Christian Anthony Horvath shares a kiss with his wife on May 12. Horvath ended the night down 16 votes, but came ahead of his opponent, Candace Allen Nafissi, by 12 votes during a second ballot count on May 18. Photo
Last March, a wide-open field of seven candidates stood in competition for two seats on the Redondo Beach City Council.
Two months and one runoff election later, Redondo Beach had its two newest members of the Council: District 3’s Christian Horvath and District 5’s Laura Emdee.
Christian Horvath and Candace Nafissi were the two candidates left standing in the March 3 General Election’s race for the Redondo Beach City Council’s District 3 seat, beating out Sandy Marchese, Sam Kartounian and Eric Coleman to continue on to a runoff election two months later, in May.
The race between the two was quickly split down ideological lines. Nafissi allied herself with District 2 councilman Bill Brand and waterfront development activists Jim Light and Todd Loewenstein. She quickly joined in the fight against Measure B, saying that AES was “taking advantage of the community,” making it her mission to fight for her neighbors that couldn’t make it out to City Council.
Horvath, on the other hand, initially seemed tied to Redondo’s establishment. A former Harbor Commissioner and graduate of Leadership Redondo’s Class of 2011, his list of endorsements included the Redondo Beach police and firefighters associations, as well as the Chamber of Commerce. He also didn’t shy away from his support of Measure B and redevelopment of the Redondo waterfront early in his campaign.
“To me, I see everything happening down there as a concept, as ideas, and there’s plenty of room for it to grow into something everyone can be happy with,” Horvath said.
He also had quiet assistance from Mayor Steve Aspel, who connected Horvath to a hotelier who was more than willing to contribute to a candidate’s campaign.
Mohammad Pournamdari, who was looking to build a hotel on the land of the former Dirt Yard at 750 N. Francisca Ave., had previously gotten into hot water for his connections to felony conflict of interest charges against former Hawthorne city councilman Louis Velez.
Aspel said Pournamdari, who donated to Aspel’s 2013 mayoral campaign, called him asking for a recommendation in the District 3 race. Aspel recommended three candidates, including Horvath, who ultimately received the developer’s donation.
After being made aware of Pournamdari’s connection to the disgraced former councilman, Horvath returned the money — which he was more than happy to do.
Nafissi’s endorsement list wasn’t quite as long as Horvath’s, but she had a bullet in an endorsement from U.S. Congressman Ted Lieu, who she worked under as a district representative during his time in the State Assembly.
She did, however, quickly prove to be a firebrand — during an hour of canvassing the district, Nafissi was both quick to question paid canvassers supporting Measure B, and quick to jump into discussions with her fellow B opponents.
But while she enjoyed the support of her cohorts working against Measure B, and despite an initial victory as the candidate with the most votes during the General Election, Nafissi lost the runoff to Horvath by 13 votes.
As a result of the tight margins, Nafissi requested (and paid for) a recount, which confirmed the results.
She then teased a lawsuit against the City and City Clerk Eleanor Manzano, with her representative Steve Colin calling the process “grossly flawed.” That lawsuit, however, never came to fruition.
Horvath took office on June 2, hitting the ground running; his first meeting as a member of the City Council saw him unafraid to ask city staff numerous questions regarding upcoming budget discussions — at one point, he monopolized about 30 minutes of meeting time getting answers, drawing a humorous comparison from colleagues between Horvath and the late councilman John Parsons.
Nafissi’s fearlessness has continued in her post-election community activism. Still in opposition to CenterCal’s Waterfront project, she recently co-founded Rescue Our Waterfront to organize against the development. During the group’s meetings, she’s been quick to challenge and shut down those she sees as troublemakers in the crowd.
Don’t expect her to be finished with her political career in Redondo any time soon, by the way — she has already set up a Facebook page hyping her next run at the District 3 seat in 2019.
As for the sole council winner of the March general election, Emdee’s road to the dais was fairly smooth sailing — for much of the election, the now-former member of the Redondo Beach Unified School District’s Board of Education ran unopposed. Her experience in helping to balance the finances and increase the reserve of the school district made her an attractive candidate.
Even still, she had to fend off a short run by official write-in candidate Robe Richester…though “fend off” might be a generous assessment. Despite the assistance of former District 4 council candidate and political wunderkind Julian Stern, Richester was crushed. Emdee took the race 1,400 votes to 86.
“Considering that the average number of District 5 voters in the last 20 years has been 1,200, yeah, I’m feeling OK,” she said on the night of the election; earlier on, Emdee said that she was on “pins and needles.”
“You just can’t take those things for granted,” she said.
During her campaign, Emdee considered herself one to “find the middle” in a group — to be the negotiator that helps two sides broker the deal. Her District 5 predecessor, Matt Kilroy, said as much in his stamp of approval for her. “She won’t go into any particular group — she’ll focus on the issues and try to resolve them as best she sees them,” he said.
Thus far, that seems to have been her role on the dais. Already she’s played the swing vote, courted with negotiations during meetings discussing the city’s Budget Response Reports.
Emdee has also shown herself to be a by-the-book stickler from time to time, as with her vote in favor of the publicly unpopular Sea Breeze Plaza mixed-use development. Though she recognized that there are issues with the city’s mixed-use zoning as it stands, her decision was based on the development’s merits as a project that met zoning requirements, winning her no favors with passionate opponents of mixed-use developments.
It’s also worth revisiting that, due to numerous real estate property holdings connected to both he and his father, District 1 Councilman Jeff Ginsburg has and will continue to recuse himself from all discussions related to the AES power plant site. He will also recuse himself from discussions related to CenterCal’s Waterfront redevelopment project.
This comes about as a result of recommendations made following an analysis by the California Fair Political Practices Commission. The FPPC’s letter to Ginsburg came following an informal request made by Ginsburg at Redondo City Attorney Michael Webb’s advisement.
The FPPC’s determination that Ginsburg’s financial well-being might be impacted by the success or failure of a vote on waterfront-related projects was enough for them to recommend he sit those discussions out.
The loss of his vote could prove significant to the CenterCal project’s future. But despite that, Ginsburg remains optimistic about the project.
“I’ve learned one thing while I’ve been on council, and that’s that I’m not going to make everybody happy. Some people that are anti-development, whether I’m here or not, are going to be anti-development,” he said. “I think the majority of people out there would like to see the waterfront revitalized.”
