Runners, stroller-pushers, and skateboarders may soon have something else to look at while cruising on the Hermosa Beach Strand after a divided City Council gave tentative approval to Leadership Hermosa’s plan add quarter-mile markers along the Strand wall, which protects The Strand from sand blowing off the beach.
The 3-1 vote at the council’s Tuesday night meeting approved half a dozen conditions for the project and sent the artwork proposed for the eight 12-by-18-inch signs to the Parks and Recreation Commission for approval. The vote brings closer to reality this year’s Leadership Hermosa project. The civic group selected the “Mark Your Mile” project in the fall and made a presentation to the council earlier this year. The council, citing the sensitivity of an installation along the seawall, asked the group to go before the Parks and Recreation Commission, which it did earlier this month.
The prospect for additional procedural back-and-forth made for a divided body on a night when Councilmember Mary Campbell, who would have served as a tie-breaking vote, was out ill. Mayor Jeff Duclos and Councilmember Hany Fangary wanted to advance the project at the meeting, without sending it back to the commission and said they were unsure why the group was being singled out for so much scrutiny.
“If they were to come before the commission and us again, that would be five times they’ve come before us. We have a million-dollar project on Eighth Street that we haven’t had five meetings on,” Fangary said.
But Mayor pro tem Stacey Armato and councilmember Justin Massey noted that the commission had expected the artwork would return to them and that it was important to follow procedures for a piece of city property as visible as The Strand wall.
“Let’s be crystal clear: your project was to install things on The Strand wall. It wasn’t going to sail through in a month,” Massey said.
