Pool play
Dear ER:
In Re “Manhattan Council considers two plans for Begg Pool upgrades”, ER 5/11/24: The best news coming from last week’s Manhattan City Council meeting is the Bay Club’s interest in building a pool facility on the City’s parking lot that is adjacent to the Bay Club “Manhattan Council considers two plans for Begg Pool,” ER May 9, 2024). If Manhattan wants an aquatics center, then the Bay Club proposed site is far superior than trying to shoehorn an Aquatics Center into Polliwog Park. It’s a great deal if the City just provides the land with Bay Club paying for building of the Aquatics Center.
Let’s get real here. The City can’t, and will never be able to, afford the $27 million Option 1, Renovating Begg Pool; or the $40 million Option 2, adding a second regional water polo competition pool. Also, it is legally questionable if the City can pay for a school pool or a second school “water polo” competition pool.
Here is the solution for those who want an Aquatics Center. Explore Aquatics Center partnerships with the Bay Club, Beach Cities Health District, and the City of Redondo Beach. Meanwhile, the MBUSD should add the Begg Pool site plan that was approved in their 2015 Long Range Facilities Plan to their facilities bond measure on the November ballot. That approved site plan just built a new Begg Pool with more open space.
If our elected officials don’t start exercising some common sense, then we will have wasted a lot of time and money with no solution being adopted.
Mark Burton
Manhattan Beach
Friendship lesson
Dear ER:
Beach Cities Health District could learn a thing or two from The Friendship Foundation and Homeboy Industries. These two organizations serve their target populations spectacularly well, are financially self sustaining, and do not burden the taxpayer. BCHD on the other hand, has taxation baked into their DNA. The District was created in the 1950’s to build a hospital through property taxation. The hospital opened in 1960 and became obsolete and ceased operations in By all rights, BCHD should have ceased to exist at that time because the purpose for its establishment was now gone. But in mission creep over the years that would make GW blush, BCHD is still here, serving an ever narrowing population and proving that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary tax. Sure, I know the argument, if it dissolves, the tax doesn’t go away it just gets absorbed into a bloated bureaucratic county budget. So why not spend the money locally? Fine. But not only does BCHD get our tax money, it has over 250,000 square feet of income property. So how dare it even consider coming back to us for more as a bond issue.
Warren Barr
Hermosa Beach
New isn’t necessary
Dear ER:
BCHD now wants a $30 million taxpayer bond issue after it spent $4,500 per foot on a bike path? I don’t think so. The bond is supposedly for the allcove building and demolition of the South Bay Hospital building. Neither one of those proposals is a good use of district taxpayer funds.
allcove is an LA County Service Planning Area 8 program that encompasses a 1.4 million population. Of that, the District is only 120,000 or 9%. Why does BCHD believe that 9% of the service area should pay $10M for the allcove building and upgrades out of the total $17 million cost? The irrationality doesn’t end there. BCHD received a meager $6 million state grant toward the cost of the allcove building, and that grant required BCHD agree to operate the building and its health services for at least 30 years. BCHD has no funding past mid-2025. That leaves District taxpayers at risk for the $100 million that 30 years of allcove program operations will cost. Sure, BCHD will apply for grants year after year, but District residents and taxpayers are always the backstop for that $100 million risk BCHD signed us up for. If grants don’t completely fund it, District taxpayers, only 9% of the allcove service area, are on the hook.
BCHD continues to pitch the fiction that the hospital building must be torn down because it doesn’t meet current seismic standards. That’s nonsense. BCHD’s Youssef consultants told the Community Working Group in writing that no upgrades are required to continue use of the building. My 2015 car doesn’t meet current safety standards. My 2020 refrigerator doesn’t meet current energy standards. My 1966 house doesn’t meet current seismic standards. Should I landfill the car and refrigerator and demolish the house? That’s what BCHD suggests is the fiscally responsible solution.
It’s crazy talk to suggest that every building that doesn’t meet current seismic standards should be demolished. If BCHD were truly concerned about the failed Hospital building’s safety, why is it occupied today and collecting rent?
Just say NO to a BCHD bond for allcove and just say no to building demolition.
Mark Nelson
Redondo Beach
