Hermosans braved diving economy, potential ruin
FAREWELL 2009
Hermosa awaited a ruling in a $500 million lawsuit. Illustration by Matt Wuerker
The year 2009 ended with Hermosa Beach awaiting a milestone ruling in a $500 million lawsuit that could break the city’s bank and drive it into bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, Hermosa’s private sector struggled against a nationwide recession, the curtain fell upon the tale of a municipal inspector accused of taking bribes, and Hermosans banded together to save their 52-year-old post office.
Oil slick
Developments in the lawsuit by a spurned oilman – the case of Macpherson Oil Company versus Hermosa Beach — provided an overarching narrative for 2009.
Throughout much of its 11-year history, the breach-of-contract lawsuit moved as slowly as a fossil turning into petroleum. Macpherson had sued the city for canceling his contract to slant-drill for oil under the Pacific Ocean from city land along Valley Drive, and then the lawsuit crawled its way up and down the court system, burbling into headlines at various junctures.
Then matters came to a head when judges handed city officials a baffling pair of rulings: On one hand, the city acted lawfully when it halted Macpherson’s drilling plans over safety concerns. On the other hand, halting Macpherson’s project was not the same thing as tearing up his contract, so the city would have to pay him to make up for the oil he was not allowed to drill.
“We’re confounded,” said City Attorney Michael Jenkins.
Facing a trial to determine how much of the $500 million claim Hermosa would have to pay, the city’s lawyers heaved a Hail Mary pass with a mere 2 percent chance of success, asking an appeals court to step into the case and maybe even dismiss the lawsuit altogether.
The state’s Second District Court of Appeal caught the Hail Mary, and as the year wound to a close, high powered attorneys for the two warring sides stalked into a stately courtroom in downtown Los Angeles for a high-stakes hearing.
The justices heard some arguments, asked some pointed questions, furrowed their brows, massaged their temples and told everybody to go home and wait for a ruling. But they also signaled that they might hand the city neither a total win nor a total loss.
The justices strongly hinted that they would not dismiss the lawsuit, but they also signaled they might return the case to square one, and let the city argue all over again that it did not breach Macpherson’s contract, and should not have to pay a single penny.
Feeling the bite
A second overarching narrative was that of the economy.
The year began ominously, as City Hall recorded the first tangible effect of the downturn upon the municipality, a 46 percent decrease in plan-check fees paid by people building homes and other structures.
Much more was to come.
By the summer, many Hermosa merchants were saying their business had dipped 15 to 40 percent, and city officials noted more and more vacancies in retail buildings.
Figures compiled by City Hall’s sales tax consultant showed steep declines among some retail businesses, in some cases double or triple the average declines across Los Angeles County.
Meanwhile hoteliers reported 25 to 50 percent fewer visitors than the year before.
On the restaurant front, businesspeople said the more expensive spots and smaller start-ups faced the most difficulty, while establishments that energetically marketed themselves, using tools like email, Twitter and Facebook, generally managed the best.
In general, restaurant business was down anywhere from 15 percent to 40 percent.
In January Steve Francis, owner of the 32-seat Pinky’s BBQ on Pacific Coast Highway, vowed to customers that he would not shave his beard until Pinky’s could post a profitable month.
“I finally got to shave my beard off at the end of April,” he said. “It was a pretty good beard by then.”
Bigger they come
The 105,000 square-foot Hermosa Pavilion on Pacific Coast Highway had long laid dormant when developer Gene Shook launched a multimillion-dollar overhaul in 2002 and began to bring it back to life. But during the summer of 2009 Shook received a foreclosure notice from Preferred Bank and entered reorganization bankruptcy.
Shook had reopened the Pavilion with a large 24 Hour Fitness facility as an anchor. Since then tenant defections included the upscale Glen Ivy health spa, a children’s music studio, some retailers and professional offices.
City budget hit
By May the City Council was making hard choices as it forged a budget for the current fiscal year. The council agreed to forego a funding cut to the Fire Department, but continued a hiring freeze that left the Police Department two officers short.
All five city employee groups, and the city school employees’ union, declined to ask for pay raises in their new contracts.
Hidden side
Police, prosecutors, municipal officials and local businesspeople worked together to uncover the hidden side of a city inspector of construction projects, whose story reached its climax in 2009.
Victor Olando Jackson had been known as a by-the-book stickler, a dedicated public servant and a nice guy during his eight years on the city’s Public Works Department. His bosses had no reason to suspect anything irregular about the 48-year-old Jackson, until things started to unravel.
The police received a complaint that Jackson had sought a bribe to speed a construction project along, and they began to investigate, along with the city’s administration.
More allegations surfaced, Jackson was placed on administrative leave, and prosecutors charged him with taking bribes totaling $2,850 in nine incidents from 2006 to 2008.
Pretrial hearings lurched forward as Jackson pondered a plea agreement. In November he finally made an end of it, pleading guilty to one felony count of receiving a bribe. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail and ordered to pay more than $10,000 in fines and penalties.
“We all miss the Victor we thought we knew,” his boss said.
Post office spared
Hermosans got up on their hind legs when federal officials placed the city’s lone 52-year-old post office on a list of possible closures.
Councilman Michael Keegan helped organize a planned demonstration at the building on Pier Avenue and spearheaded an online signature drive that was among several save-the-post office petitions. Then late in the year Hermosans received word from Congresswoman Jane Harman that the post office would not close.
“This is very good news,” Harman said. “The Hermosa post office is the only one in the city. I’ve been fighting hard to keep our local postal branches open, and I congratulate the residents of Hermosa whose strong voices were heard.”
Councilman Michael DiVirgilio, Harman’s district director, also drew praise for his efforts to save the post office.
Hermosa homeless
The tale of the town’s homeless population reached the newspaper’s pages in 2009. About 40 regulars live outdoors under the watchful eye of police who employ a containment strategy, monitoring the less bothersome outdoor residents and discouraging immigration by a more troublesome element.
The local homeless population included Jim Aiken, a 56-year-old former LAPD officer and partner of celebrity cop Mark Fuhrman.
Aiken’s wife died, and then he was diagnosed with diabetes and cancer. He left his house in Torrance and wandered downhill to spend his days people-watching and reading books about baseball from a bench on the Pier Plaza.
He was quiet and friendly. They called him Jimmy Food because locals just walked up and handed him meals. He was rangy and handsome, but his eyes were yellow from the cancer that attacked his liver, and the palms of his hands were covered with large dark sores.
On a sunny afternoon in September, Aiken lied down on one of his favorite Plaza benches and quietly passed away. The cause of death was a bleeding ulcer in his duodenum, with cirrhosis of the liver as a contributing factor.
Report card
Over the summer a special committee ended a lengthy study of the city school district with sweeping recommendations aimed to maintain academic excellence, find new, stable sources of revenue, and improve communication with community members who don’t have kids in school.
The Project Forward committee had been appointed by the City Council and school board in the wake of acrimony over a gymnasium that was built at Hermosa Valley School, and two failed ballot measures to raise money for the schools.
Project Forward recommended that the school district conduct business “in a clear, open and transparent manner,” including the preparation of budget documents that could be understood by interested laypeople.
Sea change
With little fanfare officials signaled a change in the tone of the city’s popular summer sunset concerts at the pier. In April the City Council approved a move to ease out oldies acts such as Johnny Rivers and Eric Burden in favor of bands that are currently popular, with a distinct inclination toward upbeat, pop sounds.
The concert series hit a snag, however, when the pop reggae band Rebelution drew a younger crowd of some 7,000 people, some of them drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.
Many residents complained, and the City Council hired 20 uniformed security guards for the next concert, which drew about 5,000 people but did not draw the same complaints. And the council agreed that Rebelution would not be asked back for an encore.
Fresh blood
In November voters elected Howard Fishman and Jeff Duclos to the City Council and gave the boot to two-term incumbent Michael Keegan, who had set records for high vote totals in both of his previous campaigns. Voters awarded a remaining open council seat to another incumbent, Kit Bobko.
Fishman had won election to a City Council seat in 2005, but declined to serve when his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness on Election Day. Duclos ran for council as an anti-status quo candidate.
Keegan had angered some members of the business community by proposing an increase in some business license fees. Roger Bacon, owner of the Ralph’s shopping center property on Pacific Coast Highway, bought anti-Keegan newspaper advertising, placed a 20-foot long anti-Keegan banner in front of the Ralph’s store, and hired an airplane to fly a 150-foot long anti-Keegan banner over the beach the weekend before the election.
Hermosa voters also elected Jack Burns, Carleen Beste and Ray Waters to three open seats on the city school board, in a race in which no incumbent ran for reelection.
Packing it in
Sixteen-year Councilman J.R. Reviczky decided not to run for a record fifth term, and retired from elective politics.=
Reviczky had found himself on the short end of numerous council votes during his last term, and could only foresee four more years of the same had he run for reelection.
“The last couple of years haven’t been fun,” he said.
During Reviczky’s tenure the City Council built the Pier Plaza, the downtown parking structure, the city skateboard park and South Park, and renovated Hermosa Valley Park.
“I’ve got to tell you, I’ve had one hell of a ride,” said the 60-year-old Reviczky.
Big calm Fourth
Photo “>A holiday that fell on a Saturday helped swell Hermosa to about five times its normal population on the Fourth of July.
Young women in red, white and blue bikinis strutted the Strand, more than 300 competitors in the “Iron Man” ran on the sand, paddled in the ocean and returned to puke foaming gouts of beer onto the beach, and local bands played seaside parties as the westernmost stretch of town surrendered itself to the throngs.
“Overall the Fourth was relatively calm in Hermosa Beach,” Chief Greg Savelli said.
For the first time authorities rode on horseback and stood atop three-wheeled electric vehicles that resembled stable version of Segues, as they monitored the crowds.
Surf figures honored
With a brilliant spring sun shining down and the pier’s iconic surfer statue looking on, two pioneering surf figures – a founder of the Catalina Classic paddleboard race and the owner of the “Old Guys Rule” franchise – were presented with bronze plaques and inducted into the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame.
Bob Hogan founded the 32-mile endurance race from Catalina Island to Manhattan Beach in 1955. He competed in that maiden event but drifted off course in thick fog. Forty years later, at age 63, he competed again and finished seventh in the stock division.
Craig used to ride big waves before surfers were towed into them with support crews hanging nearby on jet skis. He created the motto “Old Guys Rule” to honor his father and two friends, known in the neighborhood as “the three wise men.” Craig secured the trademark and forged a successful business.
Love Tuck
The Hermosa Beach Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau named Councilman Peter Tucker and Kiwanis stalwart Pat Love the Man and Woman of the Year.
Tucker’s civic resume is as long as his rangy arms, and Love’s accomplishments include becoming first female lieutenant governor for the Kiwanis Club’s Western Region. They joined a list of 86 people who have won the chamber’s top award since 1959.
Wrapping up
In November a settlement was reached in a lawsuit against Hermosa police, which was the first in a series of legal actions that dogged the department under its former administration.
The city’s insurer paid $212,000 to Michelle Myers and Robert Nolan of Hermosa and Joel Silva of Lawndale, claimed that officers roughed up Nolan and Silva and made false statements in police reports, after the three were arrested for allegedly blocking a police cruiser on the Pier Plaza in 2004. All three were cleared of wrongdoing in a criminal trial.
Their lawsuit was the first in a string that was among the factors prompting a review of the policies and operations of the department as it changed hands from retiring Chief Mike Lavin to a temporary replacement.
Also during 2009 the city paid more than $148,000 to settle two other lawsuits against police officers, which also stemmed from events during a previous administration.
California roll
In the fall police announced that they were seeking a couple who owned the upscale Club Sushi restaurant in downtown Hermosa for alleged forgery and grand theft. The couple found out they were wanted and appeared in court to plead innocent.
Authorities accused the Alans of using their business partners’ personal information to get loans and credit with banks and creditors, and to secure credit with suppliers of restaurant equipment and appliances.
The Alans attorney said they are innocent, that their business simply collapsed, and they have been left with nothing.
“What it boils down to is that in 2008 and 2009, the leader of the company has to be at fault for everything,” he said. “That’s what we’re seeing here.”
Dashing caper
When a 23-year-old Torrance man was stabbed several times in the chest and upper body on the Pier Plaza during the summer, officers arrived to find a bleeding victim, a bloody knife and no information on the suspect except his initials and a brief physical description.
Within eight days Hermosa police detectives developed that information into an arrest, developing leads from people who had contact with their suspect during the evening, sifting for a photo of the man on myspace, and uncovering his family connections in the Philippines.
Detectives Mike Frilot and Jon Sibbald followed the man’s trail to an apartment building in Redondo Beach, made a phone call to flush him out, and then stopped a car with their suspect inside. He has been charged assault with a deadly weapon.
“Really, it was a needle in a haystack,” said Sgt. Raul Saldana. “They busted their hump for it.”
Four servicemen
The city’s annual Veterans Day ceremony featured a poignant subplot: the unveiling of bronze plaques honoring four servicemen who had served in Vietnam. The plaques had been placed in various Hermosa locations three decades ago or more, and were recovered and restored by the city with the help of a 28-year-old local Navy veteran.
None of the servicemen on the plaques is thought to be a Hermosan, but it is believed that local school students or service clubs might have “adopted” the veterans to honor and look after.
Hermosans who assembled for the candlelight ceremony at the city’s black granite monument observed a moment of silence for the men on the plaques.
Into the sunset
At the dawn of 2009 longtime Hermosa schoolteacher Kim O’Brien was memorialized by hundreds of flower-carrying admirers on the city pier, and eulogized days later as a loving, popular and accomplished educator who made and kept friends on every path she walked.
She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and died at the end of 2008, at age 56. Fourth grader Graham Amato led a fundraising drive to place a teak bench on the greenbelt overlooking the campus, in his teacher’s memory.
Beatle fave
Maurice Beaudet, a vegetarian restaurateur, musician, activist and onetime needle in the side of Redondo police, died peacefully at home on May 24 after battling a mysterious wasting illness. He was 61.
Beaudet rose to prominence after he and his wife Tonya Beaudet opened The Spot Restaurant just off Hermosa Avenue, in 1981. The vegetarian restaurant was selected to cater for Paul and Linda McCartney and about 300 others, when McCartney’s world tour stopped in L.A. in 1989.
It was in Redondo that Beaudet ran afoul of a city police officer in a high-profile dustup that ended in court. The officer gave Beaudet a ticket for crossing a street illegally. Beaudet responded by altering a photo of the officer to give him a Pinocchio nose, and circulated it for public consumption.
The officer took Beaudet to court for defamation and won what Beaudet characterized as a small settlement.
Merchants, farewell
Longtime Hermosa resident and businessman Garrison Albert Frost passed away in July from complications due to heart disease. He was 73. Frost owned Coast Drug Store in downtown Hermosa Beach from 1972 until the store closed in 1995.
In an incident that made him a folk hero among downtown business owners, he once broke off the wooden gate to the parking lot behind his store and mounted it over the prescription counter. Frost had become enraged after a parking lot attendant refused to allow his wife to make a delivery to the back of his store without paying for parking.
Del Andrews, Jr., a Hermosa home furnishing store owner and an avid waterman who invented products for diving, boating and fishing, passed away peacefully at home June 2. He was 85. He owned and operated Andrews Home Furnishings on Hermosa Avenue near Pier Avenue for more than 50 years. ER