Valuing teachersDear ER:Jan Stewart is a hero. It is a shame that she, like many other highly experienced and qualified educators are being thrown under the bus by our incompetent Hermosa Beach politicians in the name of fiscal restraint. Yet it’s funny that the city council continues to find money to throw at the Hermosa Beach police department, even though they’ve c
A La Carte: Hidden Thai, pickleball snacks, dining events
Richard Foss
March 3, 2026
Letter-to-editor submittal for printing consideration. (not meant as a blog reply)
June 29, 2010
Dear ER:
Hermosa’s current rotating ceremonial mayor, Michael DiVirgilio, along with councilmen Patrick “Kit” Bobko and Howard Fishman, again intensified downtown liquor dispensing at their June 8th and 22nd council meetings by adding live entertainment hours to the conditional use permit (that will now run permanently with the land) of a Pier Plaza “restaurant”.
What is it that these councilmen still don’t understand regarding downtown liquor saturation in all its insidious forms, least of which is that it’s costing the city millions per year to police over and above the revenue the city receives from downtown liquor selling businesses?
DiVirgilio even rebuffed a long-term resident upon her presenting of evidence proving that the “restaurant” they were dead set on expanding entertainment hours for, was already being advertised as a “bar”. DiVirgilio, preoccupied with his childish, electronic egg-timer device, cut off the resident as she tried to present her valuable testimony.
It’s amazing to many in this small city, how DiVirgilio, owning no home, business, or having any other demonstrable stake in this city, can be such a micro-controlling little individual towards residents who take their own valuable time to bring information to the council.
There were no more than a few speakers at the meeting as usual, thanks to the crafty persuasion and control exerted over the council by their expensive contract city attorney, Michael Jenkins, with his obvious distaste of the public speaking more than a bare legal minimum. For years Jenkins has effectively kept the very few bothering to attend to a minimum of questioning or bringing of light to what’s going on.
Unfortunately we’re stuck with liquor-expanding Bobko for three more years, short of recall, but real concern now lies with rookie councilman Fishman’s willingness to find reason, no matter how flimsy, to intensify liquor dispensing in Hermosa’s liquor-saturated downtown.
Howard Longacre
Hermosa Beach