City tries to reassure nonprofits in leasing policy talks
Hermosa Beach is considering revisions to the way it leases city-owned properties, creating concern among local civic groups, that rely on the spaces to hold meetings and events, that they might someday be forced out. The City Council heard Tuesday evening from Parks and Rec commissioners Robert Rosenfeld and Lauren Pizer-Mains, who were part of a commission subcommittee that began examining the policy nearly a year-and-a-half ago. Tuesday’s meeting produced no official decision, but instead offered guidance to city staff as they crafted policies for approval at a future meeting. Also guiding the council’s thoughts were a room full of Boy Scouts and representatives of nonprofit groups with decades of history in the city, who said that raising rents on city facilities to commercial rates would make it difficult for them to stay. That reaction was based in part on a one-page memo Rosenfeld and Pizer-Mains provided, summarizing some of their findings. The memo stated that rates for city-owned facilities ought to be determined “in light of rates for the commercial rental/leasing of comparable facilities in the area.” But in answering questions about the policy, they said that their…
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