Voice of experience
Dear ER:
As a former, 16 year Hermosa Beach City Councilmember, I am pleased over the selection of Steve Napolitano as interim city manager. Having hired city managers while serving on council the process has to be flexible. Calls for long, consultant search processes take six months and cost thousands of dollars, unnecessarily. We elected our City Council to act, not spend weeks and months hiring consultants to find us a new City Manager who can find his way to a local address without a GPS app. Napolitano has spent his whole life in Manhattan Beach and Hermosa Beach. He has three decades of seeing issues in the Beach Cities and was a logical choice for interim city manager. With the budget process upon us this month, fast action was needed. Napolitano has been deeply involved in both City and County budgets for over 30 years. He has done zero based budget reviews, huge city capital outlay budgets and several budgets during recessions, financial market breakdowns and our recent pandemic, which make him an instant asset in the budget sessions upcoming.
Napolitano knows where all our facilities are and how our departments operate. Living his whole life in the Beach Cities is a major plus. I look forward to seeing him use his skills to make our city operate at the highest level possible.
JR Reviczky
Hermosa Beach
Remember the residents
Dear ER:
Hermosa’s ridiculous requirements have made it impossible for nonresident owners like ourselves to obtain a parking pass. We only purchased our property, which has no garage or driveway, due to the ability to buy street parking passes. We pay an exorbitant amount in property taxes and cannot even park our car near our property. We are now considering selling because of this. City Council, please consider the property owners.
D. Sharpe
ER News comment
Doing our part
Dear ER:
Redondo Beach is already in the top 5% of population density in the state (“Redondo Beach Legado project opens; mayor skeptical, hopeful,” ER May 29, 2025). We are the only Beach City with more multi-family than single family developments. We are the only Beach City with a Section 8 low income housing program. We are the only beach city with pallet shelters and permanent supportive housing. Our percentage of multi-family housing greatly exceeds the average across the Southern California area. The vast majority of what is being built across the state is market rate housing, not affordable housing. And the old “build more and prices will drop” argument has been proven false. Redondo is park poor by state standards at less than 2.2 acres of parks per 1,000 residents (and that is counting the county beach). Our jobs to household ratio is less than 1. For comparison, El Segundo has five jobs per household. Redondo needs more jobs, more commercial development, and more parkland. Not more high density, market rate housing. Replacing commercial property with housing is driving us to structural budget deficits.
Jim Light
Mayor, City of Redondo Beach
Nice neighborhood
Dear ER
It’s good to see more housing authorized in my hometown of Redondo Beach (“Redondo Beach Legado project opens; mayor skeptical, hopeful,” ER May 29, 2025). And, good gravy, the intersection of two major boulevards, Palos Verdes Boulevard and Pacific Coast Highway, is as good as any for much-needed higher-density residential. It’s only too bad that Redondo’s formerly NIMBY City Council pared down the number of units in a city that desperately needs more housing to reduce crushing housing costs.
Drew Dupuy
ER FB comment
Step carefully
Dear ER:
Redondo and all the rest of the Southbay need to be diligent on this or we will end up like Westwood (“Redondo Beach Legado project opens; mayor skeptical, hopeful,” ER May 29, 2025). Think of the Esplanade or Anza Avenue apartment zones.
Norman C McArthur
ER FB comment
More desirable
Dear ER
It’s not going to change anything about housing costs (“Redondo Beach Legado project opens; mayor skeptical, hopeful,” ER May 29, 2025). If anything it’s going to make it more expensive because there will be more people looking to move into the area, and they’re going to rent at today’s prices, or higher because it’s new construction and then the existing buildings will increase their rent because it will still be the cheaper alternative and once these leases end the tenants will look elsewhere in the area rising rental prices. Housing prices are uncoupled from reality, they’ll only continue to increase regardless of “supply”. You’ll never find a landlord or building owner who thinks “Wow we made enough off of everyone this year, let’s lower rent.”
Alexander Colin
ER Facebook comment
