Beach Cities Progress Report 2011
Easy Reader recently invited local civic and business leaders to share their thoughts on the most pressing issues in their fields. Three themes emerged from their responses. Read the full story.
Shade for the community – My inspiration in opening Shade Hotel in 2006 was to create a place where people love to eat.
My inspiration in opening Shade Hotel in 2006 was to create a place where people love to eat. Essentially, I am a food guy. One of the things I’ve always hated about hotel restaurants and events is the food. It’s my opinion that other than the bride, the most important thing at a wedding is the food. I wanted to create a venue where the food tastes as good as the bride looks. And where breakfast in the morning is as delicious as the previous night’s sleep on the Tempur-Pedic mattress.
The accidental city of the future
Because our long history precedes most regulatory codes, the city’s development pattern has been organic rather than planned, and has resulted in an eclectic mix of architecture, without exhibiting any specific identity or type. This has resulted in a charming and uniquely livable community, we confidently call the “best little beach city”.
Community Development : Planning to preserve a healthy, homey Manhattan Beach
Community Development is where vision and planning meet execution, ripe with all the challenges and benefits that come with implementation of a common set of goals — that is to preserve what we love about Manhattan Beach while adapting to our ever changing needs.
Manhattan’s elected officials meet each year to discuss the community’s top issues and make recommendations to address these issues, in conformance with the City’s General Plan. The General Plan establishes the goals and policies. It’s also the mechanism to guide future development.
Up close and personal policing — by Greg Savelli, Hermosa Beach Police Chief
A multitude of factors will shape the future of law enforcement. The most obvious is the economy. As we recover from the worst economic downturn in over 80 years, law enforcement, and public service in general, will emerge much different from when we began to confront this challenge. We must be leaner, more cost effective and value driven. The challenge will be to do this while delivering the level of service that is the mainstay of our own existence.
Green is the new green
We have been building homes largely the same way for the last 75 years. All of a sudden everything from drywall to ducting is on the table. And I am telling you, even though the sexy stuff like solar panels and greywater systems get most of the headlines, it’s the small strategies that add up to big results. Attach a rain barrel to the end of your gutter downspouts and you’ve got free water you can use for your garden.
Kids’ health care needs rethinking
Like most boys their age, Mitch and Spencer Russo love baseball. They play it, they watch it and they cheer for it. Not only can they tell you the stats of their favorite ball players, but these boys also love video games, popping wheelies on their bikes and shooting spitballs. They probably remind you of someone you know – a neighbor, a nephew, a friend or even your own son. But unlike most boys their age, Mitch and Spencer have Cystic Fibrosis.
Spring awakening at the beach – pick your favorite three businesses and spend $50 at each
The vibrant quality of these two small towns is easily understood by walking through the streets (think Vitality Cities) and experiencing the unique personality of each establishment.
Allen Sanford: Played real good, for free — Why has a beautifully written song been reduced to a 99 cent purchase?
I own a music venue, and every day it gets harder for me to understand the business of music. I see hundreds, if not thousands of artists a year, performing at Saint Rocke in an effort to make a living on music. Increasingly, I hear the same thing from them: “Our fans love the music we create, but they are less and less inclined to support our music making endeavors.” In other words, we [the consumer] love to listen, but hate to pay for it.
They have a very valid point. Think about it.
Look in the mirror — The healthcare system in our country cannot afford our cavalier attitude toward our own health, by Keyvan Hariri, MD
The most promising new advancement in medicine won’t come from the medical industry. It will come from you. It will be the lifestyle choices you make to minimize your chances of getting a serious disease, and to minimize the disease’s impact if it occurs.
We have an aging population and we have the sickest population in the world. Undeveloped countries suffer from parasites and diseases of poor sanitation. We suffer from “diseases of lifestyle affluence.” These include cancer (colon, lung, breast, leukemia, stomach and liver), diabetes, coronary heart disease, and chronic respiratory diseases.
Continuing to soar — Redondo Unified School District superintendent Steven Keller
Education, like many businesses, is in an era of slim times. Districts around the nation have been required to make drastic cuts. Students, parents, staffs, and the communities, themselves, have suffered from cuts in public education funding. We can only speculate on what the long-term consequences of these deep reductions will be.
Fortunately, to date, thanks to the exceptional work of the RBUSD staff and our community, our schools have remained largely unscathed. We are recognized throughout the state for our rising student achievement scores. Our self-proclaimed, multi-year instructional improvement plan is nicknamed “Good to Great.” While times are indeed difficult, we do the business of educating children a little differently around here. We get the job done.
The great news transition — Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily promises to free the news media from financial dependency on advertisers with its Apple iPad subscription delivery.
The reason migrating to the internet won’t save newspapers is because rising newsprint costs aren’t the problem. If it were, newspapers would do what they did in the past – raise advertising rates. Young people preferring to get their news online isn’t the problem, either. Newspapers have been available on line for over a decade. The current recession is a problem, but presumably, it’s a temporary problem. The media part of the news media business model is not what’s broken. What’s broken is the advertiser-supported part of the business model.
A good time for small banks.
Slow and steady — that is the new normal as the nation’s economy recovers in 2011 from a difficult fiscal year. Financial institutions across the country will begin to see glimpses of stabilization within the industry.
Market needs movement to move
The well documented collapse of the secondary markets for residential mortgages eventually worked its way into even the wealthiest marketplaces. By the time Fannie and Freddie collapsed in the summer of 2008, inventories of spec new homes were near an all time highs in Manhattan Beach. The record prices of 2007 and early 2008 began to give ground. The perfect storm of inventory peaking at the same time the jumbo loan market evaporated, augmented by a plummeting stock market and general economic turbulence, finally resulted in the malady spreading to our shores in late 2008.
Small is beautiful, again: Walking to dinner or to your favorite watering hole gives you a feeling of belonging.
Small shop owners face a particular challenge when economic times are tough. There is no big corporation to lean on, but that very problem contains the solution. Retailers in Riviera Village are delighting in the flexibility they have as independent retailers. A single brick and mortar store run and often staffed by the owner brings a personal touch to every working part of the retail machine, offering opportunities almost forgotten and nearly extinct in today’s Big Box world.
Galleria goes local
Not long ago, retail stores depended upon newspaper and radio advertising, point-of-purchase promotions and word-of-mouth to ensure that quotas and growth projections were met. How times have changed. While traditional media still plays a part in driving sales at the South Bay Galleria, strategic marketers are arming themselves with multiple layers of communications technology, which is changing at a rapid pace and creating new ways to reach a new, young, hip clientele.