Groups with guns
Dear ER:
I want to thank the South Bay Open Carry people for showing us what the Second Amendment allows us to do [“Guns didn’t take the fun out of Hometown Fair,” ER Oct. 7, 2010].
Their stated goal was to make us feel comfortable seeing people among us openly carrying unloaded guns (that can be loaded in one second). I am sure more people didn’t freak out seeing people openly carry guns because the people who were involved looked like us. But now Open Carry has set a precedent. Will the people of Hermosa and Manhattan be equally nonplussed if any of the following people openly carry in their town?
Blacks in gangsta apparel
Middle Easterners in Muslim apparel
Whites in Nazi apparel
Bikers
Latinos with gang tattoos
I’m not saying any of these people are bad. I am just saying our citizens might be uncomfortable when people who don’t look like them are carrying guns openly in their town. But the precedent has been set by Open Carry and if other groups have the desire to do the same they can not be denied. Something to think about.
What if two groups who feel hostility to each other are openly carrying at the same time? Would we feel safe?
Open Carry also bragged that they could load their guns in one second. What if a brave, well-trained military veteran who was suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome saw the Open Carry people walking with their guns and her/his mind told her/him to attack the enemy? She/he would have a loaded gun in one second. Same with any other mentally unstable person.
Just a few things to think about.
Gary Kazanjian
Book ‘em
Dear ER:
To those who think that they’re police booking pictures should not be shown; those pictures are a matter of public information [“Police stings massage parlors,” ER Oct. 21. 2010]. That means that anyone can acquire them. It can be a crappy deal (for the accused) but it’s part of what makes information open to all, so citizens can be or don’t have to be watchdogs.
Adam Ruseling
Web comment
Sad news
Dear ER:
I am totally stunned. I had no clue of Jenny’s passing [“Senator’s death clouds election decision,” ER Oct. 28, 2010] until today when I researched her office info to send her an e-mail.
How ironic that this is the first time I have felt so moved to contact her. Without knowing her fate, she has been on my mind all week, not just for the upcoming election, but to applaud her work with the passage of bills SB 949, SB 933, and SB1127.
My deepest condolences to those who knew and loved her. It is a great loss for all of California. May her soul rest in peace and her spirit live on in the hearts of those who knew and loved her!
T. Farley
Web comment
Eatery irony
Dear ER:
Hermosa Councilman Pete Tucker is right [“Open-front restaurant approved,” ER Oct. 28, 2010]. Who wants to live in a neighborhood with a restaurant anyway? The space is much more useful as an empty storefront.
‘King Nimby’
Web comment
Both sides now
Dear ER:
Does Mr. Repohl ever listen to the extremely negative viewpoints that have been uttered by NPR employees on the air [“The devil and Juan Williams,” ER Oct. 28, 2010]? Suggestions that they wish Jessie Helms would get AIDS or maybe his grandchildren! You don’t have to like Mr. Helms to know that this is wrong.
I see no articles issued against Joy Behar when she rants on the air about some politician she doesn’t like calling her a “B—-” and saying the woman is going to hell. No – that is perfectly right because it just so happens that politician is a conservative, and that’s who is really the enemy! Not radical Muslims, not the drug lords flowing across our southern borders, not men with nightsticks outside our polling places.
I must have fallen asleep and awoken in a strange land when only 50to 60 percent of us are scared to death at what’s happening to America. What has become of our country? Is only one side of a topic acceptable anymore — no more discussions are allowed? Let’s just blame everything on Bush or Fox News — or call someone a bigot or racist if you don’t like their opinion. That’s so much easier than really discussing an issue intelligently!
Becky Benson
Web comment
Loaded dogs
Dear ER:
This era dogs are used as passive-aggressive, anti-social weapons: what bullets are to guns, barking is to dogs [“City, lawyer tilt over barking dogs,” ER Oct. 21, 2010]. Barking kills — a slow, painful death from a million bee stings.
Communities should focus on the root cause of the conflict between barking dog and innocent human: the barking is the root cause. It’s the barking that’s the source of the conflict. The source of the conflict is not the barking-sufferer’s reaction to barking, whatever that reaction may be.
Chronic barking is molestation. The party at fault is the household with the barker(s). It doesn’t matter what the sufferer-of-barking does to try to get the barking to stop; they feel desperate because they’re not getting support from the outlying community to get the barking stopped. I’m not talking about partial-barking stopped – I mean 100 percent. The barking-sufferer has a right to enjoy his or her patch of real estate unmolested by barking. The barker needs to get gone.
In a conflict between one person and a dog, the human should win out every time. Human rights trump dog rights. Who is it who pays the mortgage or rent? Not dogs. Why do we as a society grant dogs more rights than people?
Barking is a serious offense: barking makes people literally insane. Chronic barking causes the barking-sufferer to not be able to meet his obligations in paying the mortgage or rent and putting food on the table.
People, obtaining dogs, who like to have their “own petty egos stroked,” are clueless as to what it takes to truly care for a dog. Being the guardian of a dog is a lifelong commitment – it is similar to caring for a human infant. Dogs cost money and take time, done properly, lots of both. Leaving dog(s) in a yard unattended and unloved is a hazard to anyone, not the owner who is within earshot of the barking.
A barker is a menace. A barker is a health hazard. A barker is an “ignored” dog. It’s time we see chronic barking for what it is: animal neglect. Animal neglect has serious consequences! Things have to be done by the community, on behalf of the barking-sufferer, in its laws, fines, punishments, jail-time, impounding dog, or seizure of dog-owner’s vehicles.
Dog-haters are made, not born. Residents become hostile after years of their communities having more sympathy for barkers than for barking-sufferers, communities who spit on human need for peace and quiet where they live.
Having dogs growing up, I used to like dogs. No more. Barkers are really, really bad public relations for canines in general. Barking gives the whole canine species a bad reputation. Responsible dog owners should pressure “arrant dog owners who condone chronic barking” to stop the barking.
You know, how would you feel if you went to poop in your own toilet, the next-door neighbor’s dog heard you from outside, barked continuously five feet from where you’re doing your business? How would you feel if you put a dish in the microwave oven, the other next-door neighbor’s dog heard you from outside, barked continuously five feet from where you’re trying to eat a pleasant meal? How would you feel if the phone rings, you answer it, the next-door neighbor’s dog heard you from outside, barked continuously five feet from where you’re trying to have a conversation where you yell into the phone “I can’t hear you. What’d you say?”
How would you feel if the only place you could sleep was on the floor in a closet located on the other side of the house? (This really happened.) And finally, how would you feel if this went on, day and night, for five years? Answer honestly, because you would not have had a good night’s sleep in five years. How would you feel?
Mediation implies there is something to mediate, as if with chronic barking there is middle-ground or compromise. Dogs have no business around human dwelling areas. Sorry, but I’m not going to compromise my physical need for a safe and sane soundscape around my home. The dog leaves.
Dogs are “guests” and as such, must behave. If dogs don’t behave, banish them.
Leigh
Web comment
Sharrowing concerns
Dear ER:
The Hermosa Beach Public Works Commission (PWC) held an open forum Oct. 20 regarding bike sharrows on Hermosa Avenue. Over 30 people – almost entirely residents – spoke to concerns or supported various features of the Bike Master Plan.
The Commission will submit to City Council to maintain the current sharrows and promote an education campaign on safety, vehicle code and road-sharing protocol. Regarding Pier Avenue, it is recommended that the city first assess traffic volume and lane usage once development has been completed prior to installing sharrows.
On behalf of the PWC, we thank our community for your participation – your opinions and emails were constructive, insightful and most appreciated.
We also thank our speakers Charles Gandy, mobility coordinator/transportation programs, Long Beach; Dan Gutierrez, certified bike instructor, League of American Bicyclists; Marissa Christiansen, South Bay initiative director, Los Angeles County Bicycle Coalition; and HBPD Chief Greg Savelli for contributing additional perspective.
Visit hermosabch.org to view the presentations and public comment.
The benefits of cycling as exercise, culture and lifestyle are globally recognized. The PWC is committed to coordinate education, cooperation and logistics with our residents, neighboring cities, and South Bay health, law enforcement and special interest groups. Please watch for forthcoming events and continue to share your issues, solutions and the road.
Julian Katz
Public Works Commission Chairman
Kimberlee MacMullan
Public Works Commissioner
Hermosa Beach
Send him packing
Dear ER:
Hermosa’s former Public Works Director, Rick Morgan, thankfully took a city “buy-out” and retired with a fat pension for life. City Manager Stephen Burrell has thusly, in my view, lost his puppet to the benefit of the city. It’s now time for the council to refocus and move to replace the manipulative Burrell with a new or interim city manager who will place residential infrastructure front and center at every council meeting, rather than pulling every trick possible to keep Hermosa’s councils uninformed, dysfunctional, and himself in full control.
Hermosa Hills’ 80-year-old concrete streets (built for Model-T Fords in the 1920s) have been neglected long enough by Burrell. Burrell and his manipulated, liquor-expanding councils have for years used the excuse that they were not paving Hermosa Hills streets because the area was supposedly to be “utility under-grounded.” Under-grounding was essentially scrapped there years ago due to the outrageous cost estimates being provided by the utility monopolies. Those neglected streets remain in the worst condition in the South Bay, and are seriously affecting residential property values, which Torrance resident Burrell could not care less about, and which are the predominant generator of revenue for Hermosa Beach.
Still Hermosa’s council remains impotent in limiting downtown liquor expansion. Now the council finds itself with members Patrick “Kit” Bobko and Michael DiVirgilio wanting to add more full liquor licenses to upper Pier Avenue. These two even desire multiple 3,000 to 15,000 barrel-per-year breweries in the city with such production breweries to each be brewing and bottling one million to five million 12-ounce bottles of beer per year 100 feet from expensive residential homes near South Park. Obviously an inappropriate use for residentially dense Hermosa Beach, and a use to not even be bringing any net revenue increase to the city, as these would be wholesale brewing operations. Bobko and DiVirgilio evidently have no problem with the brewing odors to also be depreciating surrounding residential areas, year around.
Bobko and DiVirgilio would best retire from the council or terminate their insidious self-promoting Democrat and Republican photo-op politician nonsense to concentrate on improving Hermosa’s residential infrastructure during their remaining council term.
Enough of their use of elected positions to pander to negative city uses and interests, they ignorantly believe will bring them kudos and campaign donations from those connected to such negative uses and/or political party affiliations. DiVirgilio absolutely needs to be voted off the council in next year’s election. He’s simply too slick and deceitful a politician. Hermosa does not need the disingenuous, synthetic Bobko either.
Nonetheless, Hermosa is fortunate to now have three on its council (Peter Tucker, Howard Fishman, and Jeff Duclos) who understand that there’s more to this community and its men, women and children than its excessive booze interests, and which council members also appear to be refocusing on matters of residential infrastructure, especially the paving of the city’s horrible concrete residential streets. The question remains though, as to whether they are willing to refocus or replace Burrell.
Howard Longacre
Hermosa Beach
