“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 May 13 of Parkinson’s Disease at age 82, leaving behind a political legacy that included not only preserving Hermosa’s coastline, but all of California’s.
“Al was in the forefront of a trend that fundamentally changed local government in California in the 1970s,” recalled Chip Post who joined Valdes on the council in 1972.
“He was a leader among those who for a number of years had been advocating policies to protect against coastal overdevelopment. When he and his wife Naoma were successful in leading the April 1972 election effort that put Al in the majority on the city council for the first time, Hermosa became one of the early cities whose top priority was to implement what were then called ‘anti-density’ policies. With the passage of the Coastal Act in June, 1972 it was evident that Hermosa voters were not alone in their concerns. Within several years few cities anywhere in the state had ‘pro-development’ majorities. And it was Al who helped bring about the change.”
Schmeltzer and Post both commented on Valdes’ politically rare coupling of civility and effectiveness.
“His manner was gentle and full of deference to others. I still wonder how he so often got his way,” Post recalled.
Schmeltzer said, “Al’s personality and demeanor never put obstacles in the way. You knew he listened to you so you gave him the same courtesy. Getting people to listen to what you have to say is half the battle. Of course, the other half is that you have to have something to say. Al always did. He was very smart.
“In the early ‘70s, when a group of us at Tom Libby’s Pie & Awning Co. art gallery were organizing to defeat an ordinance aimed at driving out renters and other ‘substandard people’ by limiting the number of ‘unrelated’ people who could live in a house, Al stopped by to encourage us and suggest ways to approach the City Council. When he left, one of the more wild-eyed among us said something to the effect that if there were more guys like Al in local government you wouldn’t need to be out protesting against dumb laws. The ordinance failed,” Schmeltzer said.
“Al wasn’t afraid to try new things. At the end of City Council meetings Al often brought out a newspaper, magazine, or book to read from an article or chapter about some city’s approach to some problem or other. You always learned something from Al and he always seemed to be wiser than his years,” Schmeltzer said.
Following his retirement from the council, Valdes remained active in the Friends of the Library and the Sister City program, which he helped found.
Valdes practiced dentistry in his Catalina Avenue office in Redondo Beach for over 40 years. After retirement, he served as a member of the faculty at the USC School of Dentistry, where he had graduated, and volunteered at the South Bay Free Clinic. He was an ardent USC football fan and for 60 years, never missed a home game.
“He often shared his ideas with me when I was in his dentist’s chair,” Schmeltzer said. “He’d wait until my mouth was propped open, the Novocain was taking its effect, and I couldn’t talk for fear of swallowing my tongue. He could go on for quite some time, and the most you could do was to shake your head up or down.”
Valdes is survived by his wife of 57 years Naoma; his son Todd and Todd’s wife Leilani, grandchildren Alexander, Nicholas and Caroline; his daughter Sherry Slosson and her husband Richard, and grandchildren Eric Slosson and Jenna Slosson Narayanan, her husband Satish and great-granddaughter Maya Narayanan; and his sister Maria del Carmen Brambila.
Friends and family are invited to celebrate his life and share memories at a reception starting at 6 p.m. on Thursday, June 7, at the Portofino Hotel in Redondo Beach. ER
