The “thanks” in giving
Dear ER:
Prior to the recent passing of my wife Tina, her lunch dining routine entailed a call to the Madame Tomate deli on Aviation Boulevard in Manhattan Beach for home delivery. Her call would normally be answered by a food delivery person. However, on this particular day her call was answered by Karina, the deli owner. The order was taken and the food delivered to our home by Karina. During their conversation my wife commented that she liked the sterling necklace that Karina was wearing. Karina than placed the necklace around the neck of my wife, who wore the necklace every day until she passed. About a week after the passing of my wife Tina, I took the sterling necklace back to the deli. Karina asked if my wife was dissatisfied with her food because she had not called for additional nourishment I shared the sad news that my wife had passed. Karina began to weep. I than handed the necklace to her and explained that my wife had cherished wearing the necklace that was the object of her act of unselfish giving. Karina later sent me a text stating that she was grateful that her act of generosity was impactful on the last days of my wife’s life, So was I.
Gary Brutsch
Manhattan Beach
It’s the grid, stupid
Dear ER:
How wasteful and stupid (“Hermosa council to continue dual plans study for green energy,” ER Nov. 12, 2015). Nearly $80,000 that could be used for stormwater diversion is going to a consultant to study reaming Hermosa residents and business with so called, renewable electricity. I wonder if the proponents of this initiative can differentiates a renewable electron from a non renewable electron?
City efforts to purchase renewable electricity is nothing but symbolistic crapola, conscripting Hermosans to paying considerably more for electricity. If you’re on the gird, you are consuming the same portion of renewable electricity, regardless of how much you pay. Electric generation is all aggregated, with renewable being first in line. So offering to pay more doesn’t do anything except enrich a few folks who prey on greenies. It’s the same grid.
Robert Benz
Hermosa Beach
Opportunity knocks
Dear ER:
The suspension of the AES application is an amazing opportunity for Redondo (“AES to suspend new powerplant pursuit,” ER Nov. 12, 2015). With 50 acres from AES and the 15 pier acres CenterCal has its sights on, this is an opportunity to reinvent our city.
CenterCal plans to build the equivalent of 42 Kincaid’s restaurants on the 15 pier acres, including a three story parking structure next to the new bike path. We need to combine the planning of this area into a place we can be proud of. Why would we want our pier to become the equivalent of the redesigned Long Beach Pike with its chain stores and restaurants. Do we need to shop at The Gap on the oceanfront when we have Del Amo, the Manhattan Mall, The Point, and El Segundo Plaza all a short distance away? Is that our vision?
The voters in Redondo Beach have twice voted for a park on the AES site. And yes, they also voted to have their pier refurbished. Would they have voted yes had they known what CenterCal (and some of our elected officials) had in mind? I doubt it. Consider the height of the Shade Hotel. Is that really something we want along the entire harbor? We will become a Marina Del Rey with our line of towering buildings that only hints of a harbor and ocean.
Let’s plan an area we can be proud of. A place we can visit with our families, friends and neighbors. Let’s not mess this up.
Gale Steubs Hazeltine
Redondo Beach
Opportunity sucks
Dear ER:
This is great news (“AES to suspend new power plant pursuit,” ER Nov. 12, 2015). However, who in the world would buy the AES property with Councilman Bill Brand and his group waiting to pounce on any potential buyer. I will be 6 feet under before the property is ever developed into something that’s good for the citizens of Redondo Beach.
Ray Benning
Website comment
Opportunity knocks again
Dear ER:
Redondo Beach Councilman Bill Brand doesn’t have a “group.” But he does have many fellow Redondo Beach residents who despise what the overdevelopment crowd is continuously trying to shove down our throats (“AES to suspend new power plant pursuit,” ER Nov. 12, 2015). With this news, it is clear Brand’s vision has been right all along, while the Measure B supporters and Chamber clowns remained blinded by their own feckless, divisive myopia.
Jack Dawkins
Website comment
Will Redondo see the AES light
Dear ER:
If there’s one thing AES has taught this community over the past decade or so, it’s that they’re reliably untrustworthy.
Most recently, AES raised the fury of anyone who understands land use regulatory processes when they brought forward Measure B — in which AES attempted to bully their way to gross overdevelopment (and greatly reduce the city’s regulatory authority) by totally averting public process via a ballot initiative.
Measure B failed at the polls, but it succeeded in removing any and all lingering doubt that AES is now merely looking to maximize the unearned return on their property as they blow town, wholly uncaring of the resulting damage to the community.
Yet just as the Redondo City Council finally begins to take baby steps in leadership after so many painful years of just playing the patsy, it’s now unimaginable why the city would not immediately move forward to, at the very least, remove the long outdated industrial use from the zoning for this prime waterfront parcel. Since AES now claims they will market the property for non-industrial uses, they ought have no objection to the zoning being changed accordingly.
But instead, yet another deal with the devil is somehow viewed by the city as cause for yet further pause, rather than added opportunity to act. How many times before it learns must the Redondo City Council provide continued periods of inaction, only to allow AES to formulate their latest iteration of a plan to screw the community over, yet again?
Gerry O’Connor
Manhattan Beach,
Sea Breeze cleared the way
Dear ER:
The Redondo Beach city council shot itself in the foot when it approved the Sea Breeze (Cape Point) project at 1914-1926 Pacific Coast Highway (“Redondo Council leaves mixed-use moratorium on table,” ER Oct 22, 2015). I agree with City Attorney Mike Webb’s assessment that the Sea Breeze approval weakens the council’s argument for a moratorium. This is yet another reason why the Sea Breeze project was so pivotal to the other projects that are in the pipeline. The mayor, council and city attorney Webb just rolled over when they had the opportunity to create a viable change.
Bruce Szeles
Torrance
Silicon beach housing
Dear ER:
Redondo Community Development Director Aaron Jones says people are tired of commuting to work, which I would agree with (“Mixed feelings on development in Redondo Beach,” ER Nov. 5, 2015). But to say they have to get in their cars to shop isn’t accurate. Our Redondo neighborhood has a walkscore of 79, on a scale of 0-100, which means nearly everything needed on a daily basis is within walking distance. So do most places in Redondo. I grew up in an area where the walkscore is 8.
If you are tired of commuting now, just wait until we add more cars on to the road. Why not add more office space and attract high paying tech jobs and companies to the area instead of building mixed use with mostly retail space on the bottom? Building mixed use does not help the average family and it won’t save them a commute to their job at the T-Mobile store.
It is a canard to suggest that building new multi-dwelling unit (MDU), high density housing will affect the supply-demand equation. Even if you added another 10 percent to the 30,000 housing units in town, which would be a lot, it would hardly make a dent in pricing. Those units don’t compete with three and four bedroom places in town, and the area has many surrounding cities. Plus no developer is going to buy the land and take a bath on the pricing. They know exactly what they are going to charge, and it won’t be cheap. Take a look at Silicon Valley. Their prices aren’t going any lower, even though lots of MDUs are being built there. An equation like that only works in a closed loop environment, in a place with few options. LA isn’t one of them.
Todd Lowenstein
Redondo Beach
Mixed information
Dear ER:
Your mixed-use article is riddled with misinformation (“Mixed feelings on development in Redondo Beach,” ER Nov. 5, 2015). “Designed properly mixed use has a high trip capture rate.” Studies by the Institute of Traffic Engineers show the actual trip reduction are just 8 percent. Mixed use zoning of high density condos on top of a few small businesses is just not going to capture many trips. “If we built all commercial the traffic would be greater” is another misleading argument. You cannot build commercial to the same density that you can mixed use. Our zoning does not permit it. Second, commercial development will just capture traffic that will already be there anyway. If you are driving to a grocery store, you will already be on the road whether the market is in the new development or not. However, each new residential unit is six to eight new trips everyday and another group of commuters going out of Redondo every weekday to work.
What we need to fix is the mix of uses. We already have ample residential development. Of the 4,000 cities over 10,000 residents in the US we were number 132nd in density.Adding more people will just add more commuters who clog our already over-capacity roads and who won’t be spending money in Redondo during weekdays. We have too much residential, retail, and restaurants. We have too little high-end job producing office, professional, institutional and industrial uses that would bring weekday business to our retail and restaurant businesses.
As to the ludicrous assertion that Redondo offers a bad climate for developers, all evidence is to the contrary. Building is going on all over the city. And we have major projects lining up — new hotels, a mall by the sea, the redevelopment at the Galleria Mall, the Legado development, the SeaBreeze mixed use development, the Knob Hill school site, and new condos going up in nearly every area of the city. Redondo’s planning department is the developers biggest advocate. It’s never seen a development they didn’t like. If the city staff balanced the development, you would not have the resident grass roots opposition that is growing.
Jim Light
Redondo Beach
Council conflict
Dear ER:
I hope that no condos are built and more parkland is added the AES site (“AES to suspend new power plant pursuit,” ER Nov. 12, 2015). The city of Redondo Beach is already over-built and one of the most densely populated cities in America. The city is almost entirely concrete, with very little greenery or parkland. Councilman Jeff Ginsburg was the first council member to approve the Sea Breeze project, with 52 condos and 10,500 sq. ft. of commercial space on a very small parcel next to dangerous intersection. Mayor Steve Aspel could have vetoed the project, but took the side of the developer. Once again, the council shot down their own constituents (the people in District 1 who elected them and spoke against this project) and took the side of the out of town developer.
Suzanne McCune
Website comment
