Barbecued bugs
Dear ER:
What ever happened to the good old days when the worst things we had to fear on the 4th of July were traffic jams and wayward fireworks?
According to the Department of Agriculture’s Meat & Poultry Hotline, this year’s top threat is food poisoning by nasty E. coli and Salmonella bugs lurking in hamburgers and hot dogs at millions of backyard barbecues. The Hotline’s advice is to grill them longer and hotter. Of course, they don’t bother to mention that the high-temperature grilling that kills the bugs also forms lots of cancer-causing compounds.
Luckily, a bunch of enterprising U.S. food manufacturers and processors have met this challenge head-on by developing a great variety of healthful, delicious, and convenient, veggie burgers and soy dogs.
These delicious plant-based foods don’t harbor nasty pathogens or cancer-causing compounds. They don’t even carry cholesterol, saturated fats, drugs, or pesticides. And, they are waiting for us in the frozen food section of our supermarket.
This 4th of July offers a great opportunity to declare our independence from the meat industry and to share wholesome veggie burgers and soy dogs with our family and friends.
Jack Matler
Hermosa Beach
It takes a Village
Dear ER:
After reading a few of the letters to the editor over the past couple of weeks about the Manhattan Village Shopping Center Enhancement Project, I felt it was important to layout some of the reasons redevelopment of the center is not only needed but essential to the very fabric of Manhattan Beach. With limited commercially zoned property in Manhattan Beach it is imperative to ensure we compete as best we can with surrounding communities. This commercial base not only subsidizes the programs and lifestyle residents of the community have become accustomed to but goes a long way towards maintaining the tremendous lifestyle we all value.
The city has an annual budget north of $50 MM, focusing on essential services such as police, fire, sanitation, and street improvements. Other services covered within this budget include maintenance of all the green spaces and parks we are blessed with having, some of the strongest older adult programs anywhere in LA County, and the list goes on and on. To continue to maintain these services and manage an aging infrastructure money needs to come from somewhere.
With no expansion or revitalization of the Manhattan Village Shopping Center not only will we not be able to capture the nearly $400 MM of our resident buying power currently leaving the city, but we will begin to lose even more of it. A shopping center is only as good as the tenants willing to be there and Manhattan Village is facing some serious competition from surrounding developments such as Plaza El Segundo, Del Amo Mall, and the South Bay Galleria. As these centers continue to invest more in their future they sign on clients we have no ability to attract, which leads to some of our current tenants either looking to relocate or invest in other locations.
I appreciate the concern about traffic and congestion but what many of the residents may not realize is that much of the traffic currently generated at Sepulveda and Rosecrans is our own residents leaving Manhattan Beach to spend tax dollars in other cities. Failure for this project is really not an option with more than a third of the top tax generating businesses being located on that very corner. If we lose any or all of them the only two options the city is left with are to reduce services (so less police, fire, or road improvements) or to ask the residents to pay higher taxes. In reality a hybrid of both would be the only real solution.
In the end, the residents of this community are faced with a decision. Accept the fact that the business community here in town is as much a part of the culture and fiber of the community as are its residents or pony up more cash for less services. Without development, the Manhattan Village Shopping Center will stay here but the tenant mix will devolve and become inferior to those in surrounding communities and we will be left with only being able to recruit second tier retailers.
James O’Callaghan
President/CEO
MB Chamber of Commerce
Record straightened
Dear ER:
I wanted to take a moment to correct an inaccuracy in your recent story about the Redondo Beach 2013-2014 budget (“Redondo Beach council passes 2013-2014 budget” ER, June 20). Your article states that City Manager Bill Workman’s plan to de-authorize a Police Lieutenant position was scrapped by the council. Unfortunately this is not true.
There were two items concerning the Police Lieutenant position up for a vote. One (Decision package #77) would have eliminated a Police Lieutenant and used the savings for salary restoration (this was defeated) and the other (Budget response report #31) eliminated the Lieutenant position and converted it to a civilian analyst and entry level officer. The Police Officers’ Association met with each council member and told them how valuable that Lieutenant position is to the Police Department. Other than the regular day to day duties, Police Lieutenants are responsible for a myriad of other secondary assignments that are critical to providing the high level of service that the people of Redondo Beach have come to expect. No matter how qualified a civilian analyst may be, they are not a police officer and can not perform a police officer’s duties. Every Lieutenant can.
It was discouraging to listen to the council spend more time debating the height and position of a flag pole in the harbor than the importance of a Police Lieutenant to the city. The new police officer position is going to be extremely difficult to fill and it will be 2015 before that officer is ready to serve the community. Redondo Beach has the lowest starting pay and the highest health care cost of any police department in the South Bay, and now we have one less opportunity for professional development and growth.
There was a lot of discussion during this last election, by every candidate, about how important top notch public safety was to them. We hope that this very important campaign promise doesn’t go unfulfilled.
Robert Carlborg
Redondo Beach POA
Oil and wine
Dear ER,
I am writing this letter in response to your article and subsequent online reader comments regarding the E&B mixer controversy last week. The whole “let’s boycott Uncorked” was NOT something that I or any member of Stop Hermosa Beach Oil/Keep Hermosa Hermosa agreed with. Yes, I was disappointed with their involvement in hosting an E&B event, but I personally would never have boycotted. What I was disappointed in was at the bottom of the invite was the statement that “anyone staging a demonstration will be removed from the premises”. It frustrates me because such a statement is so unnecessary…we have yet to hold a demonstration at any of their events. I realize that Uncorked was not to blame for the verbiage of the invite, but that statement definitely added fuel to the fire.
I am not fond of being lumped into an entire entity portrayed as crazy anti-oil people. Everyone identifies themselves with groups. For instance, there are certain things that I identify with. I am Catholic. Yet I do not believe in covering up pedophilic acts of priests and I believe in pro-choice. I am white, heterosexual, and female, yet I believe in equal rights for all genders, races, and sexual orientations. I am a member of Stop Hermosa Beach Oil and Keep Hermosa Hermosa, but to lump me in with members of the community that are more zealous about expressing their opinions is just plain wrong.
There are many people against oil drilling here in Hermosa Beach. Some are vocal, angry, and passionate. Everyone has their reasons as to why they don’t want oil drilling. Some people state it on websites and Facebook pages. In order to better educate our neighbors, some people quietly work behind the scenes and gather facts to back up why we think oil drilling is unsafe and ill advised for Hermosa Beach. I am one of those people. I hate politics with a passion. Do you think I want to spend my free time going to city council meetings and SHBO meetings and researching and raising money? Do you think we want to spend our days going door to door to educate people? Do you think I enjoy reading facebook posts of people ruthlessly comparing people sympathetic to our cause to the Taliban and Al Qaeda? I wish I could just stick my head in the sand and pray it all goes away. But this issue concerns my health, my quality of life, and my future. So I am willing to do this for my family and my community.
And just for clarification, Stop Hermosa Beach Oil/ Keep Hermosa Hermosa is a separate entity from the Stop Oil Drilling in Hermosa Beach webpage. The mission of SHBO/KHH is to inspire our community to embrace our past, care for our present, and ensure a green, clean, and beautiful future for Hermosa Beach. We at SBHO/KHH take a different approach to dealing with this issue then other more vocal members on the Stop Oil Drilling in Hermosa Beach webpage. Whether it is good or bad, right or wrong…that is not the point. It is just different. Our organization has garnered the support of both The Surfrider Foundation and The Sierra Club. These organizations are aligned with a similar mentality and will assist us in working to get ALL the facts to our neighbors so they can make an informed choice on this important topic. Once the voters know both sides then they can decide what is best for them, their families, and their communities. If you decide that oil should be the future of Hermosa Beach, then I respectfully agree to disagree. No bullying needed.
Simone Binder
Hermosa Beach
