Darkest Manhattan
Dear ER:
It is a good thing we in Manhattan Beach District 2 were forced to spend so much money on undergrounding our utilities. Why do I bring this up now? Because I am in the dark typing this letter and using my laptop computer, which does not need house electricity. Why? Because we do not have house electricity. Why? Because a transformer exploded minutes ago in a district next to our undergrounded district. And guess what? Things outside our district stopped electricity from flowing to our district. Wow. The tens of thousands of dollars that each household was forced to spend on undergrounding did us a world of good. Various facts about that undergrounding fiasco must be chalked up to bad history and a learning experience. Now we have another learning experience. We have another occurrence of poor service from Edison.
So, I make a simple request of our esteemed Manhattan Beach City Council. Do something positive about getting Edison to provide “First World Level” of utilities,” not “Third World Level” of utilities.
Our council members represent Manhattan Beach, not a poor village in Africa. They should have a serious dialog with Edison and the PUC and speak for all 35,000 Manhattan Beach residents. Apply pressure on Edison to make that company provide proactive service with maintenance/upgrades and not reactive service by waiting for an outage to occur.
As for this current outage, hopefully, our electricity will return before our refrigerated foods are ruined, as occurs in Third World countries.
(Post script: This outage lasted a “shocking” 16 hours.)
Jon Chaykowski
Manhattan Beach
Second that
Dear ER:
I don’t want the Manhattan Beach to tell me what I can do in my own home, but the small print reads “unless it’s hurting someone else” (“Manhattan ready to ban smoking in multi-unit homes,” ER Sept. 17, 2015). I have neighbors who smoke, quite a few of them, and I smoke those cigarettes right along with them. Day and night. Especially since it’s been hot and our windows open. It’s terrible and I am concerned for my health. I don’t see why I should have to inhale their smoke when I’ve made a choice to not smoke. I support these laws.
Mara Kapano Lang
Facebook comment
No fan of smoking law
Dear ER:
I’m not a fan of cigarettes, but I do like freedom, personal and private property, and attacking the entitled Manhattan Beach residents who think it’s their right to live in a bubble free of annoyance or anything they don’t want to see, smell, or hear (“City ready to ban smoking in multi-unit homes,” ER Sept. 17, 2015). Fascists do it to themselves, voluntarily making laws until you can’t eat in your own car, can’t smoke in your own home. Shame on all of you who support this. It’s the same type of thinking that accepts cameras on every corner. This isn’t what the law was intended for, and isn’t what law enforcement itself is for.
Beau Robinson
Facebook comment
Developments brandished
Dear ER:
Has anyone noticed how Redondo Beach Councilmember Bill Brand is against any and all development in our community, no matter what the project is (“SeaBreeze Projet upheld in split vote,” ER Sept. 17, 2015)? Brand filed an appeal against the SeaBreeze project and he’s made his opposition to The Waterfront known already, even though the environmental review analyses haven’t been completed.
How can he be so confident in his decision when we know hardly any of the impacts of the projects? Or even worse, when there are results that clearly discredit his arguments?
In the case of The Waterfront, when the independent AECOM market analysis results were released in February and proved that The Waterfront would be economically beneficial to the region, Brand dismissed the results even though the study was independently prepared.
How can we trust Councilmember Brand to vote in an honest way that represents the interests of his constituents, if all he does is attack projects without giving them a fair chance?
Lisa Rodriguez
Redondo Beach
A staffed report
Dear ER:
The events surrounding the approval of the congested Redondo Beach SeaBreeze development on Pacific Coast Highway is disturbing (“SeaBreeze Projet upheld in split vote,” ER Sept. 17, 2015). The council took a cautious approach, requesting that Redondo Beach staff come back with a finding to deny the project, but the staff did not complete the report as directed. That was enough for a split vote to approve the project.
This is an attempt of staff running our development projects and is at odds with our elected officials. Frequently, local councils direct staff to come up with findings to approve projects and they march right to the task, avoiding other facts that could be used to deny the project. One could say that is simply democracy in action.
With regard to SeaBreeze, I do not see any democracy.
Dean Francois
Redondo Beach
A cold SeaBreeze
Dear ER:
Unfortunately, the much too dense SeaBreeze project was approved (“SeaBreeze Projet upheld in split vote,” ER Sept. 17, 2015). Jeff Ginsburg, who (mis)represents District 1, the district I live in and where this project will be built (I did not vote for him) and Laura Emdee in District 5 (who lives far away in North Redondo) were the first two council members to deny our appeal and approve the project. Christian Horvath in District 3 followed because he didn’t want the developer to sue the city.
Only Bill Brand (District 2) and Stephen Sammarco (District 4) voted No.
Thankfully, Brand has been working hard for the people in District 1 because Ginsburg is so incompetent, uncaring and pro-development. Ginsberg was also for Measure B [the March ballot measure that would have rezoned the AES property to mixed use], as was Mayor Steve Aspel.
If Jim Light (I voted for him) and Candace Nafissi (I campaigned for her) were on the council and Matt Kilroy was mayor (I voted for him), this project would have been rejected a year ago and we would not have been continually going back to city hall to fight it.
Ginsburg needs to step down. A recall is an expensive and difficult thing to do so all we can do is make sure he is not re-elected next year. At the Cape Point hearing, he repeatedly motioned to close the hearing and always had a sarcastic smirk on his face when he would speak.
Developer Nick Buchanan threatened to sue the city if his project was denied. He refused to compromise with the people and the council by downsizing his project. He also tried, unsuccessfully, to have Brand recused. After being such a bully, there were people saying that Buchanan is a really nice guy and they’d rather have him developing this tiny parcel of land than other greedy, overzealous developers. Gag me! According to Ginsburg, 19 people spoke against the project and 12 people spoke for it.
As we were walking out of the council chambers, I confronted Buchanan and told him that he never contacted me or my neighbors to get our input on the project and that he only met with a few people who were for the project. I then repeated from my speech how very ugly the architecture. He just kept walking with his entourage, looking confused and stunned by my comments.
My neighbor and I both felt sick when we left after losing to an out of town developer who will make a lot of money destroying our neighborhood then leave.
Suzanne McCune
Redondo Beach homeowner
Court of last resort
Dear ER:
Hermosa Beach officials could easily have prevented the Chris Miller lawsuit if it had taken appropriate action (“City faces potential lawsuit from Miller over police action,” ER Sept. 17, 2015). They should have apologized to Miller and disciplined Police Chief Sharon Papa and officer George Brunn. Instead they stonewalled and against all evidence to the contrary, clung to the false accusations against Miller. They basically left her with no alternative but to sue.
Chris Brown
Hermosa Beach
