Three candidates are running for two open seats on the Manhattan Beach City Council in March. Amy Howorth and David Lesser, who were elected to the council in 2011, are running for reelection. Running against them is attorney Bill Victor.
Amy Howorth
Amy Howorth never saw herself running for office. But as a Manhattan Beach mom, she saw a need for better communication between the school board and parents.
“I always felt it was us against the school board,” she said.
So she ran for the board in 2003 and was elected. After serving eight years, she ran for the Manhattan Beach City Council in 2011.
She saw her role on the school board then as she sees her role on the council now: a facilitator who gets things done.
“I don’t want everyone to agree,” she said. “I want everybody to understand and move forward.”
She also wants to “be brave” and say out loud what others might be afraid to say. Otherwise, she said, it “wastes a lot of time.”
Howorth moved with her family to Manhattan Beach in 1997 for her husband’s work.
“We were only going to stay two years,” she said. “Within two weeks, I was like, ‘This is awesome.’”
She enjoyed taking her two young sons for walks on the Strand at night.
“You can say this community is special because of the beach, or the weather,” she said. “I think it’s really special because—it sounds corny—you’ve got really engaged people living here.”
Howorth was born and raised in Ohio, where her dad owned the town bar. After attending Ohio University, she moved to Boston, where she met her future husband. He asked her to move to San Francisco, where she worked as a photo editor for Wired magazine. The couple moved to Manhattan Beach while her husband started a Los Angeles office for his law practice.
She said she joined the council at a time of “turmoil” and “tension in the community.” The council had just hired a new city manager, David Carmany, after going over a year without a city manager.
“I came in and there was not a lot of trust in the process and the council,” said Howorth. “We spent a lot of energy trying to rebuild that trust.”
She includes fellow councilmember David Lesser in that effort, saying, “He really made that his mission.”
From December 2013 to September of this year, Howorth served as mayor. (Each councilmember serves as mayor at some point during their four-year term.) Her proudest accomplishments during that time were passing Breathe Free Manhattan Beach, the public smoking ban, and an extension of the ban on polystyrene and plastic bags. She is also proud that even though she was running for Ted Lieu’s state senate seat at the time, she “didn’t miss one city council meeting.”
“Even on election night, I came so we could vote on the smoking ban,” she said.
(Howorth eventually withdrew from the race and endorsed Ben Allen, who won.)
Howorth thinks her time on the school board gave her the leadership experience necessary to be on the council.
“I’m used to making a decision in a room of 100 people telling me I’m wrong,” she said.
Which is not to say that she doesn’t care about residents’ opinions, Howarth said. But she keeps in mind that the town’s entire population isn’t in the room at every council meeting, and that she must take everyone’s view into account.
She looks at her job with a metaphor passed down by a mentor on the school board.
“When you’re fighting a fire, all you see is what’s in front of you,” she said. “Our job as the fire chief is to be 15,000, 30,000 feet in the air in the helicopter.”
David Lesser
Unlike most of the Manhattan Beach council, David Lesser has a full-time job on top of his council position, which he said “can be a full-time job” in itself. So how does he balance it all?
“My family allows me to do this,” he said. “My wife has been very generous in supporting the family.”
In his other job, Lesser works as a corporate attorney. After college, he took the unusual route of obtaining a master’s degree in law at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He thought he would use it to negotiate international intellectual property treaties. But meeting his wife led him to California, where he got the more traditional JD at Loyola Law School. Since then, he’s worked in litigation and even served as a judge pro tem for over 10 years at the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
Lesser said his background as a lawyer informs his work as a councilmember.
“It is as important to listen and frame questions well as to pronounce opinions and come to conclusions,” he said.
At the final meeting on the Manhattan Village Mall, which the council ultimately approved, Lesser asked the developer why it took six months to respond to the council’s proposal. His question drew a hearty applause and some cheers from the audience.
When asked about his proudest achievements during his time as a councilmember, Lesser first mentioned his accessibility to residents.
“I pride myself on being out in the community,” he said.
In particular, he’s focused on the older adult community, serving as the council liaison to the Senior Advisory Committee.
“I want people to stay and enjoy the benefits of living in Manhattan Beach,” he said. “The city, at not such a great cost, can add to the quality of life of older adults.”
He gave the Dial-a-Ride program as an example, and the intergenerational symposiums, which he started.
As Howorth mentioned, Lesser has also made it his mission to build the community’s trust in the council.
“Some people never agree,” he said. “But when you have an open, transparent process, there’s greater faith in the final outcome.”
To that end, he served on the council’s Open Government subcommittee, which he said focused on “ways to bring the public in on the decision-making.”
When the council approved the four new city government positions proposed by City Manager Mark Danaj, Lesser was the sole dissenting vote. He warned his colleagues that they “had not brought the public along” on the process. An uproar ensured, with many residents objecting to the cost of the new positions. Ultimately, Danaj announced he would not fill the positions.
Lesser said that there are five areas he wants to continue to work on if reelected. First, he wants to make sure the city is “fiscally responsible.” Second, he wants Southern California Edison to continue to update its aging infrastructure.
“We have more outages than some third world countries,” he said.
Third, as a Neighborhood Watch block captain, he wants to educate residents on crime prevention. Fourth, he wants to invest in the city’s infrastructure, like continuing to replace old sewer lines and building a community pool. And fifth, he wants to continue “promoting and preserving the small town character.”
“Manhattan Beach is best known for its beaches and its pier,” he said. “What I love is its small town sense of community.”
Bill Victor
Bill Victor is not currently on the council, but he is a vocal and regular presence at the meetings.
He ran for the council twice before, though he was not elected. For the upcoming election, he said he asked “a lot of others” to run. But when they all decided not to, he chose to give it another try.
“So I said, fine, I’ll run,” he said. “I don’t want to just sit and make suggestions. I want to really participate and put my money where my mouth is. And my time.”
Born on Long Island, Victor attended Brown University as an undergrad. After being accepted into law school, the threat of being drafted sealed his decision.
“I had one day to decide to go into the infantry or law school,” he said.
Brooklyn Law School was willing to take him right away, so he went there and earned a degree in two and a half years.
Licensed to practice in both New York and California, Victor has practiced many different types of law, including trademark and copyright, employment and environmental. He’s also served as litigation counsel for large corporations.
He said he doesn’t plan on retiring any time soon.
“I do law because I like it,” he said. “It’s just like going to a movie for me—sometimes better.”
Lately, he’s been defending people with DUIs. He believes that cities, affected by the economy, have been overly rigorous in handing out tickets.
“Municipalities are strapped for money,” he said. “I think they’re going overboard. I don’t want people’s lives to be ruined. Because of the economy, people are victims.”
Victor is especially critical of the police.
“They should be more concerned with robberies, and less concerned with tickets,” he said.
Victor started a police watch after his own run-in with the Manhattan Beach Police Department in 2000. According to Victor, he made a right turn on Sepulveda Boulevard while leaving Taco Bell when he was arrested for making an illegal turn. He said that he was handcuffed and his car towed. He sued the city, saying they hadn’t put up the proper signage and that he had suffered nerve damage on his left wrist from the handcuffs being too tight. The two parties ultimately settled.
“I didn’t want to spend the city’s money, but I believe in civil rights,” he said. Through his police watch, he tries to get people attorneys who feel they have been unfairly targeted.
As critical as he is of the police, he is effusive in his praise of the fire department.
“We have the best fire department in the world,” said Victor. “It’s one of the attractions of living here. People who are older can depend on a very fast response time from the fire department.”
One of Victor’s biggest concerns is for the older adult community, which he believes struggles to afford the rising costs of living in Manhattan Beach.
“I’m worried about the people I really love in the community,” he said. “I don’t want them to leave.”
He points to the cost of water, which he said costs him $100 per month in Manhattan Beach, compared with $84 for six months in New York, where he has a house.
He noted that the city wouldn’t be having an election if he hadn’t decided to run, which the city clerk’s office confirmed.
“I think people should ask questions,” he said. “I want to make it the best place to live possible.”
