To Texas with love
Ben Dale left Cleveland, Texas in 1985 with a truckload of memories.
He played football on both sides of the ball, as tight end and defensive end, under the Friday night lights of rural Texas for the Cleveland High School Indians. He worked in a BBQ joint, The Shack, owned by his dad’s fishing buddy Ronnie Lewis, who paid him $2 an hour — “Which even then was less than minimum wage,” Dale recalled — and all the BBQ he could eat.
Which, it turned out, was a whole lot of BBQ.
“If you interview Ronnie today, 35 years later, he’ll still say it almost shut him down,” said Dale, who these days is employed as principal of Mira Costa High School. “He says it’s the worst business move he ever made.”
And so when he learned in early September that Cleveland was almost entirely underwater after being slammed by Hurricane Harvey, Dale’s impulse was to get a truck and head back home. FEMA relief efforts, he learned, were all centered on Houston. Small towns like Cleveland (pop. 8,000) were left to fend for themselves.
“In fact, no one could get to Cleveland,” Dale said. “All the roads in were under 15 feet of water. They were completely cut off from everyone and everything.”
Dale called MBUSD Superintendent Mike Matthews.
“Let’s do something,” Matthews said.
Thus was born ACT, or Aid to Cleveland, Texas. What began with one man and a pickup truck grew into a citywide relief effort. The city and the school district set up drop off points for goods, and within days seven moving trucks loaded with supplies — including 900 hygiene kits, 3,000 pairs of Skechers shoes, and various other goods — headed for Texas.
David Lesser, who was mayor at the time, was awestruck by the outpouring of care.
“I am really just stunned by the concern from our community, and the interest in helping people, one-on-one,” Lesser said, as he helped load boxes of donated goods on the sidewalk outside City Hall the day before the convoy left.
One of the drivers was Councilperson Richard Montgomery, who is originally from Houston. The convoy drove 30 hours non-stop, distributed the goods, conducted a needs assessment, and took two of the trucks to Dallas to purchase more goods with nearly $60,000 in cash donations.
“You cared for us even though you did not know us, and for this, we will be eternally grateful,” Darrell Myers, the superintendent of the Cleveland Independent School District, wrote to Lesser. “While in the midst of such a devastating time, it was hard to believe there were Good Samaritans waiting to aid and comfort. Your kindness and humanitarianism speak volumes for the people of Manhattan Beach.”
Bright stars, dimmed
Less than a month after the community came together to help others in a time of tragedy, Manhattan Beach suffered its own tragedy. Two of the victims in the Oct. 1 mass shooting at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas were young women who had devoted their lives to helping others in this community.
Rachael Parker was the first person most people saw when they walked into the Manhattan Beach Police Department, the first voice they heard when they called. Parker was an MBPD records technician, but she was also part of the fabric of the department. At the police station’s front desk, she was an irrepressibly joyful presence, a smile always on her face, a joke never far from her lips.
Sandy Casey was a young woman fully in love. She loved her fiance, Christopher Willemse, and the adventure their lives together had begun, backpacking, attending country music concerts, running a half-marathon through the Grand Canyon, or just giggling at the beach. She loved the hundreds of students who passed through her classroom in her nine years as a special education teacher at Manhattan Beach Middle School, where she helped kids with whatever subject they might have been struggling with, but even more crucially taught them to learn how to learn.
Thousands of people gathered for a candlelight vigil at the Manhattan Beach pier honoring Parker, 33, and Casey, 35.
“Two new stars shine over our city. Don’t think of Rachael and Sandy as memories. Think of them as being here, in the present, their music echoing eternal tones,” Monsignor John Barry told the mourners.
Vista del Mar
On the Tuesday after Memorial Day weekend, Pat Mendelson arrived home from work later than usual. His wife, Karla, knew immediately something was wrong by the mournful look on his face.
“What happened?” she asked. “Who died?”
“They closed lanes on Vista Del Mar,” he replied.
Mendelson was one of the thousands of South Bay commuters impacted by the “road diet” implemented at the behest of LA City Councilperson Mike Bonin. Mendelson’s commute was already among the slowest 16-mile drives on Earth — it had steadily crept up over the years to 45 minutes heading north in the morning and 90 minutes returning in the early evening. With lane closures not only on Vista del Mar but also Jefferson and Culver boulevards, commuters like Mendelson were now looking at spending three to four hours a day going to work and back. They were outraged, as were Manhattan Beach officials, who’d been taken by surprise just as much as commuters by the abrupt lane closures. Local elected officials, including Councilperson Montgomery, then-mayor David Lesser, and Supervisor Janice Hahn, worked to find a solution. Vista Del Mar was reverted back to two lanes each way in July after Hahn worked out a deal in which LA County made its beach parking lots available for low-cost parking, thus negating the need for parking along the street. But South Bay drivers were still delayed in the more northern parts of their commute. A residents group called Keep LA Moving filed a lawsuit in August demanding the lanes be reopened.
Finally, on Oct. 18, Bonin announced all lanes would be restored.
Karla Mendelson, who’d spearheaded Keep LA Moving, said the moral of the tale was that commute times deeply matter to commuters and changes impacting those drivers should not be taken lightly.
“Projects like this impact people’s lives,” she said. “They are not just hypotheticals. These are real people and not just cars on the road. There are people in those cars, and those people have lives and needs. I understand there were a lot of unintended consequences, but the fact is procedure was not followed.”
New council
A new council majority was elected on March 7’s municipal election, an unusual result in that two incumbents was ousted. The election was also unusual by local standards for the anonymous attack flyers that targeted those two incumbents, Mark Burton and Tony D’Errico.
Planning commissioner Nancy Hersman took a seat on the council for the first time. She was joined by Richard Montgomery, who previously served from 2005 to 2013, and Steve Napolitano, who served from 1992 to 2005.
“I had no idea what the results were going to be. Tony and Mark ran good, clean campaigns,” Napolitano said. “I just want to thank them for their service. They are good people who did good work.”
Danaj departure
In a unanimous closed session vote on Dec. 14, afternoon, the Manhattan Beach City Council placed City Manager Mark Danaj on paid administrative leave. The move came in the wake of the quiet purging of two high-level administrative positions in November. Both the economic vitality manager and the assistant city manager positions were eliminated, though the city did not make the decision public. Sources within City Hall confirmed the positions were eliminated, effective Dec. 1, at a budget savings of nearly $500,000.
The moves, particularly staff reductions, were in keeping with campaign promises by councilmembers Nancy Hersman, Steve Napolitano and Richard Montgomery, all of whom were elected to council in March on campaigns that stressed greater fiscal restraint in city government.
“We study a lot, we delay a lot, and we spend money on things we don’t necessarily need,” Napolitano said during his campaign. “It’s time to get things done.”
Danaj was hired in 2014 and was under contract until 2020. If his departure becomes permanent, he would be the third city manager ousted by council in eight years.
Chief departure
Eve Irvine, the first female chief of police in Manhattan Beach and the fourth in the history of LA County, announced her departure after six-and-a-half years at the helm of MBPD.
Irvine will depart at the end of the year. She will be sworn in as chief of police for the Torrance Police Department Jan. 9. The City Council honored her at its last meeting of 2017.
“I don’t want to make this a woman thing because you are just a fabulous police chief,” said Councilperson Nancy Hersman said. “You started as a police officer, but you have shown such leadership — for other women, and girls, to show what they can do. It’s not a policeman, it’s a police officer. We are just proud you were our chief.”
“Thank you from all of us. Thank you from the women and girls in our community. And you are going to make that same impression in Torrance. They are lucky.”
Irvine, who wasn’t aware she was being honored until an hour before the meeting, was visibly moved by the council’s tribute.
“I want to thank the city for seeing something in me and giving me the opportunity to be the Manhattan Beach police chief. That was amazing. I’ve been humbled and honored to be a part of this city.”
Return of the Six-man
The 56th Annual Charlie Saikley Six-Man Volleyball Tournament marked a revival of a recently beleaguered tradition. Thousands of spectators returned to the tournament after City Council moved it back to the weekend.
In 2012, a year after nearly 70,000 riotous folks descended on what several national publications identified as one of the nation’s biggest parties, the City Council decided to dial it way back. They did so by moving the tournament, in which a mix of professional and amateur players play costumed, to Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
It worked almost too well. Few people could get away from work midweek for a volleyball tournament. The number of spectators dwindled, but so did the number of teams and the level of play. With fewer than 2,000 people attending annually, team sponsors fled; 198 teams entered in 2009, and only 47 in 2016.
The city gradually started dialing it back up, moving the tournament first to Wednesday-Thursday and last year Thursday-Friday.
But it still didn’t feel quite like the Six Man. So earlier this year, the City Council moved it partially back to the weekend, starting match play on Friday and ending it on Saturday. This time, the move worked exactly as was hoped. Moments after Team Fletch completed its stunning come-from-behind victory, its spokesperson (meaning the man with the megaphone and biggest wig), known as Presh (“I used to be Mark Presha,” he said.) declared the Six Man officially back.
“It’s absolutely back,” Presh said. “Now, [Team Fletch] came back two years ago. But now we are really back because it’s more of a real tournament again like it used to be.”
The battle over Gelson’s
After 30 months of often rancorous debate within the community, Gelson’s supermarkets in June finally won approval to build a grocery store on Sepulveda Boulevard.
The City Council approved a 27,900 sq. ft. Gelson’s and a 6,684 sq. ft. bank at a vacant site formerly occupied by an auto dealership.
An activist group called Manhattan Beach Residents for Responsible Development (MBRR) based their opposition to the store on traffic, parking, and neighborhood quality of life concerns. Nearby small businesses also worried that the high-end supermarket could displace locally-based stores.
Councilperson Steve Napolitano told residents that their concerns had been heard but that the project met city zoning requirements and represented as good a development as the city could hope for at the location.
“I really have to wonder what more we could get, what better [development] could go in there if it wasn’t this,” said Napolitano. “The concerns all you brought up are legitimate. There are some things we can do, and some things we can’t do. The things I am hearing tonight from folks…is that Gelson’s is good, but the impact is bad.”
Roundhouse renewal
A plan to transform the Roundhouse Aquarium into a state-of-the-art facility while retaining its historic charm came together this year.
The Harrison Greenberg Foundation Roundhouse Aquarium Beautification Project, which will modernize the iconic facility at the end city’s pier while staying true to its original 1917 design, emerged from tragedy. Harrison Greenberg was the 19-year-old son of Skechers president Michael Greenberg who passed away suddenly on a trip to Thailand on company business in 2015. The aquarium was one of Harrison Greenberg’s favorite places throughout his short life. So in honor of his son, Michael Greenberg spearheaded the project and donated $1.25 million to launch it. He also retained one of the foremost aquarium design firms in the world, Cambridge Seven, whose stunning redesign was overwhelmingly approved by the City Council and eight other public agencies (including the Coastal Commission) with jurisdiction over the pier. In early December, work officially began; the new Roundhouse will open by Memorial Day next year.
City officials believe the Roundhouse project is the largest public-private collaboration in the city’s recent history.
“It really struck me that this speaks to who we are here in Manhattan Beach,” said Mayor Amy Howarth. “This is what community does. We come and gather to celebrate the good, and we also stand by each other through the dark times.”
East MB revival
Three of the largest and most significant properties on the east side of Manhattan Beach all began a transformation in 2017.
The proposed renovation Manhattan Village mall finally overcame years of political and legal obstacles. Enhancements are already underway. The buildings with Ralph’s and the former Coco’s space are being remodeled and updated. The Macy’s expansion has started and the interior center court of the main mall is also undergoing an impressive transformation. These changes will all be completed within a year. The biggest addition will be the Village Shops, adding approximately 65,000 square feet. The Mall Plaza area will become an open-air environment with several fountains. The first phase will be completed in 2019.
A few blocks further east, the city’s largest hotel, formerly The Marriott, was transformed into an ultra-chic designer hotel called The Driftwood. Nearby, the Manhattan Beach Country Club sold for $73 million to high-end health club operator Bay Club.
