Location, location, location
Dear ER:
As a mother of two who lives downwind of the AES power plant, I am very disturbed by the misleading brochure the AES Corporation recently mailed to many of us, claiming their new plant was going to be “cleaner.” In fact, their new plant will dramatically increase air pollution to our community.
AES is misleading residents when they show concentrations of pollution decreasing. What they fail to mention is this new plant is going to run much harder and longer than the current one, and the most dangerous pollutants, fine particulate emissions, are going to increase 500 to 1700 percent, or five to 17 times over the existing plant emissions.
Particulate emissions are invisible, colorless, odorless pollutants that kill twice as many people every year in California than breast cancer. And the increased run rates of the new plant will add the equivalent of another PCH worth of traffic to our town. We can’t rid our town of PCH, but we certainly can and should get rid of an unnecessary and polluting power plant.
Using concentration, instead of total tons emitted, is a sneaky way of fooling us into thinking a new plant will be cleaner. “Dirtier” is the word that best describes how their new plant will operate.
Every parent in the South Bay should be concerned, especially those within a few miles of this facility. AES is using regional data expanding all the way to Riverside by showing that power plants account for a small percentage of regional air pollution. But proximity to a large polluter matters, and there are 6,500 school kids nearby. A representative from the AQMD testified to our City Council that the two biggest polluters in our area are PCH and the AES power plant. Do we want to clean up our air or make it much worse by having a new power plant?
Three power plants in densely populated areas along our coast have recently been retired for just this reason, and this one should be next. Don’t be fooled by empty promises by a corporation based in Arlington, Virginia, whose only motive is profit. Our motives are the health and welfare of future generations. Please go to nopowerplant.com to get the facts and learn how we can stop AES.
Sheri Patterson
Redondo Beach
It’s good to be Kings
Dear ER:
In response to the letter “Cup Event Contrast” (ER Letters, July 5, 2012), the author didn’t read the newspaper articles which stated that L.A. Kings Captain, Dustin Brown, specifically honored the Manhattan Beach Police and Firefighters at an intimate public ceremony. As reported, he didn’t want to be honored at a mostly non-resident crowd/media frenzy, but instead wanted to honor the first responders for protecting and serving his community. This too was done by other L.A. Kings who honored serviceman and other people in uniform at small ceremonies. As residents, we arrived with our daughter at the Manhattan Beach fire station, along with over 200 other residents and were able to get photos and autographs with Dustin Brown and the Stanley Cup in front of a fire truck. It didn’t appear to really cost the taxpayers anything because the employees were on their lunch or were off duty. It was a great event to honor our public safety workers and our community.
Linda Dunsmore
Manhattan Beach
Green days
Dear ER:
Who is Steve Collette and why is his trash all over the South Bay? Come on, dude. With the same energy you applied to plastering your name all over every post and fence in the beach cities, you should muster the same energy to take them down. Why do these guys and gals get away with this every single election?
Steve Finch
El Segundo
Manhattan alcohol danger zone
Dear ER:
Manhattan Beach Police Chief, Eve Irvine, and Community Development Director, Richard Thompson, have taken us further defenseless into the danger zone of physical, mental and criminal harms created by our city’s ranking near the apex of cities, in alcohol outlets producing these harms.
The correlation between alcohol outlet density and harms has been extensively documented by medical, public health and law enforcement professionals. Yet, in a report to the Manhattan Beach City Council, Police Chief Irvine and Director Thompson disregarded this research and committed both errors of omission and the misrepresentation of facts, leaving us without the weapons to combat further detrimental alcohol outlet growth.
Irvine’s and Thompson’s lack of logic, critical thinking and public policymaking competencies will take us further from the commitment of the council to preserve our small, beach-town character. The throngs on Thursday through Saturday evenings in the beach downtown area belch out tobacco fumes. The blaring music from the likes of Shark’s Cove creates noise pollution with the misogynistic music of Nine Inch Nails, far from representing small, beach-town family values.
Further, our high alcohol outlet density has resulted in a high ranking of alcohol-related driving accidents, a rise in DUI arrests and significantly increased crime rates; e.g., a 40 percent increase in assaults. The harms to our youth are especially heartbreaking. The Beach Cities Health District reports that teenagers consume alcohol 2.5 times greater than the national average.
The lapses of professional and ethical standards by Police Chief Irvine and Director Thompson make Manhattan Beach reactive, not proactive, in battling the alcohol danger zone. Shameful! Disgraceful!
Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D.
Manhattan Beach
Gainsay today
Dear ER:
Dr. Caprilian’s writing and some of his critique of Manhattan Beach city government has been of value; however, his recent “analysis” of Manhattan Beach Police Chief, Eve Irvine, is off the mark, in a variety of ways. First of all, his doctorate is in political science as I recall, and he probably did not take statistics, as his inferring a causal statistical relationship between the rise in crime rates and Chief Irvine’s brief tenure, is anecdotal and has no scientific basis.
Moreover, his citation of Captain Derrick Abell, a very professional and respected individual, as having a greater “command presence”, smacks of sexism of the worst kind. Both Ms. Irvine and Mr. Abell are excellent police officials, but playing one against the other is not in the public interest. Lt. Andy Harrod went out of his way to compliment Chief Irvine to me, and he has been a leader for decades and is widely respected.
In addition, there are very few women in leadership roles in the beach cities. The recent, excellent profile in the Easy Reader by Ms. Alene Tchekmedyian about Chief Irvine, depicted her as having earned this leadership position.
Finally, having a woman in charge of the MB Police Department is similar to most families; while the man “wears the pants”, the wife tells him what size, what color and definitely when to go shopping for new ones!
As to the MB Centennial, Jan Dennis agreed with my idea on a ten-minute class assignment in the fall for all Manhattan Beach students to write a few paragraphs on Manhattan Beach history, as well as longer essays for those students and others who have interest, including seniors, city staff (MBPD, MBFD and elected officials), etc. These essays could be displayed on line as an educational resource for students.
Willy Siegel-Leventhal
Manhattan Beach
Let’s trade
Dear ER:
Patty Grau’s mutually shared affections of Hermosa Beach’s local scene (“The way we were”, ER Letters, July 12, 2012) brought from out of the salty mist oceans of ‘60s memories, bringing sweet tears of joy to our eyes.
In 1960, I was 21 years old; I left my Illinois farm for Hermosa Beach to seek as any foreigner, artistic liberation. To me Hermosa, more than Venice Beach was calling; “Bring me your self-sufficient individualists.” It seemed that surfing and folk singing was a pre-requisite for being a Hermosa Beach citizen.
I bought my Gibson from a folknik who needed two things, a pair of Greeko’s sandals and rent; to make up the difference I included two glass sculptures which I blew from desert glass 6-ounce Coke bottles, which he traded for the sandals.
I traded a portrait commission for guitar lessons from Gary Gilmore, the local concert pianist. I traded a surfing painting for my surfboard, plus two hundred pounds of surfboard wax, from which I made dozens of sandcast candles under the old Hermosa pier. The candles I traded among the restaurants, and for a Honda Dream motorcycle. If you’ll notice, trading made Hermosa’s characters’ life styles possible.
Chuck Meyer
Torrance
Newer isn’t better
Dear ER:
At Tuesday’s Redondo Beach City Council meeting, one of the councilmen said he could not understand why anyone would rather have the existing power plant sitting down there not operating, than to have a new power plant. The answer is very simple: in my hierarchy of needs, having clean air to breathe 24 hours a day is a much higher priority than having a slightly improved view out my window. AES can keep their 38 acres! Who wants to be in a park under a cloud of pollution?
Krista Hayes
Redondo Beach
Pay to throw
Dear ER:
The Hermosa Beach Green Task Force is at it again, but this time it could cost you a whole lot of money.
In the next two weeks the City Council could rubber stamp a proposal that will require you to pay more for every banana peel, milk carton and orange juice bottle you toss in the trash. Called the “Pay to Throw” scheme, the Task Force says hitting you in the pocket book is the only way to change your habits and get you to recycle more. I say rubbish! This would be potentially the largest user fee increase in the history of the city. More education and public awareness is the more intelligent way to change our ways of doing things. Our current refuse contractor has done an outstanding job taking care of our residents at a reasonable fee and diverting trash to our landfills. Call your councilman now and throw out this insane idea that could cost you huge dollars in a tough economic environment.
Name withheld for fear of my trash can being tipped over
AES has property rights, too
Dear ER:
First consider that you want to modernize/rebuild your home or business on land legally zoned for those uses but the City Council decides to ignore its responsibility to uphold the duly enacted regulations and opposes your plans. How would this make you feel?
Now consider that the AES property is legally zoned for an electric generating plant, as approved by our City Council, California Coastal Commission and a majority of voters just 21 months ago as a consequence of two prior initiatives, Measures DD and G.
Although I fully support amending our zoning regulations for the betterment of our community, I believe doing so should be accomplished by way of a public process that includes conducting a thorough environmental impacts analysis as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
Contrarily, rezoning by initiative is exempt from CEQA requirements even though the planned ballot measure would permit a substantial amount of new development that will produce a significant amount of new motor vehicle pollution and traffic which are collectively the greatest negative environmental impacts to our community.
Furthermore, any rezoning effort must respect property values and not result in an unfair taking or inverse condemnation which our courts have ruled to be an unlawful action time and time again.
In conclusion, we must be very mindful of “the law of unintended consequences” before rezoning by initiative because doing so could result in a needless wasting of our taxes on expensive and unproductive litigation rather than on actually improving our community.
Sean Guthrie
Redondo Beach Resident
Against AES
Dear ER:
Regarding AES’ new marketing scheme, this is no different than the tactics they used to dupe the citizens about Measure UU, resulting in AES not paying their fair share of utility users tax. Councilman Aspel said that our relationship with AES is forever tainted; Councilman Diels voiced his disgust that AES spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on campaigning to avoid paying taxes and Councilman Aust refers to AES’ practices as “the same dodge.” NoPowerPlant.com agrees with these Redondo Beach councilmen sentiments about AES’ deceptive marketing maneuvers. This latest illusory marketing ploy matches the smoke and mirrors of AES’ public presentations/rhetoric, and seems to portray their fear that the residents of Redondo Beach are much smarter than they bargained for.
How many hundreds of thousands of dollars is AES going to spend this time to get what they want at the expense of our health, tax revenue to the city, negative impacts to surrounding businesses and residents and visual blight for the next 50 years? Which citizens are they targeting to sue this time for voicing opposition to any power plant in Redondo Beach?
The Zoning Initiative will be submitted to the City of Redondo Beach this week. The city has 15 days to write the title and summary. The next step(s) for us are to print the ballot initiative booklets and obtain the necessary signatures from registered voters residing in Redondo Beach. We are pleased that donations continue, and we are holding a Maui vacation raffle and fundraising party on Tuesday, July 17 at Ocean Bar in Hermosa Beach. Our volunteer group to help gather signatures for the Zoning Initiative also continues to grow. For more information: http://www.nopowerplant.com, http://www.facebook.com/nopowerplant/.
Dawn Esser
Redondo Beach
Correction
Photographs of the Jimmy Miller Bienfiesta that appeared in the July 12 issue of Drop Zone/Beach magazine were taken by Gus McConnell. His credit was inadvertently omitted.
