Posts by Rachel Reeves
Peter’s Garden Center’s Peter Serrato remembered
by Rachel Reeves In 1939, when Peter Serrato moved to Redondo Beach from Boyle Heights, plots of land were $50, the drugstore was closed on Sundays, and Mexican-Americans like him had to sit in the corner of the classroom if teachers overheard Spanish words. A truck selling vegetables came through neighborhoods, announcing itself with the…
Read MoreDesatoff’s Space Age masterworks
ESAW features a rare exhibit of work by a legendary aerospace artist. It was made possible by a passionate local collector by Rachel Reeves To spend time in Carol Low’s El Segundo home is to feel, by proxy, the exhilaration of the Space Age. You feel it in her energy, in the rapid pace of…
Read MoreBeachLife homecoming
The festival as a community reunion by Rachel Reeves For those of us who grew up in Redondo Beach, BeachLife Festival still feels surreal, even after its fourth cycle. It’s still weird and wonderful to watch tens of thousands of people stream into what we knew as Seaside Lagoon, the site of our elementary-school field…
Read MoreStar of Americana – Brandi Carlile comes to BeachLife Ranch
by Rachel Reeves When Brandi Carlile was in high school, she’d never met an openly gay person. Everyone in her town of Ravensdale, Washington, which at the last Census had 555 people and 257 households, went to church. Carlile came out when she was 14, inspired by talk show host Ellen DeGeneres’s public coming out.…
Read MoreA Veggie Affair – He worked in restaurants. She worked as a nutritionist. Their union yielded lil’ Vegerie Redondo Beach
by Rachel Reeves In the summer of 2018, at Gracias Madre, a vegan Mexican restaurant in West Hollywood, she started to see him differently. Scarlett Curtis sat across the table from her longtime friend, Jason Cervantes, who was then the director of food and beverage at Hotel Maya in Long Beach. She met him in…
Read MoreBeachLife 3.0 – Homegrown festival finds its groove
by Rachel Reeves Five-year-old Devan Velez was excited for weeks about seeing Sheryl Crow at the BeachLife Festival. In preparation, she watched the documentary, Sheryl, which premiered in early May. Devan selected her outfit ahead of time: jeans, a pink T-shirt featuring a zebra wearing sunglasses, and a cowgirl hat. Velez loves music. She likes…
Read MorePeninsula Committee Los Angeles Philharmonic plans 70th anniversary gala
by Rachel Reeves Programs include Music Mobile van, recorders for schools. The year the Peninsula Committee Los Angeles Philharmonic was established, children were dying of polio and Mr. Potato Head was America’s hottest new toy. In the seven decades since, the organization has become one of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s most generous donors. The Peninsula…
Read MoreA home for Jeeter. Erika Fleury leads effort to find homes for Jeeter and other abandoned chimpanzees
by Rachel Reeves Seven months before the coronavirus became a global pandemic, Erika Fleury learned that 42 chimpanzees in the Angeles National Forest were losing their home. In her field, the news heralded a disaster. “This is an emergency,” she thought. Fleury, who moved to Rancho Palos Verdes from Redondo Beach last year, is…
Read MoreBrett Dennen celebrates being back on the Redondo BeachLife festival stage
by Rachel Reeves For Brett Dennen, who’s been touring for 15 years, the coronavirus pandemic was bittersweet. Like anyone else who performs live music for a living, he had to cancel a lot of paying gigs. But he also had time to write songs and paint pictures and hang out with his toddler, Van, in…
Read MorePallet homes fine where they are, says RB council
by Rachel Reeves The Redondo Beach City Council voted Tuesday night to keep the pallet homes, which currently houses formerly unhoused people, where it is on Kingsdale Ave. in North Redondo Beach. The pallet homes opened in December of last year thanks to pandemic-related relief funding. The plan proposed last October was for them to…
Read MoreRedondo Beach Seaside Lagoon could open year round thanks to $10 million State grant
by Rachel Reeves A $10 million state grant to “rehabilitate” Seaside Lagoon could enable its use year round, Redondo Beach Mayor Bill Brand said this week. The heated, saltwater lagoon, at the corner of Harbor Drive and Portofino Way, has only been open during the summer months. It hosts the annual Lobster Festival as well…
Read MoreRedondo Beach Council plans permanent parklets in Riviera Village, pending coastal okay
by Rachel Reeves The old adage about crises sowing opportunities rang true in the Riviera Village last year. When the coronavirus pandemic forced restaurants to close their doors, the city’s leaders and staff collaborated with the Riviera Village Association (RVA) to design “parklets,” or outdoor dining spaces, in what had been parking spots. The parklets…
Read MoreRedondo Beach North South conflict flares up in budget discussion
by Rachel Reeves After hours of contentious back-and-forth, the Redondo Beach City Council passed the budget for FY 2021-2022 at its meeting Tuesday night. The vote was 3-2, with Councilmembers Christian Horvath and Laura Emdee dissenting. Various motions and substitute motions and substitute motions to substitute motions were presented, as the council tried to reach…
Read MoreNorth Redondo divide opens up over increased density
by Rachel Reeves A series of contentious meetings ended early Wednesday morning with the Redondo Beach City Council voting, 3-2, to approve the city’s General Plan Land Use Plan/Map. The action authorizes zoning that allows more housing near such areas as Vons Market at Marine and Inglewood, at Kingsdale Avenue and Artesia, and at 182nd…
Read MoreNorth Redondo construction feud headed to council for resolution
by Rachel Reeves Disgruntled about construction in a neighbor’s backyard that began last May and lasted into October, a North Redondo Beach couple is challenging the city to impose fines for unpermitted projects. A protracted argument with a neighbor over a project that involved installing gas lines, a fire pit, a pergola, and a roof…
Read MoreRedondo loses first round in power plant extension fight
by Rachel Reeves The Statewide Advisory Committee on Cooling Water Intakes Structures (SACCWIS) voted, 6-1, last Friday to recommend to the State Water Board that the AES power plant in Redondo Beach be allowed to continue operating through the end of 2023. The committee’s mandate is to assess whether the Once-Through Cooling Policy — a…
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