by Garth Meyer
A large crowd converged in the Redondo Union High School auditorium Sunday afternoon, March 3, to remember the life and city work of late mayor Bill Brand.
Local, county and state officials paid respects, along with family and friends. Outside, guests were handed a program and a biodegradable business card which may be planted in the ground, embedded with the seed of a wildflower.
The event, put on by the city, was emceed by newly appointed Mayor Jim Light and started with the tenor of the South Bay, Dennis McNeil, singing in tribute.
Remarks began with an elegy from poet Linda Neal.
“His almost-lisp charmed as much as it whistled truth against lies,” Neal said. “He fought to keep the waterfront a waterfront.”
Brand’s brother, Mac, told the crowd he still remembers, at age 3, when their parents brought Bill home from the hospital, young Mac thinking he would be “trouble.”
He told of how, as adults, Mac was living in Chicago, and Bill came out to visit and marveled at the parks along Lakeshore Drive, saying that Redondo had to get parks like that.
“Everybody knows there’s going to be a Bill Brand Park,” Mac said, to applause.
Steve Colin, former city councilman and the mayor’s attorney the past seven years, told of Brand’s effect on people.
“Many times the guys were worse than the women, in terms of crushes on Bill,” he said.
Brand’s widow, Dierdre, was introduced and she walked to the podium with a piece of paper. She said she had just written out what to say an hour before.
“I didn’t want there to be a closing chapter on the book of Bill,” she said.
.”… I gave him health insurance, he gave me flight benefits.”
“East of the 405 was not a place he ever wanted to be.”
She told of his surfing trips around the world before they met, and being surprised when Brand said he would never go back again. He had returned to some of them and they had “been ruined” by development.
She told of the endeavor that became Brand’s mission the last 20-plus years of his life.
“Now his own place was about to lose the last 50 acres of California coastline,” Diedre said, referring to a planned new power plant at the AES site, if not condominiums and more commercial projects.
Something his brother Mac said, she carried further.
“Bill usually didn’t work very hard at anything,” Diedre said, to laughter. “I’m serious.”
“But if he had a bone in his mouth, let me tell you. I lived with him.”
“Nature is life’s greatest teacher. It should be for everyone, not just those that can afford it,” she said, and put out a call for “new recruits for the Brand Army.”
“God bless you, Bill. You were a major pain in the ass, but I loved you.”
The crowd stood and applauded.
City Manager Mike Witzansky spoke, who has worked for the city longer than Brand represented it as a two-term city councilmember, then 13 months short of two-term mayor.
“He didn’t do any of this for him. He did it out of love for Redondo Beach, and all of us, and we’re forever grateful for it,” Witzansky said.
Mayor Light, who described Brand as his “best friend,” referred to a remark made by planning commission member Rob Gaddis, who called Brand a “hyperactivist.”
“Bill was successful because he was one of us,” Light said. “Bill’s vision is the community’s vision.”
Nils Nehrenheim, a city councilman and close confidant of Brand, gave a broad view.
“The California coast is never saved, it always needs saving, and Bill knew that,” he said. “Leadership is nothing without vision, and vision is nothing without leadership.”
Councilman Todd Loewenstein told of how Brand interviewed with the financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald, in the late ‘90s after finishing a degree in finance. Had he taken the job, Loewenstein said, Redondo Beach may have never known his advocacy, as Cantor Fitzgerald is the New York firm that lost 700 employees at the World Trade Center on September 11th.
“Can anyone picture Bill working in an office all day?” Loewenstein said. “It made sense that he worked outdoors for 40 years at LAX.”
Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr., said, “I reckon he was the greatest mayor Redondo Beach will ever see.”
City Attorney Mike Webb, another figure who has been at city hall for Brand’s whole political career, praised his “passion and persistence.”
“In all candor, I could’ve frequently done with a little less persistence,” he said.
Webb praised Brand’s efforts on AES, and then a mayor’s request for the city attorney’s office to come up with something to address homelessness.
“I gave him a firm no. The first time,” Webb said.
He noted what Brand was like after his lung cancer diagnosis.
“Far from ever pacing himself, he doubled down, because he knew that time can be short.”
“He was the human embodiment of a verb,” said Eugene Solomon, city treasurer, citing what Brand gave up to pursue his causes.
“Personal sacrifice. Professional sacrifice. Financial sacrifice. Good waves.”
Beverly Hills City Councilman John Mirisch paid tribute to his “Our Neighborhood Voices” colleague.
“Bill deserved to be governor, he should’ve been president. But all he ever wanted to do was serve the residents of Redondo Beach,” he said.
Then he spoke as if hearing from Brand, in that moment.
“Yes, yes, I know. There’s work to be done; let’s do it.”
L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell told of working with Bill the past two years, culminating in a phone call she got from him in December, asking if she will be at the closing ceremony for the AES plant New Year’s Eve afternoon. She had already sent a note saying that she unfortunately could not make it. Brand called her again a few days later. “Are you coming? Ben Allen is going to be there.”
Mitchell said, “First of all, (State Senator) Ben Allen is not the boss of me, and he has his wife and child at home. I am a single lady and I have a date that night.”
“And he laughed and laughed.” Mitchell said.
County Supervisor Janice Hahn spoke, quoting the Book of Galatians in the Bible, and thanking those who were with Brand at the end.
“Mayors come and go. Supervisors come and go,” Hahn said, though sometimes a public official is remembered for generations.
“Bill Brand was that man,” Hahn said. “And our collective hearts are broken.”
State Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi told of going surfing with Brand at Malaga Cove.
“The beautiful cliffs, the blue ocean, and he’s talking about RHNA numbers,” he said, referring to state housing requirements.
Muratsuchi told of how, after he was first elected, he took in all sides of the debate over whether to shut down the AES plant.
“Bill and the Brand army; you showed me the light,” he said.
Senator Allen was last to speak.
“First off, I am not the boss of Holly Mitchell,” he said.
He told of Brand’s “friendliness, doggedness, kindness and relentlessness.”
“It was a lot of work and a lot of fun,” Allen said. “We’re going to miss him, tremendously. God bless you, Bill Brand.” ER
