Workman’s pocket
Dear ER:
Last week’s Council meeting was cut short by a Brown Act violation in which Councilman [Steve] Sammarco emailed all the Council about the CenterCal Mall-by-the-Sea agenda item. But, local papers missed the real story. Publicly released to resolve the violation, Sammarco’s email was revealing.
First, the email reveals that City Staff is advocating CenterCal’s Mall without any financial analysis evaluating whether the mall could be successful.
“…I was under the impression (by you) I would get my third-party independent review; to make sure the market could bear 400,000 sq feet of retail which I asked for I believe two months ago well in advance of this meeting so I could have time to prepare. I have no third-party independent financial Analysis.”
If this 460,000 square foot mall fails, it will be taxpayers, not CenterCal absorbing the City’s losses and costs for generations to come.
Second, the email reveals the City Manager Bill Workman’s attempt to manipulate a Councilman’s motion prior to the public hearing.
“I’m not sure preparing a motion for me to read tonight is the right thing to do.”
Our City Manager has a track record of withholding public data from the public. It once took me six months to get a traffic study. And recently he was chastised for withholding information from the Council. He attempts to intimidate those who counter his whims.
It is time to change City Managers. Are Aspel and the Council too much in his pocket to do the right thing?
Jim Light
Redondo Beach
Council ban
Dear ER:
One of the Redondo Beach councilmen is notorious for having letters about various controversial subjects published in the Easy Reader.
It seems to me that if more than one of our councilmen read the Daily Breeze letters (which I am sure they do) this would be a violation of the Brown Act, just as much as the emails that caused the postponement of the proposed MOU for the harbor area developer has caused.
If that is the case, it would be a good practice to ban councilmen from publishing anything controversial in the Easy Reader. I fail to see any difference between the two, as far as Brown Act violations are concerned.
Bill Becker
Redondo Beach
Sammarco defended
Dear ER:
Politics are crazy. Redondo Beach Councilman Sammarco did what a good representative of the residents would do. He questioned why Bill Workman, the City Manager, was preparing a motion for him “to make” regarding the Waterfront, at the 10/29/13 meeting. Councilman Sammarco, also stated that he was still awaiting a “third party independent financial analysis” of CenterCal’s huge retail project “in all fairness to the taxpayers to the developer and residents.”
The press focused on the Brown Act Violation as Sammarco copied the Mayor and his fellow Councilmen on his response to Workman’s outlandish request. They should have focused on Workman’s action and the huge financial risk the City and City Council will place on us, the taxpayers, if they proceed without an independent 3rd party fiscal impact analysis and an independent 3rd party market analysis.
It is unheard of that a development of this size would be approved without these financial analyses. We all must support Councilman Sammarco. Join us at the 11/12 City Council Meeting, at 6:00 p.m., to demand that the City Council not move ahead until these studies are completed and that they must demonstrate that we the citizens are not going to pay for years to come!
Nadine Meissner
Redondo Beach
Muddy politics
Dear ER:
I’m responding to the kind letters from Messrs Keegan and Huebscher in last week’s ER. My wife encouraged me not to respond, reminding me of the old adage that when you get in a mud wrestling contest with a pig, you both end up dirty, but the pig really enjoys it. I hope she’s not saying I’m a pig.
Mr. Huebscher chided me for referring to him and Mr. Keegan as kingmakers, and I do admit my use of the term was not entirely accurate. My only defense is that I found it a more compact description than “Machiavellian and manipulative”, which to me seemed more accurate but also somewhat awkward. Mr. Huebscher also took umbrage at my comparison of him and Mr Keegan with Lance Armstrong. I can see where this might be insulting, so I’ve called Lance to apologize. (OK that’s not true, but I couldn’t resist the cheap shot – maybe Keegscher and I are not that different after all.)
Mr. Keegan encouraged me to get off the couch and show an interest in the whole oil issue, and I promise I will do so. In a year. When it’s on the ballot for the citizens to decide. In fact the whole point of my letter was that Keegscher’s attempt to morph the oil issue into a campaign issue in the (thankfully) just completed City Council race was disingenuous since the oil issue will not be decided by the City Council. Attentive readers will note that, amid all the bluster in their letters, Messrs Keegan and Huebscher don’t deny that this is exactly what they are doing.
And Mr. Keegan is correct that I support Mr. Bobko for City Council, as I will support any candidates that will focus on the mundane, grinding, unrewarding business of managing our city and not allow themselves to get sidetracked by matters that are not within the purview of the City Council. In fact once upon a time I supported Mr Keegan when he was on our City Council, back in the day when he was more concerned with running the city than with being a kingmaker (oops, there’s that word again).
Greg Breen
Hermosa Beach
Veterans and MLS
Dear ER:
My mom Anastasia “Peacha” Horton was a third grade teacher for 25 years at what is now Hermosa Valley School. She met my dad Tom Horton at a the Riviera hamburger stand in the mid ‘50s, which is now the The Bottle Inn restaurant on 22nd Street in Hermosa.
Mom passed away June 9, 2005 from ALS “Lou Gehrig’s Disease.” It was heartbreaking watching this illness destroy her ability to speak, eat, and breathe.
With Veteran’s Day on Monday, I’d like to share information about the unfortunate link between ALS and our brave men and women who serve in the military. Military veterans are twice as likely to die from Lou Gehrig’s Disease as those who have not served in the military.
Yes, studies show that the disease that took the life of baseball legend Lou Gehrig is striking our military heroes at an alarming rate. It doesn’t matter when or where they served in the military; home or abroad, peace or war, from World War I to Afghanistan.
ALS is horrific. Worse than your worst nightmare. It robs people of the ability to move, trapping them inside a body they no longer can control. People describe it as being buried alive. There is no treatment. Only death in an average of two to five years.
As the press calls attention to our military heroes on Veteran’s Day, I hope people remember those heroes who are fighting for their lives against ALS. I encourage readers to visit the Wall of Honor at www.alsa.org. There they will see the faces and read the stories of the military heroes who are fighting ALS and those who have been lost to the disease. Their stories of courage are worth your attention this Veterans Day.
Tom Horton
Manhattan Beach
Waiting on the waterfront
Dear ER:
I am Charlie Szymanski and I live on South Irena Avenue, six blocks from the pier. I moved into this neighborhood in 1982. The time is now for the Redondo Beach waterfront.
We have been waiting decades for redevelopment. I’d like to see redevelopment started. I’d like my kids, who are gradeschoolers, to enjoy it before they go off to college. I’d like to enjoy it while I still have life in me to enjoy it. Every year that passes is more time that goes by with a decrepit waterfront.
We don’t visit the pier or the International Boardwalk. There aren’t enough amenities to serve families and guests in the pier and waterfront area, so we don’t drop by or bring visitors there. Pier and Marina businesses claim to have a sort of heritage rights to the area, but what have they given and been able to give back? Old restaurants, stores, and marketplaces on and around the pier have not been kept up. In some cases the businesses don’t have water or other utilities available to improve. When our kids are old enough to go out in the evenings, we’ll have them go to Peninsula Center or Pier Avenue, and that’s where they will want to go. Outmoded boating and biking facilities are a further drag on the potential of the area. Redondo’s heritage is by and large past; let’s forget the last century and move on to this one!
The view corridors we are told we enjoy today are over acres of parking lots or vacant establishments, which serve to isolate the waterfront more.
Waiting and waiting only postpones potential revenue benefit to the city and community as well. That means I am carrying more of the weight of services than I need to. My lifestyle is hit two ways – by not having the facilities to enjoy the developed waterfront area, and by having to devote more of my tax dollars to support ongoing services when the load could be spread to revenue generating concerns.
We have to gain enough of a commercial footprint at the waterfront to make it a destination for people who live in the area to go. This means younger adults, middle class families, retirees, college students and so forth. This also means providing them stores, restaurants, facilities, and convenient places to park. These people will want to come to a place where they can have a good time by the ocean and spend money doing it. And we local residents want to bring them into the area. The synergy will be enormous and self-sustaining. Nearby residential property values will increase by being near a destination, resort-like magnet.
We undertook a process to collaborate between the residents, developers, government, and special interest groups to come up with a plan. That process is working and should not be derailed by splinter groups. Don’t let small groups of vocal people derail our local process just as similar groups derail our progress at the national level.
We can’t wait for nearby properties’ fates to be decided in order to progress. By definition that means what is built won’t be perfect and serve every need for everyone for all time. But why should I put my lifestyle on hold waiting for redevelopment that extends from Pier throughout the Marina, across Harbor Blvd, up 190th Street through the city, and on to Artesia Boulevard? Why, we could even extend the need for perfect development across the entire world if we want to, and postpone our perfectly designed destiny indefinitely to some distant future date that will never come.
But what we need is to start now and let free market principles take hold and move our city forward for the benefit of today’s citizens. This process gives us opportunity to create a branded, trademarked waterfront that people will say “Hey, that’s a picture of Redondo. Let’s include it and LA’s South Bay in our plans.”
We don’t want to wait. As soon as possible, let’s give ourselves the venue of a beautiful developed waterfront to accompany the beach that we moved here for.
Charlie Szymanski
Redondo Beach
The Crucible
Dear ER:
I saw” The Crucible ” last night. I am still speechless and in awe of the amazing, flawless,performance these Mira Costa girls and boys delivered. I felt everyone of them were first class, longstanding professionals. I was riveted to my seat. I am not a relative of anyone in the play and have no connection to the school but I have to let them all know how Great they are — so great, I have to see it again next weekend. Lovely to see young people so dedicated to their craft.
Christine Norris
Redondo Beach
