2011: The Year in Review
The top stories and newsmakers of 2011. Photo
2011 in was a year of doings and undoings, actions and inaction in the Beach Cities. The Easy Reader each year takes a year-end look at the people and issues that passed through our pages. This year, in addition to the Year in Review compilations for Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, and Redondo Beach, we singled out 11 stories, including three people whose actions significantly impacted the community, the top issues that commanded each respective city’s attention, and the community leaders who passed away.
Marissa Christiansen. Photo by Chelsea Seknan
Marissa Christiansen led the South Bay Bicycle Coalition’s drive to create a regional bike path and achieved astonishing success in doing so. This year, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Hermosa Beach, Gardena, Lawndale, Redondo Beach and Torrance – adopting the bike plan, marking the beginning of a 20-year project that will bring 214 miles of bikeways to the South Bay.
Peggy Zask. Photo by Chelsea Sektan
Peggy Zask has long been a fixture in the South Bay’s art scene, having opened several galleries in the course of a two-decade career as a curator. Zask, who teaches art at Mira Costa High School, this year twice opened galleries. And her newest location, at The Promenade in Rolling Hills Estates, featured a remarkable run of exhibits that upped the artistic ante throughout the South Bay. “I approach the gallery installation like a huge, unified art composition,” Zask said. ” I like to take the viewer on an adventure, an exploration of the visual.”
Christina Cipres, chef of Palmilla Cocina y Tequila. Photo
The recession clearly hasn’t put a damper on appetites in the South Bay, as 2011 saw the opening of several significant restaurants and the dramatic reconfiguring of several more. Palmilla on Pier Plaza in Hermosa Beach was indicative of a trend, writes ER food critic Richard Foss in a survey of the year that was in South Bay restaurants: establishments offering a high-style take on traditional cuisine. Palmilla chef Christina Cipres explained her take on Mexican cuisine.“My mother came from Sonora, and this is the cooking I grew up with,” she said. “I remember when I was just six years old, smelling the freshly cooked beans on the stove, made in a pot that was bigger than me. You don’t forget that – I never have and never will. We’re taking those flavors but plating them with some artistry, because there was so much artistry put in this location.”
It was the year that almost happened in Hermosa Beach, but didn’t. A potentially bankrupting $700 million lawsuit kept the city in a holding pattern, the frequently controversial nightlife scene kept itself out of harm’s way, and the town was largely spared from the ax man and the tax man. As 2012 prepared to dawn, and Hermosans readied for a New Year’s Eve celebration that was rescued by the Chamber of Commerce from potential oblivion, they could count the blessings, or the curses, of the change that wasn’t.
Johnny Anderson adds a flower to a dragon-tattooed arm. Photo
Tattoo Beach
Tattoos, on the other hand, happened in Hermosa Beach. Artist Johnny Anderson opened his landmark tattoo parlor just before the dawning of the year, but it was in 2011 that he became the Johnny Appleseed of tattoos, watching as three more parlors followed the road that he had paved after fighting the city’s attempts to ban his shop all the way the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal, which ruled that the tattoo parlor ban violated Anderson’s right of expression, giving the act of tattooing the same level of First Amendment protection enjoyed by newspaper publishers.
Assistant deputy district attorney Karen Khim and Mark Desmond, who spoke to the man who killed his daughter Monday. Photo by David Rosenfeld
In Redondo Beach, the family of Cori Desmond finally found some closure as her murderer was brought to justice. Desmond’s killer, 36 year-old Mira Costa High School graduate Tony Lopez Perez, was finally convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison last July after an almost three year investigation. It took the jury just one day to return a guilty verdict. “Her voice has now joined the chorus of the angels in heaven,” friend Brittany Karaffa said. “She’s free of the pain and terror she endured in the last moments of her life. To Tony Lopez Perez, you stole my best friend. And for that you will suffer as long as you live.”
Roxanne Diaz was hired as city attorney for Manhattan Beach this year. PHOTO COURTESY OF MANHATTAN BEACH
Manhattan Beach became “Sue City” this year as four former employees — including the former city manager, the former city attorney, and two former police officers — all took legal action against the city. In addition, the widow of a Hawthorne police officer killed in a motorcycle accident at during the funeral procession of a MBPD officer also sued the city, as did the company that bought the AVP volleyball league out of bankruptcy. Newly hired City Attorney Roxanne Diaz said it all comes with the territory. “I don’t read anything into the fact that we’ve received these claims at the same time,” Diaz said. “If you look at the claims, they’re all very different, there’s no pattern to them.”
Top finishers in the South Bay Boardriders Pier Surf contest at 26th Street Photo by Mike Balzer
Despite surfing being a signature sport for the South Bay, organized opportunities for kids to learn to surf are far more limited than for baseball, basketball, soccer and other popular sports. Surf classes at the high schools and middle schools are primarily for kids who already surf. Summer surf camps are a good introduction, but learning to surf requires more than a week, or even a summer. In 2011, the South Bay Board Riders Club stepped up with a program to meet the needs of aspiring surfers, starting with five competitions last summer.
A walking moai, one of 104 such groups formed as part of the Vitality City public health initiative.
This was the year that saw the Beach Cities launch arguably the most ambitious public health campaign in the world, Vitality City. In a remarkable show of unity, every single elected official in the beach cities approved the initiative, which will change the built environment and introduce healthy “nudges” in homes, restaurants, and schools to encourage more vital living. “This needs to be the epicenter for change for the entire nation….So people can say, ‘This was the place,” said Dan Burden, one of the “A-Team” of national experts tasked with implementing Vitality City.
John Workman’s body is borne from his memorial service for burial. Photo
The year saw the passing of community leaders who worked in various spheres: Leroy Grannis, the pioneering surf photographer from Hermosa Beach; Les Guthrie, perhaps the key figure in the establishment of King Harbor in Redondo Beach; John Workman, the longtime city treasurer in Hermosa Beach; Jack Wise, a former councilman and avid waterman in Hermosa; Monsignor Michael Lenihan, the legendary Irish parish priest who diligently served his flock at St. Lawrence Martyrs in Redondo Beach; and Pitcher House founder and community icon Gary “Tootie” Cullen.