Shales-Clark extracted
The best from students
Dear ER:
Mira Costa High School chemistry teacher Charlotte Shales-Clark retires at the close of the school year. Those in her popular Honors and Advanced Placement classes clearly agree that “Mrs. Shales” is passionate about chemistry. Over 100 students annually enrolled in her challenging AP class and consistently earned a 99 percent pass rate consistently (the national rate is 44 percent). Teachers like Charlotte make a difference in students’ lives and she will be sorely missed at MCHS. We invite anyone who has been inspired by Charlotte to come by her retirement party at Meadows Elementary School field on Sunday, June 15, 3-5 p.m.
Please RSVP via Facebook –Mrs. Shales-Clark’s Retirement Barbeque– orcscpicnic@gmail.com.
Penny Bordokas, Ellen Rosenberg, Nancy Hersman
by e-mail
Staff hits it out of the park
Dear ER:
Congratulations to new Manhattan Beach Parks and Recreation Director Mark Leyman and his division managers for the impressive presentation they made at the recent city budget meeting. Leyman offered a clear and comprehensive overview and each manager filled in the details about past year’s accomplishments and future goals. They were all prepared and organized. They were ready and able to respond to both the public audience and the City Council and Finance Department with comprehensive and accurate data.
Having attended many of these meetings in the past, I was pleased to see the professionalism. Special acknowledgment is due to Eve Kelso for her work on behalf of the Older Adults and Dial-A-Ride services.
Fyllis Kramer
Manhattan Beach
What’s past is prelude
Dear ER:
Hermosa Beach will not be able to spend the dollars from oil under the ocean for recreational uses. The dollars from oil under the land can be spent anywhere, but dollars from oil under the water are restricted by the State Constitution (Public Trust Doctrine). The City has understood this limited use for at least 60 years.
In 1963, the California Department of Justice sent a letter to Hermosa Beach that demanded the City explain why over 40 percent of the money in the Offshore Oil Contracts Fund was missing and to the justify the City’s expenditures.
Four years earlier, the State Attorney General sent a Formal Opinion to the City with this conclusion:
“The City of Hermosa Beach may not expend tidelands trust revenue in order to level a public beach for recreational uses where the statutory [1919] grant to said city does not include the use of the granted tidelands for recreational purposes.”
In the opinion, the State’s official analysis states: “Since recreational use is not a statutory trust purpose under this particular tidelands grant, there is no legislative authorization for the City of Hermosa Beach to expend tidelands trust income on maintenance and operation of its public beaches even if it is located on granted tidelands.” …. “As the lands in question were granted in trust for commerce and navigation, any proposed expenditure by the city of tidelands trust funds must benefit commerce and navigation.”
The City has tried and failed several times to have the 1919 Tidelands Grant modified to allow other expenditures of ‘Restricted” trust funds. I have not found any documentation that the State has changed its official opinion.
Remember, all City expenses encountered by moving off the City Yard for the Oil Driller and replacing those services on a site next to City Hall must only be paid from the General Fund. Settlement payments to the Oil Company must also be paid from the General Fund. The City should be more transparent on this issue to the voters (in the CBA).
This subject will be on the May 24 City Council agenda. Please participate.
Tom Morley
Redondo Beach
Money appreciation
Dear ER:
I want to thank Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi for authoring AB2711 to help the residents of Hermosa Beach. This offer of a $17.5 million dollar interest free loan to the city of Hermosa Beach makes it easier for Hermosa Beach voters to make the right decisions for the health and safety of our community. Although many oil drilling supporters are incorrectly characterizing this loan as a “bailout,” it is, instead, an investment in our environment. This money would be paid back to the state to fund other coastal environmental protections. That is a real win-win solution for Hermosa Beach and the State of California.
Stacey Armato
Committee Chairperson, Stop Hermosa Beach Oil
Laundry bail-out
Dear ER:
As a civil engineer I believe that drilling oil wells and pumping millions of gallons of waste-water endlessly under tiny, fully-developed Hermosa Beach, its city-owned pristine beach, and ocean surf, is about as ignorant and dumb a proposal in the 21st century as they come.
Nonetheless it appears that the current revised text of AB2711 (The $11.5M state loan to HB Assembly Bill) dictates that the loan when repaid by Hermosa Beach is to be credited to the State’s unrestricted General Fund.
The money, when paid back by Hermosa Beach, should have the same restrictions on its future use by the state as when it was loaned to Hermosa Beach. That does not appear to be the case, at least in the present proposed bill.
The state may approve this bill simply as a means to launder $11.5M of restricted “Tidelands” money into unrestricted future usage. AB2711’s text should unambiguously state that the money paid back by Hermosa Beach is to have the same state restrictions as the funds had before being loaned to Hermosa Beach.
This reminds one of when LA County Supervisor Don Knabe facilitated giving the city over $1 million from the voter-approved county tax parks funds for the building of Hermosa’s downtown parking structure. The contract that Hermosa Beach has with the county places the county’s share of parking revenue from the parking structure back into Supervisor Knabe’s account for use as Knabe desires to keep his fat-rear-end seated on the Board of Supervisors. In short, laundering of restricted county parks tax-money to Knabe’s unrestricted-use supervisor slush fund
Howard Longacre
Hermosa Beach
Pulpit bullier
Dear ER:
I am not sure whether to be embarrassed, disappointed or outraged, perhaps all three, by Councilmember Nanette Barragan’s performance at the May 27 city council meeting. Her bald-faced efforts to bully Kosmont Associates into rewriting their report to suit her objectives was demagoguery at its worst. Her hostile, cross-examination-style of questioning Kosmont and his associate was uncalled for, rude and insulting to them, to the audience, all who may have been watching at home and all residents of Hermosa Beach. They were hired by the City for their expertise. They have a sterling reputation. Her style of vitriolic, political theatre is not what Hermosa residents want, nor should it be tolerated.
Barragan, as only a true hypocrite can, reversed course 180 degrees when Dr. Mary McDaniel of McDaniel Lambert, the city’s consultant for the Health Impact Assessment, came to the microphone. Believing the HIA is her best weapon against the oil recovery project, Barragan projected herself as Dr. McDaniel’s warm and fuzzy companion; gently asking why the HIA was retracted. (It was retracted because it was sloppy, unprofessional and based on false science). Barragan then went on to insult Dr. McDaniel by asking whether Dr. McDaniel had consulted with specialists in environmental medicine and related fields. Dr. McDaniel, momentarily at a loss for words, pointed out that she was a specialist in these areas. Going for the hat trick, Barragan wrapped up by emphatically letting Dr. McDaniel know that she had her back if the good doctor felt she was being harassed by any of Barragan’s council colleagues city staff and last, and not least, the oil company.
Resident supporters of the project having formed our own group, Protect Hermosa’s Future, separate from E&B, are looking forward to the release of the final EIR, EBA and HIA and the ongoing discussion about the oil recovery project.
Jim Sullivan
Hermosa Beach
Council member’s counsel
Dear ER:
Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi’s bill AB2711 would help Hermosa Beach by offering the City a loan to pay E&B $17.5 million if the voters vote down the proposed oil and gas drilling project at 6th and Valley. I support the bill. In its current form, the bill would allow no interest, with repayment of $500,000 per year to be paid into a climate ready conservancy fund. Our Assemblymember has diligently been working to help our city with legislation that will provide an option for voters to vote their conscience without fear of the financial consequences of voting against the project. Assemblymember Muratsuchi thought it prudent to wait to review the environmental impact report and independent cost benefit analysis before introducing his bill. Now that the reports are out, Assemblymember Muratsuchi showed leadership in taking a position on the single biggest issue facing Hermosa Beach. Please join me in supporting the bill by writing members of the California legislature to show your support of AB2711.
Nanette Barragan
Councilmember, City of Hermosa Beach
Better Beverly Hills than Detroit
Dear ER:
Hermosa Beach drilling opponents claim oil drilling will reduce property values and decrease tourism. They say it will tarnish Hermosa’s image. I don’t know how they can substantiate these claims when Beverly Hills, which has four operating oil islands (and one retired one) the size of the one proposed for Hermosa, doesn’t have property value, tourism, or image problems.
I’d like to see Hermosa follow the path of Beverly Hills instead of the path of a city like Detroit. Beverly Hills has allowed oil drilling for decades and its citizens, property values, and image have profited from the decision. Of course, as in Hermosa, Beverly Hills also had some vocal oil opponents. They claimed the oil wells on the high school grounds (Yes, one of the oil islands is right on the high school campus) were giving people cancer. Their claims were proven to be unsubstantiated by multiple unbiased sources.
Detroit is a city shackled with debt, and its citizens, property values, and image have suffered because of it. I would like to keep Hermosa out of debt. I would like Hermosa to be known as the Beverly Hills of the Beach instead of the Detroit of the Beach. I want to see Hermosa rich and thriving instead of deteriorating with the cancer of debt. The way I see it, the people of Hermosa can allow drilling and vote Hermosa rich or they can ban drilling and vote Hermosa poor.
John Szot
Hermosa Beach
