Hermosa Beach 2019 year in review
Greenbelt infiltration project on hold, lawsuit threat lingers
The year began with uncertainty for Hermosa Beach residents about the fate of a stormwater infiltration project proposed for a location under the Greenbelt between Second and Herondo streets. City officials agreed to locate the project in Hermosa years ago, but last year, when the city began drilling down on the design, residents living nearby became concerned about its size and potential impacts.
Engineers hired by the city said the project, one of the beach cities’ largest regional stormwater initiatives, would not be detectable after construction, which was expected to take at least 18 months.
Residents of the Moorings townhomes, which directly abut the section of the Greenbelt where the infiltration was proposed, cried foul, saying that such a large project — designs called for a filtration gallery with a volume of 319,000 cubic feet, nearly 2.4 million gallons — would inevitably disturb the quality of life for people living nearby, some of whose front doors look directly out at the segment of Greenbelt where the project would go.
In March, the City Council considered the fate of the Greenbelt project, as well as alternative project locations, such as one in South Park. After hearing hours of impassioned objections to locating a large project anywhere in the city, council members voted to pursue negotiations with Redondo and Torrance about locating projects there.
“I sure wish we had a binding commitment from Redondo Beach. I’m willing to trust your judgment that Option 3 is viable and support it,” said Councilmember Justin Massey, referring to the choice to pursue projects outside the city.
But as those negotiations got underway, signs of trouble emerged. The state notified the beach cities that delay caused by rejecting the Greenbelt project meant they had forfeited a $3 million grant. Redondo indicated that locating a substitute project within its boundaries was far from a guarantee. And, as negotiations intensified, Redondo demanded nearly half a million dollars from Hermosa, money that had already been spent preparing the rejected Greenbelt project.
“We cannot imagine what justification Hermosa Beach would have for refusing to return those funds immediately,” Redondo Mayor Bill Brand wrote in a July letter. The letter also criticized the decision to kill the Greenbelt project, which could open Hermosa and the rest of the Beach Cities up to significant Clean Water Act fines.
Then Mayor Stacey Armato said that Hermosa was evaluating the letter internally, and that the Hermosa council continued to be optimistic about addressing stormwater. In October, a person close to the negotiations told Easy Reader there had been no progress.
North School construction under way
Reopening North School, a long-awaited fix to the Hermosa Beach City School District’s overcrowding woes, came up for a crucial vote in January, when the school board approved the campus’ final Environmental Impact Report in January. But pressure from residents with lingering questions about the traffic and congestion impacts of reopening a school property that was shuttered in the ‘80s and rented to a preschool, pushed Hermosa officials to take a closer look. With the window to challenge the school board’s vote closing, City Manager Suja Lowenthal sent a letter to the district, asking for a lengthy delay to better vet plans for North. The district declined.
What followed was a tense two weeks in which it seemed possible that the city might sue the school district, a highly unpopular course of action among many residents; the district, in turn, faced the prospect of a lawsuit tying its hands with a deadline to spend bond money for North construction.
After tense negotiations among school board and city council subcommittees, the two bodies were able to craft a compromise and avoid a lawsuit. The compromise required the formation, among other things, of a “Neighborhood Traffic Management Plan,” a document created with resident input that would guide the selection of anti-congestion measures in the streets surrounding North. Following a meeting last month, consultants said they were all but ready to present a draft of the traffic plan for approval by the city and school district, which is expected to take place next year. Among the proposed fixes are a prohibition on turning west off Valley Drive during school hours, and turning 26th Street on the campus’ northern edge into a one-way street.
North is expected to open in January 2021, at which point Hermosa View School will close for construction. The board approved plans for View in its last meeting of the year.
A rendering of the Strand and Pier proposal, which is now on hold. Image courtesy City of Hermosa Beach
Strand and Pier project on hold
The Strand & Pier hotel and retail project began the year an object of both hope and hand-wringing from Hermosa residents. Some residents and business owners thought that the proposed 100-room hotel could help drive daytime and off-season traffic at some of Hermosa’s downtown businesses. But, in various public forums held on the project’s behalf, others said they feared the project was out of scale with the city, and that the accommodations it was seeking from Hermosa’s city government were too much, including surrendering the Beach Drive alley that connects Pier Plaza to Noble Park.
The project came before the city’s Planning Commission last year, where it faced tough but not unanswerable questions about its draft Environmental Impact Report. The project was supposed to return for another public hearing, and eventually on to the City Council. But months ticked on, with no word about its status. Then, in October, developer Bolour and Associates sent Hermosa a letter indicating that the project no longer made economic sense.
“Unfortunately, escalating construction costs, combined with outdated and excessive parking requirements, and additional financial requirements placed on the developer through the EIR process, no longer make the project financially viable,” CEO Mark Bolour wrote in a letter to City Manager Suja Lowenthal.
The “parking requirements” of Bolour’s letter was the number of spaces that the new development would have to provide, one of several subjects of criticism that followed the project as it made its way through the planning process. The developer had submitted a study indicating that the project would create a demand for far fewer spaces than the traditional formula in Hermosa’s municipal code would have required it to provide, largely due to the growing popularity of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft. And while the Strand and Pier project is stalled for now, questions about parking regulations, particularly in areas near the beach, continue to recur, and remain an object of study for Hermosa.
‘Beatnik Alley’ mural stirs controversy
The Hermosa Beach Mural Project entered 2019 with high expectations. Its previous entry, the eighth in its planned series of 10 murals covering Hermosa’s culture and history, depicted the city’s contributions to punk rock and skateboarding, and had been the most acclaimed mural yet. Painted on the wall of a downtown parking structure, that mural centered on the former Baptist church on Manhattan Avenue where Black Flag once lived and practiced, and its unveiling drew hundreds of onlookers and supporters.
When the mural project board announced in April that the ninth entry would depict Hermosa’s bohemian and countercultural history, it seemed poised for another stirring success. An Easy Reader story about the plans for the mural was widely shared, with Hermosa residents past and present waxing nostalgic about departed dens of free thinking like Either/Or Bookstore and The Insomniac Cafe. Over the summer, the board announced that Timothy Smith, a Southern California artist known for a mural style that bent space and time constraints to incorporate multiple perspectives in one wall, was the chosen artist.
But as Smith began working in public on the mural on the west-facing wall of Waterman’s on Pier Plaza, one of the people he included began to cause controversy: Allen Ginsberg. The famous poet was one of the key voices of the Beat Generation, and once did a reading of his masterpiece “Howl” at the Insomniac. But some objected to Ginsberg’s membership in the North American Man Boy Love Association, a controversial group widely accused of encouraging pederasty. Ginsberg joined the group toward the end of his life, and explained that it was a free speech gesture. But the mural project’s board, an all-volunteer group containing several former Hermosa mayors, feared that the controversy surrounding Ginsberg would swallow the rest of the people in the mural, and Smith agreed to replace Ginsberg with musician Ramblin’ Jack Elliot.
The controversy over Ginsberg faded, and the final mural, which also included Miles Davis, who performed many times at the Lighthouse Cafe, and writer Leonard Wibberley, a longtime Hermosa resident and author of the Cold War satire “The Mouse that Roared,” was well-received.
The mural board will likely announce the subject of its final entry in the spring.
Kids watch the Teen Choice Awards, held on the south side of the Pier in August. Photo
Teen Choice leaves bizzes fuming
On May 31, the Hermosa Beach City Council held a special meeting. The unusual Friday afternoon time slot was to allow the council to approve hosting the Teen Choice Awards on the beach in Hermosa. The event, in its 21st year, allows kids to vote for their favorites in TV, movies, music and more, and is nationally televised.
The Teen Choice Awards created palpable excitement, but also concern. Some complained the event had sidestepped traditional procedures for vetting special events, including passing through the Parks and Rec Commission. City officials said secrecy was needed to meet contractual provisions related to the broadcast of the event.
Event producer Bob Bain, a longtime Manhattan Beach resident, said it had long been his dream to host the event on the beach, but he had never been able to make it work logistically. Past runnings had been held at more traditional venues, including the Forum in Inglewood.
There was plenty of excitement leading up to the event. The network’s social media team filmed commercials by the beach, including with members of the Mira Costa High School surf team. Social media titans announced their appearance. And a special, early offering of presale event passes for South Bay residents was mobbed. The free passes quickly ran out, and could later be found selling for hundreds of dollars on Craigslist and NextDoor.
Downtown Hermosa was transformed by the event infrastructure. The parking lot south of Pier Plaza was closed for a week leading to allow loading of the massive stage. When Sunday, the day of the event came, teams set up fences along The Strand and Pier Plaza to create a red carpet, and streets were closed for blocks.
Businesses in downtown complained of getting little or confusing notices from the city, and found themselves cut off from customers on a summer Sunday afternoon. And while thousands of kids descended on Hermosa for a tightly run show, this did not translate into a banner day for retailers and restaurateurs. A survey of 25 downtown businesses produced an estimate of $180,000 in losses; another by city staff put the figure higher still. The losses created anger among businesses, and added to pressure the city was already feeling about how it approves and decides on special events on its beaches.
Police contract dispute spills into public
The year’s final meeting of the Hermosa Beach City Council was dominated by people in matching white T-shirts expressing support for the city’s police department. Dozens of people criticized the city’s approach in the negotiations over a new contract with the Hermosa Beach Police Officers Association, the union that represents the department’s rank and file. The previous contract expired in July, and since then several officers have left the department for jobs promising higher salaries and greater possibilities for growth. Those remaining say the departures are likely to continue unless the city makes its salaries more competitive with those offered by other departments.
A mailer sent to city residents created concern that these personnel losses were making the city less safe, and that if they were to continue the city might need to contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The city, responding to these concerns, noted that there is no evidence of a widespread crime wave, and said that it has never considered contract with the sheriff’s department.
As of press time, the two parties appeared wide apart. The city’s final offer, tendered Dec. 4, included a pay increase of 13 percent over three years; officers are seeking a pay increase of 30 percent over three years.
Hermosa Beach City Councilmember Hany Fangary. Easy Reader file photo
Fangary sues his council colleagues
As December dawned, City Councilmember Hany Fangary had filed a lawsuit against the city and some of his fellow elected officials, accusing them of subverting procedures to deny him a chance at a leadership position on the council.
It began a few weeks after this year’s November elections, when the Hermosa Beach City Council gathered for its traditional mayor rotation ceremony. Hermosa, like many other California cities, does not elect its mayor separately. Rather, the council members vote for one of their number to be mayor, and another to be mayor pro tem.
Choosing who fills the positions has, for at least four decades, been based on a rotation allowing each councilmember to take the mayor’s gavel in turn. As expected, Councilmember Mary Campbell became mayor. But Councilmember Hany Fangary, who had been in line to become mayor pro tem, was snubbed in favor of Councilmember Justin Massey.
The decision caught many people in town by surprise, and spawned speculation over what could be behind it. In the days following the event, Fangary spoke of feeling betrayed by his colleagues.
“I’m just dealing with the incredible disappointment at the action of people I used to consider friends,” Fangary told Easy Reader.
The city issued a statement claiming that council members voted to pass over Fangary because he allegedly had problems communicating with City Manager Suja Lowenthal. The scope of these problems remained unclear until two weeks later, when the council held a special meeting at which several council members shared the details of a dispute that had played out behind closed doors, including that the battle with Lowenthal, in whom Fangary had publicly expressed a lack of confidence, began with a disagreement over a parking spot. Fangary has said that he no longer communicates with Lowenthal in person outside of council meetings, in part because of the disagreement over the parking space.
On the day of the special meeting, Fangary filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court, asking a judge to reverse the council’s decision and name him mayor pro tem.