The plan to underground the utility and lighting wires in El Porto marked a less than happy 20th anniversary this year, including an over five year wait since residents paid up to $30,000 per parcel to pay for the work.
The Manhattan Beach City Council received an update on the matter Tuesday night, one that included some hopeful news. The underground grid is energized and Southern California Edison has completed 57 percent of the private home conversions it is responsible for, and a City team is prodding SCE, Frontier, and the five private contractors doing 90 percent of the work to move faster.
But the new timeline City officials shared wasn’t what residents wanted to hear. Work is not expected to be fully completed until sometime in 2027.
“In 2020, we were assessed $30,000,” Benedict O’Brien, an El Porto resident, told the Council. “We paid the money five years ago. We were told the project would be done in two to three years, including removal of poles. In 2025, 60 months later, we are getting more stories….There are fingers pointing in all different directions, but when the project was presented to us, it stated that anybody who failed to do the work himself, the City would do the work and bill it back to the person, so there was to be no hang up in this project. There is a hang up. It ain’t done. It is five years later, and the wires are still as beautiful as ever. So thank you, please get your work done.”
“The City asked me to pay about $26,000 in 2019 promising the undergrounding would be done in two years,” said resident Kathleen Smith. “And in 2022 I was told I had to replace my electrical service to the tune of about $10,500. It has been replaced….I don’t know why it should take two more years, and I don’t think anybody is really paying real attention to this, and you can’t get anybody from the city to respond. It’s a serious problem and you need to address it.”
Bruce Greenberg, a former MBUSD school board trustee, city commissioner, and an El Porto resident, expressed “complete disappointment” with the City’s execution. He told the council he paid his undergrounding assessment of $28,000 in 2019.
“And here we are, six years later, you’re receiving another update from city staff,” Greenberg said. “And tonight’s update will reveal a number of things, including the fact that fewer than 50% of homes have been converted and ready to accept the underground utilities. I love this city, as you know. I’ve served this city. But I’m completely disappointed in this city this evening. With respect to this project, the city has completely failed to execute against every timeline, every promise, every commitment. Tonight, in this staff update, you’re going to hear a series of excuses and finger pointing. You’re going to hear the staff blame SoCal Edison, they’ll blame hotline construction, they’ll blame the contractors. They will blame Frontier. At the end of the day, as a homeowner, I blame the city. The city collected my assessment. From where I sit, I view the city as the general contractor responsible for delivering against this project. This evening, you will hear an updated timeline from city staff, projecting that we’re still best case almost another two years out. What I encourage you to do, what I implore you to do, is hold your staff accountable. Don’t make this another slippery slope.”
Acting City Engineer Gil Gamboa gave a report on the two El Porto undergrounding districts, which include 471 properties. According to the report, 220 properties, or 47 percent, have been converted. Work has been completed in another 15 percent of properties and awaits SCE inspection. Gamboa said the goal is to have all private properties converted by May of next year, utility line and pole removal by next November, streetlight installations by February 2027, and final inspections and closeout by May 2027.
“We are going to try to push whatever we can to keep this moving forward, and there are many challenges here,” he said. “It’s not just Edison, it’s not just the City’s side. It’s inspection to inspection. It’s all very intricate. There are right of way issues, there’s some work deficiencies in the right of way, there’s four properties that are unable to connect at the property line, three properties with [panels] on the wrong side of the building…”
City staff has more firmly taken the reins on the overall project since earlier this year, Gamboa said, devoting more manpower towards bringing the undergrounding to completion. They have launched a property status interactive map on the City’s website, and conduct biweekly meetings with SCE, Spectrum, and Frontier, as well as many shared inspections with the utility companies in the field.
“The other thing we’re doing is we’re meeting with the private contractors, because it does take a kind of a nudging and pushing to get the private contractors responsive to the property owners that they signed contracts with,” Gamboa said, noting that five electrical contractors make up 90 percent of the work.
Gamboa said they have boots on the ground in the field doing weekly field walks with contractors to resolve issues.
“So we’re literally hand holding the process now to see if they are doing the work, clearing permit issues and roadblocks, and then keep scheduling inspections with both City and Edison, on that end of it,” he said. “So it’s not going to happen in a snap of the fingers, but it will be — now that we have the manpower pushing this behind it.”
Additionally, five property owners have been unresponsive, so the City is laying the legal groundwork to enter their homes and do the work with a contractor it has hired.
“We’re notifying those homeowners of the city’s intent to complete the service conversions and lien the property for that work, per our Manhattan Beach municipal code,” Gamboa said.
Overall, the picture Gamboa presented was one with a lot of moving, and often reticent, parts. Additionally, the area’s history has played a role in delays. El Porto was an unincorporated part of LA County until the City annexed it four decades ago, and this means many of the homes contain idiosyncrasies not present in the rest of Manhattan Beach.
“We’re not finding the same circumstances,” Gamboa said, responding to a question about this aspect of the challenges from Councilperson Steve Charelian. “We’re finding a lot of different hodgepodge things out there. The other thing is that there’s a lot more overhead connections. In other districts, a lot of people have rebuilt their houses, and part of that process is undergrounding to the nearest pole, as a city building requirement. There’s a lot more that are connected overheard. I am not using that as an excuse. Those are just the facts — that is what is there. But we are going to put resources into this and try to get this moving and done faster.”
“You’re doing a great job trying to move it along,” Charelian said. “I just wanted to [clarify] that this is not a typical layout — that topography is different because of the annexation of El Porto.”
The council also briefly interrogated Edison officials regarding several reported issues of poor maintenance and potentially dangerously deteriorated wires. Councilperson Amy Howorth sharply pressed Edison to do more than provide the usual 1-800 numbers for those residents, and defended the staff’s work from some of the criticisms heard earlier in the meeting.
“I don’t think I’m satisfied with, ‘Just call customer service,’” Howorth said. “I mean, is there an assessment? Is Edison perhaps not coming out and doing regular maintenance because they know these lines are going to be removed. Because I feel like we should identify these properties where it’s really dangerous and do something to make our residents safer in that regard. And I’m not necessarily blaming Edison. The project has been delayed for a number of reasons I think our staff has identified. And I want to say, with all due respect, Mr. O’Brien, because your situation is so frustrating….Everyone is so frustrated. I feel like tonight there was accountability.”
Mayor David Lesser asked interim Public Works Director Ted Semaan if anything further could be done to hasten the process.
“There’s general frustration with how much time it’s taken and how much more time is required,” Lesser said. “Is there any larger question that could be stated as to how staff is proceeding, starting with this meeting tonight, where we’re trying to give an update to the community to explain where we are and why we’re here?”
“I don’t think there’s much more staff could be doing,” Semaan said. “Like I said, we’ve got multiple dedicated staff that are working on this undergrounding utility assessment district. Their collaboration and coordination with each of the utility companies, the contractors and the property owners and our building and safety team for their inspection and review process of the electrical permits is really key… I don’t think we can do much more, other than really encourage the contractors to work a little bit more aggressively with our building and safety folks and get the work done out in the field in order to get this approved.” ER
