Gould was golden
Dear ER:
Now that the new Manhattan Beach branch of the L.A. County Library System has opened, we want to sincerely express our appreciation to departing Library Manager Don Gould. Under Gould’s leadership, the Manhattan Beach Library became a prominent fixture in our city, developing dynamic programs for a wide range of its patrons, which extended the library’s influence and impact in the community. Gould led the library toward becoming, in the words of Princeton University’s Ross Todd, a “place of connection, not just collection.”
We will miss his engaging personality and the genial seriousness he brought to the job. We’re all grateful his dedication and his contributions over the last eight years.
We also want to take a moment at this juncture to thank the Friends of the Manhattan Beach Library for its continuing support. The Friends have long been and remain an important factor in our library’s operation, contributing money and materials that enrich the library’s collection and its programs, and thereby enrich everyone’s library opportunities and experience.
And, of course, we want to enthusiastically welcome Yolande Wilburn, the new Library Manager, to Manhattan Beach. In just the short time she has been here, she already has energized the new building, launched a wonderful outreach effort, and pushed the memory of the bookmobile’s limitations into the past.
We Wilburn every success and offer every support we can as she sets her course in reestablishing the library’s grand presence in our community. We are very proud of the new library and our new librarians and encourage everyone to tour, use, and enjoy this great addition to the community.
Manhattan Beach Library Commissioners
Cheryl Cleamons, Josh Cooperman
Randi Elasowich, Gary Hartzell
Lester Silverman
Leading by example
Dear ER:
Kudos to Hermosa Beach City Manager Bakaly for circumventing Chief Sharon Papa’s attempt to stonewall resident’s requests for the evidence surrounding her recent false allegations about Chris Miller and the No on O supporters (“Chris Miller incident to be investigated,” ER April 30, 2015).
Securing and releasing the celebration video of that night was city management done right.
Obviously, Bakaly knows that our community is about peace, love, harmony, healing and positive progress and not about protecting one’s self-interests by hiding behind arbitrarily invoked policies and procedures.
I hope others are taking notes on the city manager’s leadership example.
Rick Ciampa
Hermosa Beach
Dear taxpayer letter
Dear ER
Hermosa residents, dive into your trash and find that plain white #10 envelope you received from the City a few days ago. In it is a protest form you can fill out to stop a new fee the City wishes to impose city wide for the next 15 years or more. If you cannot find your protest form, there’s a copy on my website, VivaHermosa.com.
Why reject the new fee?
It is to pay the interest and principal on money the City would like to borrow to pay for sewer repair. But the City already has a 6 percent Utility Tax, which was supposed to be spent for sewer repair. 2. If the City needs more money, it should come from an increase in the Transient Occupancy Tax, or Bed Tax, so that we won’t have to borrow and waste millions on sewer bond and/or oil settlement interest.
Send in your protest form now, to push the city council to reconsider their April 28 refusal to allow us to vote, in November, on an increase in the bed tax. There’s still barely enough time for the council to put it on the ballot.
Jim Lissner
Hermosa Beach 90254
Compromise
Dear ER:
I am on board with redevelopment but feel it’s sad there has to be a contentious relationship with CenterCal and AES. Even though I am a supporter, it honestly feels like it’s all or nothing and that Redondo Beach Mayor Steve Aspel is in the developer’s’ pocket and thinks very little of his constituents’ views, which adds to the tension between groups. Little comments like Aspel saying, “Getting rid of the place where you can buy the bong and the toe rings is my goal,” comes across as condescending and very out of touch with the citizens (“On the Boardwalk, ER May 7, 201”). Most people in Redondo don’t want the harbor area to become another Manhattan Beach filled with pretentious boutiques and plastic surgery nightmares.
A lot of us could get behind a 200,000 sq. ft. development in an updated version of Redondo’s character. We don’t need 300,000 feet of Manhattan Beach south.
Terry Butts
Website comment
Peering back
Dear ER:
A lot of us who grew up in Redondo Beach got our first jobs at the Fun Factory on the International Boardwalk from Steve Shoemaker (“On the Boardwalk,” ER May 7, 2015). It will be a sad day for many if they develop the soul out of the harbor –progress they call it. This progressive attitude towards development has resulted in so many who grew up in the South Bay being unable to afford to have their kids grow up here, also. I wonder what was so wrong with what we had,.that it needs to be all wiped away?
Dave Reese
Website comment
Shoemaker nails it
Dear ER:
So we are seeing revitalization without the overdevelopment of a mall in our harbor (“On the Boardwalk,” ER May 7, 2015).
Redondo Fun Factory owner Steve Shoemaker hit the nail on the head. The City let the waterfront degrade so residents would support the mall. But Shoemaker missed another another contributing factor. Businesses refused to invest in their leaseholds because the city put them all on short term leases. Who is going to invest when you don’t have enough time to recoup the investment?
We have plenty of waterfront concrete structures in Redondo that don’t require a total teardown and rebuild after 40 years. Look at any of the tall, high density condo buildings lining our waterfront. All built in the ‘60s, before the pier parking structure. All are still standing. Why? Proper maintenance. The city consultant who studied the pier parking structure never concluded tear down was the only option. They recommended maintenance and then after a decade refurbishment of certain areas.
Redondo Mayor Steve Aspel wonders why there is no customer traffic. Maybe it has something to do with over 85 percent of Redondo workers commuting out of town everyday. Will adding more retail and restaurants to fix that? Heck no. It will only exacerbate the situation. The roads will not support the traffic required to make the mall successful and there is just too much competition that is easier to get to and has free parking. With Hermosa’s Pier Plaza we’ve already seen that more development is not a panacea.
We can revitalize without overdevelopment. We don’t need to lose our waterfront to a mall to revitalize the harbor and pier. Redondo Landing is a prime example.
Jim Light
Redondo Beach
Character reference
Dear ER:
The character of Redondo Beach is one of the primary reasons for our moving here (“On the Boardwalk,” ER May 7, 2015). It’s different. It has a rich history and hasn’t become plastic like some other beach cities. We’re diverse and we honor the past and welcome the future, But not at the expense of our historical waterfront, piers and harbor, our wonderful parks and schools. It’s the color of America — diverse and warm, laid back and upscale, but not plastic. It’s not all new, in great massive chunks wiping, out neighborhoods and neighborliness, but honoring the old while accepting the new.
Bev Morse
Redondo Beach
iHelp
Dear ER:
Helping children is admirable (“UCode plans national expansion”). What about us older learners? I have a new iPhone 6 and have to rely on friends to show me how to use it. The phone possesses so much power, but I don’t know how to access it. A few sessions with a pro would help.
Don Franklin Ponder
Website comment
Spending at will
Dear Editor:
Recently, the Manhattan Beach City Council announced a Separation Agreement with its at-will Human Resource Director Cathy Hanson. Based on her at-will status, the council had the right to discharge her without cause. Rather, it agreed to provide her payments totaling approximately $100,000, including six months’ salary, without providing the public justification,.
The council, furthering its deviance from open government, failed to place on its meeting agenda, an opportunity to provide further information and respond to questions from the public to justify an unnecessary expenditure of taxpayer dollars.
The Separation Agreement, suggesting an amicable “voluntary” resignation by Hanson, appears contradicted by prohibiting Hanson from seeking “future employment, reinstatement and/or re-employment with…the City.” Although arguing to the contrary, the council has set a precedent of encouraging other employees to litigate if they are asked to resign or are discharged.
Publicly, the Manhattan Beach City Council needs to substantiate why Hanson’s at-will status did not result in discharge without these payments, especially as it is poised to seek higher taxes from its residents for storm water, street lighting, and other infrastructure and capital improvements.
Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D.
Manhattan Beach
Down from the hill
Dear ER:
We moved from Palos Verdes to Redondo Beach a few years ago to downsize and enjoy the beach and the waterfront. It didn’t take long to find out that something was very wrong with the way Redondo Beach is managed. The power plant company AES and the Chamber of Commerce pretty much run the town and the majority of City Hall officials. Soon after we got here Mayor Aspel and his council majority voted to give away the waterfront to some shopping center development company, taking our valuable coastal land away from the citizens and gifting it to a private corporation to do with as they pleased. Next, we watched Mayor Aspel and the Chamber of Commerce being the head cheerleaders for AES’s scheme to bypass the normal planning process with “Measure B.” This measure would have given AES power to do as they pleased with their side of the waterfront, causing extreme increases in traffic and a huge condo-commercial development to nearly match the monster that is there now. Mayor Aspel and friends vetoed Councilman Bill Brand’s motion to put this up to the vote of the people, shutting the rest of us out completely.
My vision was to continue making the improvements to the pier that have already started under public ownership and work our way around the waterfront to retrofit and beautify everything to match a new and better plan. I am in touch with two non-profit organizations that will help us with funding and will keep the waterfront in the hands of the people of Redondo Beach. One is the “Trust For Public Land.” The other is “Rails To Trails.”
We need to change the culture of City Hall with qualified elected officials. We are so very fortunate to have Candace Allen Nafissi running for the city council District 3 seat. I’ve known Candace since she and our granddaughters went to school together.
Barbara Epstein
Redondo Beach
Get off the pot
Dear ER:
What a joke. The council was elected to take action. Not hire more attorneys, form task forces and blither about incoherently. AES owns the land and has a deep pocket. The longer we wait to strike a deal on development of the AES property, the more at risk we become of having no input on what happens. Stop the kabuki dance and make a deal.
Fred Katz
Redondo Beach.
Like a rolling stone
Dear ER:
The 25th Annual Dylanfest was a remarkable event (“’Forever Young,” ER April 30, 2015).
As with the Dylanfest in years past, this day went wonderfully well. We sang with joyous tears to the absolutely perfect performances by REnee Safier, Andy Hill, and Marty Rifkin.
Dora Perez-Meyer
Torrance
Bad business
Dear ER:
I am dismayed and disheartened by the Redondo Beach Chamber of Commerce’s personal attacks on District 3 council candidate Candace Allen Nafissi. She is lifetime South Bay native, having lived in Redondo for the last six years.
Donations for Candace for Council are mostly from single Redondo households, not developers, or unions. Our Congressman Ted Lieu, Redondo Council Member Steve Sammarco, former Redondo school board presidents, Todd Loewenstein and Dave Wiggins, as well as other local council members, including Amy Howorth, Nanette Barragan and Hany Fangary. Mail in your ballot today for a true representative for District 3 and the issues that need to be addressed.Don’t succumb to the sleaze machine.
Melanie L Cohen
Redondo Beach
