Sand is always cleaner
Dear ER:
It was a poor decision by the last Hermosa Beach City Council to grant the AVP use of the beach for exclusive paid admission on three volleyball courts for the volleyball tournament. The display last weekend shows that the AVP has little regard for the affects on our environment, public beaches, and public viewing.
The sun-facing main court placed against the Strand wall for Beach House hotel room views caused the public to congregate on the over-crowded Stand/Bike Path to walk between courts on opposite sides of the fenced-off paid admission areas — or even to use the over-crowded port-a-potties.
Leaky faucets and open taps were wasting water all over the sand.
The AVP apparently wants to preserve their ability to take the beach and public land as mush as possible for future years.
The best example to see how it can work is to look next door. The Manhattan Open comes in August. Manhattan Beach understands the delicate compromise — a percentage of free seats at the main court with all other courts remaining free for public viewing. And minimal disruptions of public’s use of the beach and bike path.
Dean Francois
www.savethestrand.info
Website comment
Paved with good intentions
Dear ER:
Hermosa Mayor Michael DiVirgilio has sat on council for only 2.7 years while Councilman Patrick “Kit” Bobko has been there just shy of four years. Incredibly, lawyer Bobko falsely claimed in the July 13 meeting of being on council six years. Earlier in that meeting he made a self-deprecating statement of not being good at math. Whatever Bobko may be, it’s unlikely he’s poor at simple math.
Bobko and DiVirgilio are using Hermosa’s council dais more and more as a political platform to promote themselves. DiVirgilio turns the beginning of virtually every meeting into a time-consuming photo-op session for himself, much like Los Angeles County’s supervisors, they being the all-time champions of self-promotion at taxpayer expense.
Of more importance is how these two flimflam artists, Bobko and DiVirgilio, endlessly “talk the talk” regarding controlling alcohol and paving residential streets, but how they are virtually never about “walking the walk.”
Last year, along with ex-councilman Michael Keegan, they attempted to convert the beach into an alcohol venue under the guise of using the family-oriented Sunset Concerts as the reason to legalize drinking at other beach events. At the time they also passed a law giving every restaurant closing by 10 p.m. the free right to serve beer and wine with no city public hearing. At their last meeting they were strangely upset that they couldn’t get a third councilman to vote for extending that generous free alcohol-serving right to an even later hour, citywide.
Several meetings ago, Bobko and DiVirgilio voted to increase the live entertainment hours of a Pier Plaza restaurant without even specifying what type of live entertainment would be conducive to ensuring that the restaurant really was about dining, and without considering that there was an operating hostel above the place. Instead they chose to ease the restaurant into being just another late evening drinking facility.
But if all that were not enough, Bobko and DiVirgilio evidently encouraged the city manager to utilize staff time and slip onto council’s under-the-public-radar “consent” agenda, a detailed legal resolution that would have added breweries as a permitted right in the tiny Cypress Avenue manufacturing area, and thus permitting, with no public noticing at all, 3,060 barrel-per-year producing breweries to go into business right next to residences near South Park. Bobko and DiVirgilio’s twisted logic for that? Well there’s some perhaps undesired manufacturing permitted there now, so what’s wrong with adding breweries without public notice to that small area?
If we are going to accept the synthetic self-promotions from Bobko and DiVirgilio, and listen to them “talk the talk,” then we would best to take note of how they actually “walk the walk,” especially when it comes to alcohol and paving of crumbling residential streets.
Howard Longacre
Hermosa Beach
Competition is good
Dear ER:
This literally made my day (“Goofyfoot oligopolists go man to man in Manhattan,” ER July 15, 2010). I enjoy that these four very respected businessmen still take into consideration the importance of Spyder as a core, independent surf retailer and grovel in the little waves to prove it. No matter any “sold out” reputation, this event proves they still have soul. Kudos to Dennis and Dickie. Viva Spyder Surf.
Mark Fitzgerald
Website comment
Defender of liberty
Dear ER:
The Hermosa Iron Man detractors, and especially the Hermosa Beach City Council, need to get a grip.
It mystifies me as to why the Iron Man is always referred to as a “drunken” event. Nobody gets drunk beforehand — otherwise, they’d never finish. And you can’t get drunk chugging six cans of beer and regurgitating 10 minutes later (try it at home and see!). In fact, since most of the iron men are drinking light beer with an alcohol content of about 4 percent, even the ones who keep down all six are imbibing only about as much as they’d get out of two stiff cocktails in any Pier Avenue bar.
Moreover, I don’t understand why a few hundred iron men are singled out for a few minutes of revelry. This event occurs on a day when many thousands of people are drinking much more on the beach, on the Strand, all day long, from one end of Hermosa to the other. Yes, councilmen, that’s what those red cups are about.
So, the iron men aren’t drunk. And they’re a tiny minority of those publicly drinking on the 4th. What’s left for anyone to object to?
Oh, yeah. They’re having fun.
Denny Nivens
Hermosa Beach
Pain in my Aspel
Dear ER:
At the July 6 Redondo City Council meeting there really were fireworks. The discussion was harbor revitalization. Several councilmen attacked Councilman Bill Brand rather than speaking to the issues. In his attack, Councilman Aspel described those who support Mr. Brand and oppose over-development in our city as “…more toxic than the cancer in my rectum.” Nice.
Mr. Aspel went on to say that the Council had listened to the people in rezoning the harbor for large scale development. Didn’t Redondo Beach citizens just pass Measure DD, with a provision to require a public vote on just this type of up-zoning? The attacks on Mr. Brand by Pat Aust and Aspel were unprofessional and uncalled for. But, it shows their desperation. And it shows that Mr. Brand, elected on a mandate to control growth in our city, is being effective.
And here’s further evidence. On July 13, a lawsuit went to trial to stop this particular rezoning and to defend the provisions of Measure DD. Local citizens raised the money for this defense. Yes, the same local citizens who stood outside supermarkets and collected your signatures to put Measure DD on the ballot and pass it. And the same ones who encouraged and supported Mr. Brand during the last election. Like-minded people should come to his defense and help prevent the conversion of our quaint harbor to a seaside mall.
Stephen Carey
Redondo Beach
