The moment of truth! The 2015 Streetsie winners are here!

We are disappointed to say that there have been some glitches this year.

Some glitches were our fault. I, Joe, not having used the poll feature much until these, my first Streetsies, take blame for these. The polls didn’t close when they were automatically supposed to. One poll inadvertently closed early and had to be re-opened.

There were also some glitches outside our control. Examining the votes, especially in the civil servant and business categories, we noticed some irregularities, including numerous cases where hundreds of votes (in one case over a thousand votes) came from the same location. While we are flattered that the glamorous SBLA Streetsie awards are so coveted that they have inspired such behavior, it made things more difficult for us to determine a legitimate winner. This morning, your SBLA staff spent more time than we intended reviewing the poll logs, tallying up the robo-votes we could find, and subtracting them from the popular vote totals to determine the winners of an adjusted popular vote. We then factored in the board and staff votes to establish final winners.

Read on to see the 2015 Streetsie winners and look forward to celebratory events later this year. Click individual links for poll results and descriptions of honoree accomplishments.

2015 Elected Official of the Year Award: Los Angeles City Councilmember Joe Buscaino

2015 Civil Servant of the Year Award: Dale Benson, Caltrans

2015 Livable Streets-Friendly Business of the Year Award: Tie!
City Fabrick
Hulu (with CycleHop)

2015  Journalist/Writer of the Year Award: Laura Nelson, Los Angeles Times

2015 Deborah Murphy Award for Excellence in Advocacy: Tie!
Tamika Butler, L.A. County Bicycle Coalition
Mark Lopez, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

2015 Livable Streets Advocacy Group Award: East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice

Kudos to all the nominees. SBLA appreciates the work you all are doing to make Southern California communities healthier, safer, happier and more livable. Keep up the important work and we look forward to covering all your great accomplishments in the years ahead.