Hermosa Beach started the year with a big environmental win: the city received $200,000 from two different programs in January. The city received $100,000 from a $3 million Coastal Conservancy Coastal-Improvement Grant to help coastal communities prepare for climate change as well as $100,000 of a $1 million grant from the California Coastal Commission’s Local Coastal Program Assistance Grant Program.
Preparing for life as sea level
“Sea level rise is a reality. It’s coming,” said former Councilmember Jeff Duclos. “We can speculate on how, what, where but we need to know, what does that mean to us?”
The Coastal Conservancy funds funds will help the city to assess its vulnerability to the rising sea level.
Plastic no longer the future
Plastic bags and polystyrene products are a thing of the past in Manhattan Beach. In March, the city council voted unanimously to prohibit restaurants from distributing single-use, carry-out plastic bags and to extend its ban on polystyrene products to include utensils, straws, cup lids and foam coolers. This extended a ban from the previous August, of polystyrene containers used for distributing prepared food. The council also directed city staff to research alternatives for items such as lids and straws.
In June, the Manhattan Beach City Council voted unanimously to adopt a citywide public smoking ban, which includes e-cigarettes, the increasingly popular, battery-operated devices that release nicotine in a vapor. Under the new ordinance, smokers and e-cigarette users can only light up legally on private property, in moving cars or inside a smoking-approved hotel room. There is no designated smoking area in the city.
Smoke and go directly to jail
Though Hermosa’s smoking ban is less severe, the city bans smoking on Pier Avenue, The Strand and in front of restaurants. In November, the Hermosa Beach City Council upped the penalties for bad behavior on the pier. People drinking in public on the holidays or violating noise limits, public smoking regulations and leash laws can be charged with a misdemeanor. Previously, only citations were issued for these violations.
Cars2Go appear here to stay
To reduce gas emissions, several South Bay cities welcomed Car2Go car sharing services this year. Car2Go is a web-based rental service launched by the automaker Daimler in Europe four years ago. It has since expanded to Austin, Texas, and Portland, Oregon and now the 35 square miles encompassing nine South Bay cities, including Redondo Beach, Hermosa Beach and El Segundo. Members can rent cars that are parked throughout the city by the minute or hour. Drivers can leave the cars on any public street within the participating cities, without paying the parking meters.
Manhattan Beach declined to participate in the Car2G program but will expand its electric vehicle charging infrastructure and explore making renewable energy more available to its residents. In October, the council approved adding two new charging stations to the four the city already has in the Civic Center parking garage and the two in the lot at Rosecrans and Highland Avenues. The city will also install technology at all of its stations to track usage. At the same October meeting, the council also unanimously decided to participate in a feasibility study for a program that would provide renewable energy to residents.
Brown is the new green
In December, Hermosa Beach replaced a city lawn with a new, drought-tolerant, native plants garden. Rainwater collected from the Community Center roof and gray water from the city’s “purple” water main provide the irrigation. The Community Center garden replaces 2,000 square feet of the block long lawn that covers the north and east grounds of the former junior high school.
