Well read?
Dear ER:
Reading Tony Czuleger last week [“Letters,” ER Nov. 15, 2012], I feel compelled to respond. Czuleger stated, “I consider myself well-read on the subject …” — but, conversely, wrote an abundance of inaccuracies.
For example, he referred to the initiative as “BBR’s” initiative. The initiative was backed by NoPowerPlant.com., which has appeared dozens of times over the last 1-1/2 years in articles in local media and in public meetings over a 6-month period as the initiative was being drafted. It has also been mentioned at city council and in the massive signature drive for the initiative. Well-read, Mr Czuleger? More like “out-of-touch.”
Czuleger writes: AES “generated electricity” 40% of the time in 2012. The real question is, however, what percentage of their capacity did they produce, and could that have easily been taken up by another plant? According to a public records request to the California Energy Commission, AES produced less than 7% of their capacity the first 6 months of 2012 with San Onofre offline. Czuleger should go to the CEC website and do a search on his own, or call them for the real story, instead of allowing himself to be mislead by selective information provided by AES.
Mr. Czuleger also stated AES-Redondo will be needed in the future. Dennis Peters from the California Independent System Operator, testified to the Redondo Beach City Council last April that there is capacity on the grid in our area to retire AES-Redondo. I guess Mr. Czuleger missed this meeting, or would rather listen to AES, an out-of-state- corporation with a financial conflict of interest. Czuleger shouldn’t rely on information from AES, or private citizens who might be on the AES payroll. AES has hired private citizens like John Mirassou and one of our Planning Commissioners, Marc Mitchell.
Mr. Czuleger is pitching the AES line. Paid or not, who knows? Next he will probably regurgitate the hogwash that Jim Light pocketed $500,000 of the City’s money by suing them, when in reality, Light led a successful lawsuit by a citizens group in 2010 to force Redondo to obey their own Charter and put Measure G on the ballot. The four judges who ruled in favor of the citizens group agreed with the judgment that went to their attorney, none to Jim Light. But elected officials repeat that hogwash, so it must be true.
Do your own homework. There are many residents, elected officials and out of state corporations with financial conflicts of interest that have no problem misleading you to get what they want.
Lezlie Campeggi
Redondo Beach
Doing the math
Dear ER:
In your article about Steve Wozniak [ER 11/1], Woz tells about Siri on the iPhone 5 telling him that Lake Tahoe is the third largest lake in California. Woz seems impressed that Siri “did the math.” She did, only she did it wrong. Tahoe is number two in California. I can confirm that Woz is correct: Siri maintains that Lake Tahoe is the third largest lake in California, after the Salton Sea and Goose Lake. However, every source I can find, such as the non-profit LakeNet <worldlakes.org/searchlakes.asp>, lists Tahoe as larger than Goose Lake by nearly 20%. Siri must be using the bug-ridden Apple Maps to make her calculations.
Keith Robinson
Web comment
Give them a sack
Dear ER:
[Regarding “Postal Problems,” ER 11/15], on the street that we live on, which is only three blocks long, if the mail is delivered before 4 p.m. I feel like I’ve won the lottery!Do away with supervisors following the carriers and give them [each] a sack of mail to deliver!
Richard Murphy
Redondo Beach
Hermosa oil drilling
Dear ER:
Thank you for the article [ER 10/18] highlighting our application to locate, build and operate an oil production facility from the site of the current location of the City’s maintenance facility.
As our application demonstrates, science and new technology now enables the safe recovery of offshore oil from a single, onshore location. We are proposing to utilize environmentally responsible directional drilling technology to safely recover oil, protect both the coast and surrounding neighborhoods, and provide a new revenue stream to the City and schools of Hermosa Beach.
The project concentrates all resource recovery, ultimately up to 30 producing wells, and also up to 4 return water injection wells, contained in a well cellar, at the single 1.3-acre site. The location is a light industrial, mixed use area, and in the past the site was utilized as the City’s landfill, and also housed earlier oil recovery operations.
Importantly, our project application documents that no controversial shale “hydraulic fracking” technology will be used for recovery. And, it describes how all recovery and processing operations will be fully contained, utilizing a closed loop system, that will protect the neighborhood and surrounding community from the risk of spill or accident.
Finally, the rig heights and increased traffic that we’ve heard concerns about are temporary — related only to construction or maintenance. Normal production operations will have less traffic than the current use, and will be quietly maintained behind a landscaped 16-foot split-block wall border, with a 10 foot setback from Valley Dr., along with street improvements and undergrounding of utility lines.
We appreciate continuing coverage of this important local issue in Hermosa Beach. We remain confident that ongoing news and information about this project, as it moves through the City’s public review process, will reveal both its benefits and environmental protections. We are confident that this will enable residents to make an informed choice in a future vote to allow this project to move forward to deliver needed new revenues to the City and its schools.
Steve Layton, President
E&B Natural Resources
Call to action
Dear ER:
Residents of The Village have banded together to form “Residents for Appropriate Development” (RAD). Our mission is to work collaboratively with CenterCal Properties and the City of Redondo Beach to achieve a development that addresses the concerns and desires of the neighboring residents.
Given that Pier Plaza is as close as 50 feet from The Village residents, whatever is built on the Pier Plaza site will have a direct impact on us. Our goal is “to have adjacent Waterfront Development that allows us to maintain our Quality of Life and to preserve our ocean views, thereby not adversely impacting our Property Values.”
Why RAD?
– Power in Numbers – History has proven the Power of Organization
– To organize and actively participate to influence what is built in front of us
– To have a loud voice at every public input meeting
– Neither the developer nor the City Council has expressed any concern about having a development compatible with the 1000+ adjacent residences
– Lack of advanced notice by the City concerning meetings
– City Council’s rush to have a preliminary design concept approved by March 5, 2013
For readers living in the Seascapes, Casa de los Amigos, and The Village not already in RAD, let’s band together to preserve our property values and quality of life!
For more information, visit: Redondo.rad@hotmail.com.
CenterCal’s first public visioning session is set for Tuesday, Nov. 27, 6 to 8 p.m., at the Redondo Beach Performing Arts Center.
Nadine Meissner,
RAD Co-Chair
Redondo Beach
Fowl deeds
Dear ER:
With his recent re-election, President Obama has won the power to pardon more turkeys on Thanksgiving. But so does every one of us, by choosing a nonviolent Thanksgiving observance that gives thanks for our good fortune, health, and happiness with a life-affirming, cruelty-free feast of vegetables, fruits, and grains.
And here are more terrific reasons:
• You will stay alert through the entire football game.
• You are what you eat. Who wants to be a “butterball”?
• Your vegetarian kid won’t have to boycott the family dinner.
• You won’t have to call Poultry Hotline to keep your family alive.
• Fruits and vegetables don’t have to carry government warning labels.
• You won’t sweat the environment and food-resources devastation guilt trip.
• You won’t spend a sleepless night wondering how the turkey lived and died.
• Your body will welcome a holiday from saturated fat, cholesterol, and hormones.
Our own dinner this Thanksgiving will feature a “Tofurky,” lentil roast, mashed potatoes, corn stuffing, stuffed squash, candied yams, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie. An internet search on “vegetarian Thanksgiving” got us more recipes and other useful information than we could possibly use.
Jack Matler
Hermosa Beach
Prodigious human being
Dear ER:
My granddaughters and I were very inspired — and saddened — by Ed Pilolla’s article, “Hurricane claims former Hermosa entrepreneur” [ ER11/1].
Claudene Christian: what a prodigious human packaged into a body of versatile endeavors. Her story became to our granddaughters a real live action figure even though my husband and I amplified our worry for them that the deeds of risk is governmental to an individualist’s ventures and may make them also the subject of an untimely obituary. All the more they imagined themselves graduates with a menu of options in how to romance adventure. This wasn’t the reaction I had in mind. But as I watched what they said, their enthusiastic body language recalled to my thoughts my early years when my heart was attached to the insatiable pursuit of adventure.
The worst possible course of death is not having been embraced by the proceeds of reason, for chance comes ever so swiftly though its purpose is long lasting.
Dora Perez-Meyer
Torrance
