by Harry Munns
Redondo Beach city councilmen Steve Aspel and Bill Brand recently had a very public disagreement about the validity of Brand’s claim that he speaks for a majority of Redondo citizens when he says the people want to vote on zoning changes and significant development. While the citywide requirement to vote for a vote on most zoning changes leaves the door open for citizen voting on development anywhere within city limits, it’s really all about King Harbor.
Brand’s opinions reflect the mission of Building a Better Redondo (BBR), an organization that claims it supports slow growth, but seems much more intent on no growth. BBR portrays its mission as a citizen’s revolt against city government. I love a good revolution but I’m also partial to facts.
BBR cites Heart of the City as justification for its struggle against city government, so let’s look at some facts about Heart of the City. In March, 2002 the Redondo city council adopted a resolution that amended land use documents to allow development in an area that included Unit 1 of the AES power plant. The city had a productive dialogue established with the property owners and some creative ideas about acquiring and developing the property.
In April, 2002 a petition was submitted that would have enabled a referendum to be placed on the ballot allowing citizens to vote on the zoning changes. Redondo Beach voters never voted on that matter. The City Council voted to repeal its own resolution so it wasn’t necessary.
The notion that the citizens took some kind of action against Heart of the City is simply not true. A small group of activists collected enough signatures to get a measure on the ballot and the council backed down.
Have you ever been solicited for a petition signature while you’re on your way into Von’s, Albertson’s or Trader Joe’s? Inevitably, the solicitor will ask a question you almost cannot answer “no” to. “Would you like to have a voice in development in Redondo? Would you like to see less traffic in Redondo?” Yes, Yes.
At that moment, before you have any facts, it makes you feel good to support positive ideas in your community and all it costs you is a signature.
If proponents of development in King Harbor were looking for signatures for a petition, they might ask different questions. “Would you like to ensure our schools, police, fire departments and parks don’t suffer from severe cuts in funding when state and federal support gets reduced?” Yes again.
You choose to help your community for the price of a signature. You might even sign both petitions on the same trip to the supermarket. You’d probably be surprised to discover the two petitions compete directly with one another.
Signatures on a petition are not an indication of the public’s will. They are merely a reflection of the organizational skills and persuasiveness of the parties collecting the signatures.
It’s always fun to compare the rhetoric to the numbers. The current conflict between the city and Brand and BBR arises from the city’s approval of land use document amendments in 2008 and the subsequent voter approval of Measure DD, which would ensure that citizens vote on major changes to zoning regulations.
Slightly fewer than half the people who voted in that election voted for DD. That total represented only about 45 percent of registered voters. The measure passed fair and square with a simple majority of votes cast for or against it, but don’t let anyone tell you that a majority of the registered voters in Redondo Beach voted for DD because it simply isn’t true. Measure EE, which was portrayed as a competing measure, passed with fewer votes and a narrower majority, but it still passed.
Bill Brand has cited his own election as proof of the community’s support for the slow growth and citizen control ideas he espouses. The numbers simply don’t support those claims. To begin with, while he gets to vote on citywide issues, only District 2 voters participated in his election. Bill Brand got about 53 percent of the votes cast in that district in the 2008 election. Again, it was enough to win fair and square, but hardly a landslide. Considering most of the city’s voters didn’t cast votes in that District 2 City Council race, Brand’s election has little connection to the overall feeling of the electorate about development and zoning.
I’m going to have to side with Steve Aspel on this one. You can’t cite Heart of the City as an indication of the voters’ attitude because they never voted on it. More than a year after DD, it’s impossible to explain how it relates to EE, especially when you consider some of the same people must have voted for both.measures. When you look at the numbers, Bill Brand only speaks for the 828 people in District 2 who voted for him.
So while there may be some ground swell of support for taking the power to decide the fate of King Harbor out of the hands of elected officials and placing it in the control of voters, the numbers just don’t support those claims.
Comment on this or any other King Harbor topic at www.kingharborboater.com click on the “blog” link. ER
Facts don’t lie . . .
It seems detractors of election result are often quick to clarify that all of the “registered voters” didn’t actually vote (funny, this is never the case when the vote swings the other direction). These critics choose to discredit an outcome simply on low turnout or the large number of voters who didn’t show up on election day. Strange, these critics stop short of suggesting those absent may have just been disinterested, too busy, uninformed, or just too lazy to show up at the poles or send in their absentee ballot. If this article was meant to highlight the unfortunate fact of poor local election turnout, I absolutely agree with the writer, it’s truly sad to consider that people don’t exercise their right to participate at all levels government. If this was an article discounting the outcome of an election . . . the results speak for themselves and the votes of all those (involved) folks who thought this was important HAVE been counted. The results are clear, DD won by a margin of 18%, or 4,271 votes (a true landslide in election terms). BTW – I’ll have to disagree with the writer, based on our democratic system, Bill Brand speaks for ALL of the people in District 2 just as Steve Aspel speaks for ALL of the people in District 1.
Hi Harry,
this is a goofy article: 1)that was a very unprofessional and unpleasant moment during the council meeting btwn Aspel and Brand..something I would prefer to not revisit(and wonder why you did). Plus it happened some time ago. (Are your articles being delayed in publishing?)
2) “The notion the citizens took some kind of action against heart of the city” is very true. The public hearing on HoC was 12 hours long..two nights-6 hours each. Despite protests from the school district and many community members, the council still voted to adopt the plan. (It was a large plan, Harry)
The letter to the editor by Chris Cagle asking people to help him do a referendum was an answer to a prayer. The first 20 people to meet quickly grew to a group of almost 150 people willing to collect signatures. (These were rookies-not seasoned activists) We needed 4000 signatures but collected 6400 in a window of just over 2 weeks (the deadline to protest the vote).. It was a remarkable feat.
Please don’t minimize what impact this event had on Redondo’s history. It was the catalyst for political involvement of many residents. Many have aspired to run for office and have joined commissions. Some have started non profit groups. And ,yes,the tradition of “store front signature collecting” was born.
If the article was to referee claims made by council members..well, councils seem to contain colorful characters; opinions and statements fly in all directions during meetings. Don’t worry..somehow everything washes out in the end. It is impossible to think anyone can set the record straight!
Mr Munns fails to mention many of the indicators of the public’s will with respect to overdevelopment.
Perhaps he did not realize that the City conducted a survey on whether residents wanted to vote on zoning changes and the overwhelming majority stated “yes” – very reflective of the vote for DD. Additionally, there are at least two previous city surveys that show overdevelopment and traffic were the top concerns of residents.
Munns fails to account for the impacts of the city’s deceitful counter measure, EE, that looked good but had no teeth. Even former Councilman Pinzler stated EE would allow people to vote on zoning changes that were never likely to occur. The intent of EE, apparently, was to confuse voters and draw them away from DD in the hopes that neither measure would pass. I base this conclusion on the fact that most of the Council were also listed as supporters of “Save Redondo”, an organization that opposed ANY resident voting on zoning changes. Our Council played both sides of the fence in a desparate attempt to stop what they knew to be inevitable. What would the vote have been without the decoy measure?
Another indicator of the public bill, was the vote on what to do with the AES site. The City steeped the ballot language to make mixed use and condos look like Nirvana over the costs of a park at the site. Yet the people overwhelmingly picked a park.
While Mr. Munns is accurate that the two referendums related to the Heart of the City was never put to a vote, he failed to mention that the Council clearly understood the vote would override their approval of the HOC plan.
And as to his attack on Bill Brand – Bill ran against three candidates who were all pro-development. The fact that he won without a run-off election should be a clear indication of the will of the people with respect to overdevelopment.
I think if Munns objectively looked at the preponderance of evidence since the Heart of the City, he would draw a much different conclusion.
And it he doesn’t like Measure DD, he can stand at grocery stores every weekend of six months, collect 6000 signatures, and qualify an initiative vote to repeal it.
Hi Mary,
You addressed me by name so I feel I should respond directly to you.
I’m sorry you found my column “goofy”. Like you, I saw the exchange between the two RB city councilmen I cite in my column. I had a different reaction. I saw two people who believed strongly in two opposing views of the same topic. It occurred to me that unlike many opinions people hold, this one could be verified. I did considerable research, drew some conclusions and I stand by the facts I present in the article.
I’m not a reporter. I’m a columnist. One of the differences between the two is that I present opinions and observations. A reporter has an obligation to minimize the influence of his or her own opinions and objectively present the facts.
If I had uncovered data that supported the assertion that “the people” of Redondo Beach want to prevent development in King Harbor, I would have expressed that opinion. The numbers simply didn’t prove it, at least not to me.
I’m in King Harbor at least 4-5 times a week. I run into people I know all the time for one simple reason, I know a lot of people who work there or use it for boating. I have never-ever seen one person I know from any of the beach cities who doesn’t either work there or have a boat in the harbor. Think about that. I know a lot of people.
To me the absence of local users is more telling than any election, referendum or political movement. The people of the beach cities abandoned King Harbor years ago and it’s heartbreaking.
If someone wants to build something in King Harbor that the citizens want to use, I’ll scream my support from the highest hill. I don’t care if it’s a park, outdoor cafes, a bike path or a skating rink. But we’ll never get a chance to find out unless we enable the people with the resources and vision to bring new things here to tell us what they’d like to do and how they’d like to do it.
The current “no growth” image of Redondo Beach will do nothing but keep the status quo, decay, deterioration and a local population that looks elsewhere for its recreation.
I respect your opinion to think my column is “goofy” but perhaps I disagree when you say it’s impossible to set the record straight. I think I just did.