Boardwalks and ballot boxes

Waterfront development is front-and-center in Redondo Beach’s 2019 City Council elections — just as it has been for the past four years.

But this time, rather than a bogeyman or a beacon of hope, the long-mothballed CenterCal Properties Waterfront project is being used as a election-season cudgel by District 3 and District 5 City Council hopefuls Candace Nafissi and Mel Samples. In recent months, the candidates have laid the blame for the failed project and it’s associated legal and real-estate costs — including the purchase of the Redondo Fun Factory master lease, controlled by harbor-area fixture Steve Shoemaker — at the feet of incumbent Council members Christian Horvath and Laura Emdee.

To Horvath and Emdee, those costs were the price of attempting to do business. The pier and waterfront have long been in need of rejuvenation, and CenterCal’s plan was the city’s best chance to win a complete redevelopment since the pier was rebuilt in the early 1990s.

But those plans were halted by the passage of Measure C, and intensified anti-Waterfront project activism by newly-installed Mayor Bill Brand. CenterCal and its subsidiary Redondo Beach Waterfront LLC filed lawsuits against the city. Brand’s ally Jim Light sued the city for approving the project’s Environmental Impact Report. The $9 million cost of the city’s purchase of the Fun Factory-area lease — as part of a long-standing harbor asset management plan — has also loomed large, as has an estimate that the city’s plan to refinance its leaseholds would increase total costs for the purchase to nearly $17 million.

But the pier and waterfront, Horvath contends, doesn’t really have anything to do with District 3. It is, instead, an effective wedge issue for those that want him out of office, and wish to install Nafissi. This year’s election is a rematch of the previous race the two ran in 2015, which included both a runoff election and a recount. Horvath won that contest by 13 votes.

“They’re not having a genuine discussion about the issues, they’re combatting things and making them seem like they’re really bad to make me look bad,” Horvath said.

Nafissi’s mailers and talking points, he said, strip decisions to their barest effect and eliminate contexts, such as when he voted to approve 115 housing units at the Legado Redondo development, or his vote to approve extending sitting Council member terms by one year to comply with new state election laws. (The context: Horvath joined then-Councilmen Brand and Steve Sammarco in approving the Legado project, which was reduced from 146 units, and led to a lawsuit and eventual settlement; the plan to extend terms was not binding, and would have required a public vote to alter the city’s charter.)

For the first time in his campaign career, Horvath was moved to attack his opponent, firing a counter-punch in a mailer warning his constituents to “not be fooled” by his opponent, Nafissi’s rhetoric and mailers.

Nafissi “continues to evade a genuine discussion of complex issues that you deserve,” Horvath wrote. “By removing context from financial numbers and intentionally misrepresenting policy decisions, she attempts to convince you that I’m fiscally irresponsible and personally benefiting from developers.”

But Nafissi feels that Horvath’s urge for context to his votes is a ploy to deflect from their impact.

“It’s unfortunate that he’s running on his voting record, and that he thinks it’s misinformation when it’s a list of votes,” Nafissi said.

“Residents are terrified by these votes — terrified. They want to know why their money is being thrown around with malice,” Nafissi said. “I haven’t spoken about anything defamatory in my campaign, I’ve only posted a list of votes, and he seems very concerned about that.”

Residents, she said, are “crying, wiping tears off their face” when they talk with her about issues, such as LA Metro’s plan to potentially build a Green Line light rail extension down a right-of-way that abuts District 3 homes.

“We need a deep focus in District 3, and I feel like District 3 is under attack,” Nafissi said.

When asked if she feels her language is overly aggressive, she responds that she believes it’s difficult to see a woman “point out truths.”

“I think our society is still in a place where women should be seen and not heard,” Nafissi said. “I’m loud.”

Working through the process and sending letters, such as the letter Horvath led the Council to send to the Metro Board of Directors discouraging disruptive Green Line options, are not enough; Nafissi urges action.

That’s where her style differs from Horvath’s. Nafissi uses short, powerful statements to make her points; Horvath tends toward dispassionate communication, providing research and urging people to come to their own conclusions.

“Residents are not following things in an in-depth way, and won’t unless you have a conversation with them and go through the complexities of it,” Horvath said. “But that’s not what they’re doing…it’s fearful.”

Horvath has gone so far as digging into a year-old calendar to prove that he’s legitimately been unable to attend General Plan Advisory Committee meetings on nights where he wasn’t representing Redondo elsewhere. (For the record, Horvath said he skipped GPAC meetings for family obligations and District 3 meetings when he wasn’t otherwise occupied.) He’s defended his constant note-taking at meetings by showing off his legal pads and tablet documents. His children are afraid of some audience members who urged they be taken away from Horvath for his political evil-doing.

The political sniping, Horvath wryly notes, is probably why his dark hair has gone grey.

“They’ve made it childish because there’s not a lot of substance, with the exception that they disagree with my vote on the waterfront,” Horvath said. “That’s the one substantial thing they don’t like…they take it and [instead of] just saying we disagree with the votes, we think they’re bad, they turn it into character assassination, and I think it works.”

The occasional conflagrations at District 3 have made the District 5 campaign practically dispassionate. Both Councilwoman Laura Emdee and challenger Mel Samples have tended away from attacking the other, opting for issue-based campaigns.

“I would not be the first to cast stones, and facts are the facts. I don’t see any reason why I would even think about resorting to personal attacks, because the facts are ugly enough,” Samples said. “As a matter of fact, when people trying to draw conclusions try to draw me in, I’m not doing it. Think what you want, but I’m not putting words in your mouth.”

Residents, Samples said, have asked about “money going to waste, about potholes, the Galleria, the waterfront, and they get animated about the waterfront, because the whole thing is tied up in litigation.”

That the waterfront is even a point of discussion bothers Emdee to no end — but not because she finds it unfair.

“When I was elected, everyone in District 5 complained that everything was about South Redondo,” Emdee said. “Now he wants to bring the focus back to the pier…do you want someone who is going to focus on the pier, or someone who will focus on District 5?”

Emdee’s critique of Samples’ talking points are similar to Horvath’s concerns: they lack the context of discussion and work that went into a final decision.

“They’re assuming intentions and presenting them as facts: voting for 300 apartments and a 60 percent bigger Galleria? That was a 5-0 vote, so it must have been a good deal,” Emdee said.

Emdee also questions Samples’ assertion that her votes have cost taxpayers more than $29 million.

“Mel’s supporters stopped the CenterCal project and then CenterCal said ‘I’m not going to pay what I owe,’” Emdee said.

“What I’m pointing out looking at the list: It’s all about the pier, not about anything spent to make the area better. The only thing they’ve got is that I was for [CenterCal],” Emdee said.

Her campaign literature points out her successes in “bringing the focus back to North Redondo” — forthcoming improvements to the Southern California Edison bike path and right-of-way at Artesia Boulevard, recently-completed construction at Anderson Park, and the Artesia Boulevard Storefront Improvement Project that’s rejuvenated dated facades for businesses along Artesia.

But Samples believes that the figures he cites speak for themselves. “I understand that there’s some consternation on the other side, but it sounds to me like the old Shakespeare proverb: the lady doth protests too much, methinks.”

Samples has kept a genial head about the election though.

“I have 100 percent confidence that one of us is going to win and the other is going to lose,” Samples laughed. “But that doesn’t mean that we’re any less residents of Redondo, that we care any less, that we’re going to fight any less. We’re still going to be here and we need to get along once this is over.”

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