By 
by Kevin Cody
Newly elected Hermosa Beach Councilmember Michael Keegan was expelled from an administrative hearing in the Hermosa Beach City Council Chambers by the hearing officer, Coleen Berg, on Thursday, February 6.
The hearing involved an appeal of a $2,500 short term vacation rental citation issued to Hermosa Avenue resident Todd Koerner.
“I went to the hearing because I wanted to learn more about Short Term Vacation Rentals (STVRs). I told the hearing officer, ‘I’m staying.’ She said she’d get someone to remove me. I didn’t want to get into a fist fight, so I left,” Keegan said.
Berg did not respond to a request for comment from Easy Reader.
Hermosa Beach City Attorney Patrick Donegan, who represented the city at the hearing, responded to a request for comment with an email sent by Public Information Officer Ryan Walker.
The email stated: “The Administrative Hearing Officer conducts hearings in the manner they deem appropriate. In this instance, the Hearing Officer made it clear the appeal hearing was not open to the public. This is consistent with past City appeal hearings, as well as standard practice for appeal hearings in other jurisdictions.”
Attorney Frank Angel, who represented Koerner, disagreed with Donegan’s reasoning. Angel said his client had not requested a closed hearing.
“The issue is not whether excluding anyone … is ‘standard practice’ with the city. The question is whether this so-called “standard practice” is legal. It is not. Nothing in the Hermosa Beach Municipal Code concerning appeals of administrative citations bars any third party from attending these appeal hearings, let alone gives the city attorney the power or right to show a council member the door.”
Keegan’s expulsion was the second time in recent months a councilmember has been asked to leave a city meeting in council chambers.
Councilmember Rob Saemann was asked to leave a Civic Facilities Community Advisory meeting in the Council Chambers last November.
“I refused to leave and stated I was there to observe and agreed not to participate. I stayed quietly until it was over,” Saeman said of meeting.
During the February 6 STVR hearing, Angel argued the citation issued to his client for renting out a room in his house, which is in the residential coastal zone, is illegal because the city’s ban on STVRs in the residential coastal zone is illegal. A ban would require the city to have a Coastal Commission-approved Coastal Development Permit, which the city does not have, Angel contended.
Angel made the same argument last August, on behalf of two other clients cited for illegal STVRs in Hermosa’s coastal zone. In both cases, before a different hearing officer, Angel prevailed and the city refunded the appellants’ $8,000 in fines.
Following those two decisions, City Attorney Donegan said in an email to Easy Reader, Hermosa would continue to enforce its STVR ban.
The email read, in part, “Hearing officers cannot invalidate or overturn duly adopted ordinances by the City. As such, the City will continue to enforce the short term rental ban as currently constituted.”
Hearing officer Berg, in her decision issued last Tuesday, February 18, denied Koerner’s appeal.
Berg noted Koerner did not dispute violating the city code, and that the issuance of the citation… “is deemed valid under the scope of these proceedings.”
Upon receiving Berg’s ruling, Angel said “This is an atrocious decision, flouting state law — the Coastal Act — while enforcing an unlawful local STVR ban in the coastal zone.”
Absent Coastal Commission approval, Angel has previously contended, “The City of Hermosa and their officials incur significant liabilities under the Coastal Act and the Bill of Rights by collecting fines from property owners in the Hermosa Beach coastal zone under STVR regulations they know have no legal effect.”
Hermosa Beach currently has over 300 Short Term Vacation Rental ads on sites such as Vrbo and Airbnb, according to the STVR analysis site AirDNA.
Most are in the residential coastal zone, west of Valley/Ardmore drives, where STVRs are illegal under the Hermosa municipal code. ER
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