the area bounded by Ocean Avenue, Wilshire Boulevard, Lincoln Boulevard and the Santa Monica Freeway.
"Disestablishing" the existing district requires a vote by property owners "who pay 50 percent or more of the assessments levied," according to California's Property and Business Improvement District Law of 1994.
In 2018, the last time Downtown property owners were required to weigh in on the status of the district, 91 percent of the 221 property owners who cast ballots voted to preserve the PBAD that enhances maintenance, services and marketing for the area.
When the PBAD was established ten years earlier, 57 percent of the 256 Downtown property owners who voted approved the district ("New Downtown Assessment District Passes," July 11, 2008).
The next vote is scheduled to take place at the PBAD's 20-year mark in 2028, although according to State law, property owners have a 30-day period each year to "request disestablishment of the district."
According to Alle, some 75 property owners have said they would support dissolving the district, which has been struggling to recover from the coronavirus shutdown, high office and retail vacancy rates and a homeless presence the Coalition chronicles daily on social media.
"Now is the best time to dismantle the City-controlled nonprofit DTSM, Inc., get rid of the mandatory assessments property owners and businesses must pay, and create a true business improvement district," Alle wrote in a email he sent out before Tuesday's emergency vote.
The email says that other LA area districts, such as Larchmont Boulevard in Hancock Park and Old Pasadena, have succeeded with "hundreds of property owners, that are not controlled by the City."
If DTSM is dismantled, Alle said, the City will still have "financial and logistic responsibilities to clean garages, public spaces, empty trash dumpsters, etc., provide lighting and maintain landscaping in public areas, and maintain public safety."
"They're not going to like it," he said referring to City officials, "but they're not going to have a say."
Alle said businesses along the middle and northern blocks of the Promenade's three block stretch have expressed interest in hiring a private security firm to help fight the constant thefts he says are plaguing the area.
"These people are licensed to carry a weapon, and they will," Alle said. "We don't know if they will be wearing uniforms or plain clothes, but they'll be walking the Promenade."
That, Downtown officials said, may not be possible.
"I believe the only way to provide services in the public right of way is to be authorized by the City," said DTSM's CEO Andrew Thomas. "I believe that's the only way."
