Music & oil
Dear ER:
I am the last ‘legitimate’ recording studio in Hermosa Beach. My place of business is 671 Valley Drive…since 1984. I am 4 feet from the City Yard.
I want a full explanation and full documentation how the planned “Oil Recovery” will impact my specific building/business. How the walls of my building might react to the heavy machinery, how the vibration and noise created will affect my ability to record acoustic instruments, how the safety of my recording clients and students OF recording, is to be insured. I have 30 or so students of guitar and the recording arts attend my facility every week, as well as 9-10 bands every week doing their own recording and rehearsing. All legitimate business city-licensed activities.
The City of Hermosa Beach must give me assurance that my business will not be affected by noise/vibration. You issued me a business license! Would you send your 10-year-old to a studio knowing a full 87 foot oil derrick is being actively worked only a few feet from the very wall where your child sat? If anything happened to one of these children, it would be my demise, business and personal. How am I expected to carry on my business with this looming ‘project’ on the block? I really would like to demand that all planning, all EIR studies, all oil drilling proposals, be terminated now.
This project heads the City of Hermosa Beach in the absolute wrong way down a freeway of choices. The only way to avoid this head-on collision, is to turn BACK.
Please add my concerns to the banner.
Karl Grossman
Hermosa Beach
Hermosa’s shell game
Dear ER:
It’s been a long time since I have witnessed a shell game being played. You know, it’s that game that requires three cups and a soft round ball – about the size of a marble. The game’s perpetrator (swindler/dealer, actually) begins the game by placing the ball under one of the cups, and quickly shuffles the cups around.
Once the shuffling is done, the operator (perpetrator/swindler/dealer) takes bets from the onlookers to correctly identify the location of the ball. Then if a “player” makes the correct guess, he or she doubles their money. If the guess is incorrect, the player loses their money. It’s a simple game. But, in the hands of a skilled scam artist, the game just cannot be won.
Now often when a “player” comes onto the scene, it appears that numerous other players who surround the table are placing bets. In reality, however, the people around the game are most often shills who are part of the scam.
So, what does this have to do with oil in Hermosa? I am not sure, but it appears to me that we have this same shell game being played right here in our city.
Whether or not it is common knowledge, the oil-drilling contract actually has two revenue streams, “on-shore oil” for which Hermosa Beach will receive some revenue, and “off-shore” oil, for which we will receive none.
The next step is to drill a total of 30 wells in that very small space on Sixth Street and Valley Drive. Then we place a sign on which wells draw which oil, and guess what. If the on-shore oil produces, we change signs from on-shore to off-shore, and presto-change-o, we get no revenue.
Then, like in the shell game, we keep betting more and more, and lose more and more. Have I missed something here? Anyone really want to play this game?
Andre Sharp
Hermosa Beach
Anniversary stories
Dear ER:
For a number of years now my husband Chuck and I have excitedly anticipated that magical Thursday morning when ER’s anniversary issue arrives at our favorite coffee haunt. We aren’t the only contributors, considering the number of people who gather for a side order of coffee while anxiously searching ER praying that their offering got the grand prize ink.
Chuck and I, without debate, by way of ER’s anniversary issue, love for our stories to be published. Significantly, in a very special way, our main satisfaction is derived by ER’s contest bringing Chuck and I together, selecting from our abundant relationship of life shaping events…our minds harmonizing during the creation blending entries.
We all have heard that the most important events in an individual’s life are when they’re born and when they die. No, being born and dying requires only the skills of nature.
Summoning the skillfully focused hands of the mind each year in the month of August is the most important event, when an individual sees their story printed in the Easy Reader. 358 more days, we can’t wait.
Dora Perez-Meyer
Torrance
Regarding ‘Faith less’
Dear ER:
First of all J.E. Morris age 10 is a farce, no ten year old has the knowledge complexity of historical religion let alone the Higgs-Boson Field or Quantum Mechanics [“Faith less” honorable mention, Easy Reader Writing Contest 8/8/13] . Based on the perpetuated lie that this [jerk] lays down, how can you place any value in his writing let alone give him Honorable Mention? Your action doesn’t give much credence to anything ER sponsors. The uninformed can say that religion has its draw backs; however, they are confused as to the perpetrator of the corruption and wrong doing of the men that speak in the name of religion. Man is basically an evil S.O.B. and acts with the preponderance of his energy for his own profit. The original concept and charter of religion is beautiful and wholesome, it is only when man gets involved that it gets screwed up because of his greed for money, power and control. Man is born pure and evil-free, however his “freewill” and society distorts the true value of his inheritance and he becomes one of our self centered, drug induced, brain-dead sheep that our society has become. Have the [jerk] read the rise and fall of historical empires, he may have enough grey matter between his ears to understand that all empires decay and fall from within as a result of moronic ideas and values that Mr. J. E. Morris espouses. If Morris’ God is science, how does he explain the complexity of the human body and the universe as evolutionary? Who and what are the controlling factors that created “something” from “nothing” – evolution? The US Empire is on track and following the same destructive outcome as the Egyptian, Greek and Roman Empires based on the same evil forces present herein, (and by Morris), as led to the demise of our for-bearer empires. After the fall of the Roman Empire, it was Christianity that saved much of the technology developed to date; as well as contributing to the end of the “dark Ages” that lasted 700 year through the conversion of the barbarians that over ran Europe. The Renaissance period in Europe was a direct result of what Morris defines as biblical nonsense. So what are our alternatives?
Richard Smith
Manhattan Beach
Non-representative government
Dear ER:
The construction crisis in Manhattan Beach stems from the failure of prior Manhattan Beach City Councils (MBCC) to promote the public interest rather than the interests of the real estate lobby (i.e., developers, architects, contractors, and realtors). Instead, it has resulted in development conflicting with MBCC’s mission to “preserving our small beach town character,” but rather destruction in our quality of life (ER, “Council addresses shoring, building issues,” August 8).
The failure to promote the public interest generates voter apathy and lack of civic involvement resulting from a sense of impotency. An antidote is employment by the present MBCC of public engagement interventions to empower residents in the deliberation of public policymaking along with the ownership and commitment to make those policies successful.
A resident significantly impacted by a major neighborhood construction project appeared before the MBCC pleading for its intervention. Yet, the same resident rejected the responsibility of the MBCC to promote civic engagement writing to me stating:
“…[A] few weeks ago you wrote of voter apathy and seemed to blame it on City Council’s behavior. I believe our local voter apathy is based on self-centered APATHY…Our residents are too interested in throwing parties in their mcmansions, earning money to pay for their mcmansions, showing off their BMW’s and designer duds, taking Johnny to soccer practice, etc. Think about how many garages you pass with the Beach Reporter lying outside all week. City Council’s fault?”
The resident is not alone. In a survey of elected officials, 87 percent viewed the public as disengaged but overall valuing yet cautious of deliberative processes. Therefore, are we in a “chicken or egg” quandary? How do we ensure the MBCC is meeting its governance responsibilities to promote our overall community’s public interest?
Perhaps the solution is inherent in approximately only 20 percent of those registered voting in the last municipal election, meaning each member of the MBCC did “not” receive votes by over 80 percent of registered voters. Representative government? No way!
Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D.
Manhattan Beach
Redondo parking
Dear ER:
My fellow community members, the Redondo Beach City Council will benefit by hearing from you about the upcoming staff recommendations to increase the parking meter fees, the parking meter enforcement hours, and more frequent enforcement of the Esplanade and Riviera Village. When the community fails to educate the council, they tend to follow the recommendations of staff without a full understanding of how it affects the community. Your input is valuable! Please email cityclerk@redondo.org with your thoughts. Please come to the Aug. 20 meeting.
How does it affect your business? Your quality of life? Will you continue to spend as much time in the Village?
Mary Delehanty
Redondo Beach
