Blog: A Vote for Santa Monica Is a Vote for Your Wellbeing

The City of Santa Monica is in the home stretch of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge, where we could win up to $5 million to measurably improve wellbeing in our community.

You can see a video of the submission to the right of this post and lend your vote by clicking here.

According to Mayor Pam O'Connor, "Santa Monica answered this call to action with what I believe is the greatest, most challenging, and pressing issue of all: protecting and promoting human wellbeing. Specifically, how can cities use limited resources more effectively to create conditions needed for people to thrive?"

She explains in an article in the Huffington Post that the idea might seem a little out there to some, but the notion of monitoring a community's wellbeing is well practiced outside the public sector.

It's a relatively new concept for city government.

By creating a wellbeing index, the City hopes to look at things like family life, neighborhood safety, quality of schools, parks and services and then make sure all our departments are working together to improve people's lives. Thomas Jefferson said in 1809—The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the only legitimate object of good government. Old ideas never die!