Mayor McMorrin gives 2024 State of the City Address

On Wednesday night, Culver City Mayor Yasmine-Imani McMorrin presented the 2024 State of the City Address at the Wende Museum. She highlighted her housing accomplishments, efforts to expand community resources for all residents and work to protect workers and small businesses in the address.

Several community members — including former mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells and former Planning Commissioner Nancy Barba — came before McMorrin's address to speak about the Mayor and her impact on the city and themselves individually.

Notably, all the speakers were women, which was a choice made by the Mayor to highlight women's contribution to the community.

"Everything tonight was intentional to platform women," McMorrin said at the address.

When McMorrin spoke, she quickly pointed out that homelessness was down in Culver City for the first time in five years. The number of total counted unhoused residents went down by just two — from 98 in 2023 to 96 in 2024 — but the number of "improvised dwellings" on Culver City streets went down by over 25%, according to data from LA County.

Improvised dwellings include tents and other forms of makeshift shelter, as well as RVs, vans, and cars occupied during the homeless counts, conducted early in the morning before sunrise.

October also marked one year since the Project Homekey site opened at the former Deano's Motel and Sunburst Motel at 3868 and 3900 Sepulveda Blvd. The city was awarded a Rehabilitation Development of the Year Award for the project at the 2024 Annual Homes Within Reach Awards.

"It used to be a motel, and now it is temporary and permanent housing for our community," McMorrin said. "We are really proud of that."

McMorrin has been a vocal advocate for the city's five-member Mobile Crisis Team and other care-first tools to address homelessness, and she celebrated the team's March launch at the State of the City address. The team responds to both housed and unhoused residents and could potentially expand to respond to domestic violence calls.

Another part of her platform has been representing minority voices. June's Culver Pride is the continuation of an event she started with the help of council member Freddy Puza and projected 2024 election winner Bubba Fish. At the address, she also celebrated the release of a Culver City Historical Study, which Puza also helped with.

Firm Architecture Resources Group completed this 58-page study on March 12 after a multiple-year-long process to see its completion through. It explores the complex racial history of Culver City, looking at elements like zoning, housing, and job market discrimination through records along with first and third-person accounts. The study's scope goes as far back as the history of the indigenous tribes on the land before Culver's plans and covers up to the modern day.

"This is a key piece to the story here in Culver City," McMorrin said. "We have to know our past to move forward...I am very grateful to continue that equity work."

The city also celebrated its first formal celebration of United Against Hate Week on September 25, which included several local events.

"I am proud of the fact we were able to support the community with more resiliency and bystander training," McMorrin said.

On the economic front, McMorrin has been active in supporting small businesses. She showed pictures of her meeting with several unions on picket lines and mentioned writing letters on their behalf. She also successfully pushed for a Community Budget Workshop this year to allow community members more input on the city's yearly spending.

"It's a huge deal to make sure that the community understands where our money is going," McMorrin said. "I always say our budget is a living document that reflects our values."

McMorrin has also worked on partnerships between public and private entities over the past year. The business community was a clear focus of many of the city's strategic goals, which the city council set this year for the first time in five years.

She participated on a panel highlighting public-private partnerships at the 10th Annual African American Mayors Conference in April, along with Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson and Atlanta, GA Mayor Andre Dickens.

"I learned a lot from being in that space," McMorrin said.

She said that community feedback prompted her to push for more opportunities to create public-private partnerships and ways to support the Culver City Chamber of Commerce.

But while her policy is the key to her platform, she still remembers the significance of her place as the first female African-American councilmember and mayor in Culver City's history, noting that she is also part of the first generation of African American women born with the right to vote.

"In a sundown town, a town where folks who weren't white were not welcome after the sun went down, I am the first black woman to serve," McMorrin said. "That's important."