ELECTION 2024: Steve Charelian will win City Council seat 

by Mark McDermott 

As his campaign rolled to completion a few weeks ago, Steve Charelian’s campaign manager asked him how he was feeling about things. 

“Well, it’s still not final, but I gave it my best shot,” Charlian said. “You know, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.” 

His campaign manager looked down at his tablet and appeared to do some calculations. 

The Charelians on the campaign trail.

“It’s okay, Dad,” said Knox Charelian, who is five-and-a-half years old. “Because I am going to be president in 2066.” 

Although vote tallies are ongoing, Charelian is on the cusp of winning election to the Manhattan Beach City Council. But in that moment, he knew he’d already achieved part of what he’d set out to do. 

“The moral of that [story] is that he saw me working really hard,” Charelian said. “It did bring me goosebumps, the fact that he knew that it wasn’t just local that was attainable —  he knew he could strive for the best. It just ballooned my heart.” 

Election results will not be certified for another few weeks, but after a week of ongoing vote tallies, Charelian will almost certainly claim the third open seat on the City Council. 

Charelian has a more than 600 vote lead over Karen Komatinsky with an estimated 1,500 ballots remaining to be tallied. Councilperson Joe Franklin secured reelection with a commanding lead on election night, and candidate Nina Tarnay likewise secured an insurmountable lead to earn a spot on council. 

Charelian, in an interview Wednesday, was not ready to claim victory but expressed cautious optimism. His election to Council would represent the completion of a full circle for Charelian, a 35-year City employee who began his career at 19 as a licensing clerk and retired earlier this year as finance director. 

“It is the completion,” Charelian said. “To me, I just have one more thing to do for the City I love so dearly. I’ve represented tens of thousands of customers over my time, and now, as a parent and as a resident, it’s time to be on the side of making decisions to make sure that we have good infrastructure. Our city is changing. The dynamics are changing. There’s a new generation of people coming in, and there are certain things that the city needs, in terms of infrastructure and just taking a proactive approach to make sure we have facilities for people who are moving to town and spending tens of millions of dollars on homes.” 

Charelian started with the City in 1989, a few months before recently retired City Manager Bruce Moe, and a few years before Steve Napolitano’s first election to City Council. He regards each as close friends and mentors, and his decision to run for council came in part because he observed the difference Napolitano made in the five terms he served across the last three decades. 

Charelian said he began thinking about what he would do after retiring when he hit 30 years as a city employee five years ago, and then ran across Napolitano when he was filing for reelection at City Hall during the pandemic in 2020. 

“I said, ‘Hey, I’m going to come to you sometime in the future, and we need to sit down and have a conversation, because I’d really like to kind of follow in your footsteps,’” Charelian recalled. “He’s a dear friend of mine. I’ve been here throughout his tenure on council, and just watched his leadership, his control of the dais, and how he is just really passionate about this town. And I am, as well. I just want to continue that…Then we spoke over the years, and then when the planets aligned and I hit my 35th year, the opportunity came.” 

Both Napolitano and another experienced council member, Richard Montgomery, are terming out this year. Moe retired as City Manager a few months after Charelian himself had retired. Charelian knew these departures would create a void in institutional knowledge and experienced leadership. 

“I said, if I am ever going to run for City Council, it’s got to be now,” he said. “It was just timing….I am embedded in the community. With my two young sons, I am embedded into the schools. I am a business owner with a small consulting business. I am part of the Chamber of Commerce, part of the PTA, Little League, AYSO, just volunteering my time. Now that I am retired, I can focus on municipal government. ” 

Charelian talked to friends who’d served on councils in surrounding cities, built a small campaign team (which included Henry Mitzner, the former MB city controller and 45 year City Hall veteran) and hit the local campaign trail, door knocking, doing meet-and-greets, and participating in forums. He acknowledged that at first, it was a little challenging — for 35 years, he was accustomed to not taking political sides, or offering opinions, just facts upon which policy makers could make their decisions. 

But at the end of the day, Charelian said the difference in roles had one big unifying quality. 

“Going from policy to politics, it is different,” he said. “But public service for me is public service. I served the public for over 35 years, and I want to continue doing that. I want to continue being a fiscal watchdog of the residents’ tax dollars to ensure that they’re handled responsibly, as I always have.” 

He is under no illusion that it will be easy. But the reason he ran is also the reason he is ready. He’s done the math. 

“Being here 35 years, that’s 75,000 hours of public service, and hundreds and hundreds of council meetings, not just being at the meeting but participating,” Charelian said. “And here I am wanting to put in another who knows how many thousands of hours. But I want to bring my experience and fiscal guidance to continue to help shape the city. 

“This is one of our most challenging times in the last 30 years,” Charelian said. “We faced a lot in this town —  the Great Recession, a global pandemic, and zoning changes in cities. But we’ve never had a time like this, where we have a brand new city manager, we don’t have a finance director in place yet, and we had three open council seats. I want to continue facilitating the good decision-making that helped build Manhattan Beach to what it is today.” 

Meanwhile, his campaign manager will continue working towards bigger plans. 

“I did the math, and he’d be 47 or 48, which used to be a good age to be president,” Charelian said. “Now you can’t be president unless you are at least 75. But hopefully at some point we’ll have a president in their 50s again.”  ER