Hermosa Beach councilman Al Valdes helped save California Coastline
Al Valdes leads a rally from atop The Strand wall in support of the Coastal Commission Act in 1972. Photo “The Hermosa Beach City Council has ordered Police chief William Berlin to make a written apology to Councilman Al Valdes and to demote a top officer amid charges of possible slander and the existence of dossiers on City officials.” — Easy Reader, Dec. 5, 1970 This lead sentence from the front page story, headlined “Berlin under fire, dossiers exposed,” suggests the tenor of the times when councilman Al Valdes led the “good government” movement in Hermosa Beach in the early 1970s. Among the slanderous allegations in the police dossier were suggestions that Valdes was associated with the newly founded Easy Reader newspaper and the recently closed Burbage Theater. The city cited code violations to close the theater following its production of the anti war play “Viet Rock.” Ironically, notes George Schmeltzer, whom Valdes’ wife Naoma helped groom to succeed her husband on the council in 1976, “Al was a Goldwater Conservative who read widely and in contrast to today’s Conservatives, was a guy who believed in government’s ability to improve things for everyone.” Valdes died Sunday…
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