Election Q & A
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The election will seek membership approval for the full slate of nominees for the 2025-2026 Board of Directors of the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association (SMCCA).
A second ballot item will seek membership approval for changing SMCCA’s name to The Canyon Alliance.
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Voting will be held online from May 27-29.
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Members in good standing of SMCCA will receive their ballot by e-mail, one per household.
Please check your spam folder and add voting@smcca.org to your list of safe senders.
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If you contributed your annual $50 household dues in 2025, or contributed to the Canyon Alliance’s Emergency & Recovery Fund, your household will receive a ballot by email.
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The slate of 22 Canyon residents reflects balanced representation across all five Canyon neighborhoods, a mix of returning directors (10) and new (12), and a wide range of personal and professional skills that will serve the organization and community well during this period of recovery, rebuilding, and resilience.
See the bios for each nominee here. -
There has been longstanding confusion about the organization’s name. The use of “Santa Monica” within the Canyon has deep historical roots, going back to the original Rancho Boca de Santa Monica land grant in the 1830’s.
However, the use of the name has led to perpetual and widespread misunderstanding, leading outsiders and even some Canyon residents to believe that the Canyon is located within the adjacent City of Santa Monica, rather than within the City of Los Angeles. This belief has been reinforced because for purely for logistical reasons much of the Canyon falls under the Santa Monica 90402 zip code.
This confusion may have been a tolerable quirk in normal times, but during the fire emergency it had serious consequences, when both residents and first responders were unsure as to which fire and police departments - City of Santa Monica or City of Los Angeles - should be contacted and engaged.
Furthermore, the use of “Santa Monica Canyon” in the association’s name has led many residents of Rustic Canyon to assume that they were not within the SMCCA boundaries and not eligible to belong to the organization or participate in its activities.
Therefore on May 9, the SMCCA board voted unanimously (13-0) to put before the membership the question of changing SMCCA’s name to The Canyon Alliance, a name which has received wide acceptance during the post-fire period. The new name would definitively remove the confusion surrounding (City of) Santa Monica and Santa Monica Canyon, recognize the inclusion of both Rustic and Santa Monica Canyons, and emphasize the important affiliation of the two canyon’s five neighborhoods.
This would not be the first time that a name change has occurred within the Canyon. SMCCA’s roots can be traced back, according to historians Randy and Betty Lou young, to the 1926 formation of Santa Monica Canyon Improvement Association; its restructuring in 1938 as the Santa Monica Canyon Chamber of Commerce; and then in 1947 its re-formation as the Santa Monica Canyon Civic Association. The Canyon Alliance, therefore, would in effect be the fourth name, reflecting a new chapter in the evolution of the organization to meet the changing needs of the community, and in particular its new focus on collective neighborhood action and long-term resilience.