Two weeks ago, voters in Redondo Beach received a curious document in the mail.
The 176-page booklet was titled “Measure G Ballot Text and Supplemental Ballot Pamphlet.” Page 1, in between six “whereas,” was the ballot text of Measure G itself, which proposes to create a Coastal Land Use Plan and rezone the city’s harbor. What followed were pages of maps, amendments, zoning designations, definitions, “as-built” comparisons, and traffic impact analysis.
This was not light reading. Measure G is part of a growing trend, particularly in California, that has been described as “ballot box zoning.” How voters interpret those 176 pages – or don’t, as the case may be – will determine the future of the Redondo Beach waterfront.
The City Clerk’s office received several phone calls in the days after the booklet was mailed. Some residents were slightly bewildered. “Did we pay for this?” was the most frequent question.
The answer was yes. The document, including printing, mailing, and the traffic study it contains, cost over $100,000. It was the result, most immediately, of a lawsuit won in August by the resident’s group Building a Better Redondo. The lawsuit forced the City Council to put Measure G on the Ballot. It contains harbor zoning amendments, which most council members believed were already in effect since mid-2008. The document was also a result of BBR’s Measure DD – approved by voters in late 2008 – which amended the City Charter to trigger a citywide public vote on proposed major land use changes and required accompanying documentation be sent to voters.
Councilman Steve Aspel is angered by costs the city is accruing in its ongoing battle with BBR. The city, he noted, also stands to lose hundreds of thousands in attorney’s fees as a result of the BBR lawsuit that led to Measure G.
“It is so irritating I can’t even describe it,” Aspel said. “I was not a proponent of DD. I’m one of those guys who thinks you elect your officials, go with them, and if you don’t like them, vote them out. I didn’t think DD was necessary. I want to put a thermometer up at City Hall that shows how much cash this cost us. There is no draw, but win or lose, it’s a massive waste of money.”
The court on Tuesday ordered the city to pay $313,000 to BBR in legal fees. City Attorney Mike Webb said that according to court documents that BBR paid attorney Frank Angel $27,000.
“It certainly calls into question their motives for doing this,” Webb said. “The fact that they paid $27,000 and want to turn it into a lotto ticket at $313,000 speaks volumes as to their motivation.”
BBR chair Jim Light said he advocated a public vote prior to suing. Angel, he said, worked on contingency and nearly all of the award would simply pay for his work. Anything left, he said, would go back into restarting a consensus process on harbor zoning.
“Our motives were to get this to a vote of the people,” Light said. “They could have avoided all the costs by just putting it on the ballot in the first place.”
Light accused Webb of using the award for political posturing due to the Measure G vote. He suggested Webb should not have been surprised by the award or its amount
“This is pure politicking, because he has to know this,” Light said.
BBR supporters argue than the cost of not having such a vote is potentially far greater.
Councilman Bill Brand, a BBR supporter who opposed putting Measure G on the ballot, said that without the safeguard of a vote residents could end up with a densely developed waterfront that they do not want.
“It’s a great thing, actually,” Brand said. “The residents are finally deciding what to allow on our waterfront, and not a few councilmen in the middle of the night. They are smart enough to figure it out.”
“The residents shouldn’t throw the entire harbor under the bus because a few councilmen want to allow large scale development down there,” Brand added. “They should stand up.”
Quagmire, part one
The arguments for and against Measure G are diametrically opposed.
If G passes, Building a Better Redondo warns of a “Seaside Mall” and timeshares that will create a wall between the city and its waterfront. BBR argues that the proposed zoning was developed “in private” without sufficient public input and includes a fatal flaw in that it does not rid the waterfront of the AES power plant.
Supporters – which include every councilman except Brand, the Chamber of Commerce, and newly formed groups Redondo Beach Moms for Measure G, Redondo Beach United, led by former councilman Chris Cagle, and a coalition of harbor businesses called Save our Seaside – see the zoning as sufficiently restrictive. It includes development caps and removes all residential zoning in the area. They say the zoning is the result of a compromise nearly a decade in the making and tout amenities, such as a 12-ft waterfront promenade, a public boat launch, open space requirements, and new park zoning on the power plant site.
The fight has become bitter. Aspel, who is fighting colon cancer, earlier this year remarked, on the council dais, that BBR and its supporters were “more toxic than the cancer in my rectum.” At a rally two weeks ago at which both camps were present, anti-G activist and BBR ally Jess Money walked by Cagle – who recently survived a bout with cancer – and asked, “Aren’t you dead yet?”
Both sides argue they are fighting against zoning that allows overdevelopment.
According to Webb, the unanticipated consequence of the court ruling obtained by BBR in August is that it caused the harbor zoning to revert back to 1964 zoning, which included few limitations of any kind on development. Under this zoning – which the city believes would remain in effect should Measure G fail – the AES site, instead of gaining park zoning, would have no limits on industrial development. Webb has described the BBR ruling as, in effect, creating the largest up-zoning in the harbor in 50 years.
Light scoffs at the notion.
“Well, that is a joke,” Light said. “I mean, it doesn’t comply with the Coastal Act, it doesn’t comply with the California Environmental Quality Act….They are politically posturing. Everybody should know that the 1964 zoning is just not legal.”
Webb determined the 1964 zoning was in effect after Superior Court Judge Robert O’Brien ruled that none of zoning amendments the City Council had adopted over the last decade as part of its proposed Coastal Land Use Plan were in effect because they had not been certified by the California Coastal Commission. The state agency, charged with overseeing all waterfront development, was created as part of the California Coastal Act in 1976.
Webb said the implication that the city is using the 1964 zoning for political purposes is “provably wrong.” He said BBR attorney Frank Angel himself suggested the zoning might be applicable when the matter first came up at a council meeting last February. Webb also said the city also sought a definitive answer on what zoning should be in place from Judge O’Brien after his ruling invalidated their harbor zoning but was blocked by a motion from BBR.
“They are the ones, through this lawsuit, that have created this situation with the 1964 zoning,” Webb said. “That may not be convenient for their campaign. But that is not something I can worry about, how it affects the campaign for or against.”
BBR argues that the true threat of overdevelopment is in Measure G. The zoning, they say, allows for three-story timeshares and a total of 940,000 sq. ft. in the harbor and along the Catalina Corridor – which Light notes is the equivalent of a Galleria Mall. They cite as evidence a conceptual plan that Dacron Properties, which owns the Redondo Beach Marina leasehold, developed after the zoning was proposed in 2008. The conceptual plan was formerly on the Decron website.
“Decron has coordinated a seaside mall concept with our city manager, deputy manager, and planning staff that puts a multi-level parking facility on the Seaside Lagoon,” Light said. “When I asked the planning staff about this they stated that parking lots are a permitted use in a park.”
City Manager Bill Workman said no such plan has been developed by or submitted to the city.
“That is absolutely inaccurate,” Workman said. “We have not had any discussions with Decron about their property for several years. There are no meetings ongoing and no plan has been presented to us for a project through the planning commission, the Coastal Commission, or the City Council. There is none, not any plan.”
Decron executive vice president Tom Schiff denied any such plans are in the works and flatly stated that no mall would be built on the leasehold.
“As we have pointed out at City Council meetings over the past several months, there is no ‘seaside mall’ being planned, and we have no proposal for a mall or any other redevelopment of our leasehold before the City, nor have we had any application before the City in the past,” Schiff said. “The idea of a ‘seaside mall’ is a red herring meant to scare people, and has no basis in fact. As we’ve mentioned to Councilman Brand, we would sit down with the councilman as well as the community before finalizing any conceptual plan or submitting any application for our leasehold. But whatever that plan eventually is, it’s not going to be a mall.”
Brand wasn’t buying it.
“Decron Properties spent significant time and money crafting a vision for a 200,000 sq .ft. mall in the Ruby’s parking lot complete with a 2-story parking structure in front of and on top off a portion of the Seaside Lagoon,” Brand said. “It’s still available for viewing on the BBR website. This was before they knew the public was going to be voting on the zoning to allow it. It’s an eye-opener to what we can expect to see if G is approved. Doesn’t surprise me they’re running from it now.”
Quagmire, a history
Redondo Beach has spent much of the last decade trying to get back something it lost long ago.
Historically, of the three beach cities, Redondo had by far the most vibrant waterfront. Old Redondo was a seaside resort area with bustling boardwalks, a large indoor “Saltwater Plunge” where surf pioneer George Freeth gave swimming lessons, a magical beach called Moonstone Park where tourists flocked to find tidal gems, offshore casinos that attracted the Hollywood set, and the ornate old Hotel Redondo overlooking the whole scene from its hillside perch above the pier.
All this was allowed to deteriorate during the middle part of the last century and whatever was left was razed during the Urban Renewal period of the 1960s. The city did manage to build King Harbor during this time period, but by the 1970s, the waterfront was largely dominated by parking lots and a wall of newly erected condominiums. In 1988, storms wrecked much of the harbor area and a fire decimated the pier. In the 1990s, the pier area became known as a gang hangout, and though police were able to reclaim the area by the end of the decade, many local residents abandoned it and never came back.
As both Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach gentrified their respective waterfronts, Redondo Beach found itself stuck in a long decline.
The city made a bold but doomed attempt at revival when it unveiled the Heart of the City plan in 2001. The idea was to give the city back its lost seaside downtown district. The main mechanism by which it intended to achieve this was a vast downsizing of the AES power plant, which would have been largely replaced by a residential neighborhood. The notion was that residential development would both give AES the financial incentive to drastically reduce and eventually end its power plant operations, as well as provide the people to support a new “commercial village” in the harbor area.
The Heart of the City was lauded and even awarded in “smart growth” planning circles. But residents balked: the zoning allowed as many as 2,998 residential units and 1.6 million acres of commercial development. In 2002, after the City Council unanimously approved the plan, a citizen’s movement sprang up against the Heart of the City. It began with a letter to the editor of this paper written by Chris Cagle, a mild-mannered former drug store clerk who ran a one-man mortgage lending business and had never before been politically involved.
Cagle, who possessed an “aw shucks” kind of Jimmy Stewart, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington quality, had appeared at the City Council on March 5 and warned that most residents appeared to oppose the Heart of the City. He said a referendum was a possibility should they proceed with the plan. He was completely ignored. Cagle wrote his letter volunteering to lead a movement seeking a referendum – “It doesn’t seem too complicated,” he wrote – and included his phone number. The letter appeared on March 14; by April 18, Cagle and 140 other volunteers had gathered 10,500 signatures on two separate petitions that ripped the heart out of Heart of the City zoning. On May 7, the council rescinded those parts of the zoning.
Measure G in a real sense began on that night. The referendum was a blunt instrument. Although key components of the Heart plan were rescinded, other parts were left in place, creating conflicting zoning that made it impossible for any new projects or reinvestment to come forward. Nobody could comply.
Among the original volunteers who defeated the Heart of the City were also Bill Brand and Jim Light. Cagle was elected to serve a partial City Council term vacated by Kevin Sullivan in 2003. He vowed to lead a consensus process aimed at finding an acceptable compromise on waterfront development. As the city went back to the drawing board in late 2003 – quite literally, bringing in a USC mediator led a “visioning process” at which groups of people drew maps of what they wanted in the area with crayons – Cagle split with his former fellow activists.
Brand and Light emerged as leaders of a movement that argued for a park on the AES plant site. Cagle backed a plan that proposed single-family homes, a historical hotel, mixed use development, and a smaller park on the site. In 2005, Brand ran unsuccessfully for council against Cagle, and Light ran unsuccessfully against Aspel; but in an advisory measure, the so-called “Heart Park” plan prevailed in what was a non-binding vote – AES, after all, owned the property.
Brand continued to advocate for a Heart Park as president of a non-profit he founded called the South Bay Parkland Conservancy. Light founded BBR and eventually – with Brand’s help – passed Measure DD.
In June 2008, the City Council finally thought it had resolved the zoning inconsistencies created in the aftermath of the Heart of the City when they approved a coastal zoning plan. The plan removed all residential zoning from the area, added park zoning to the power plant, and reduced the commercial development cap from 1.6 million to 400,000 sq. ft.
Cagle, who was about to term out as a councilman, supported the zoning.
“What we started out to do with the Heart of the City, we did – we scaled the whole thing back,” he said last week. “This is the community consensus plan.”
Even Light seemed at least partially satisfied with the harbor zoning. After its passage, he thanked the council for reducing the cap to 400,000 sq. ft. Even after Measure DD passed in November of 2008, Light seemed satisfied with the harbor zoning. He had contended that DD would retroactively be within reach of the zoning, but at a Nov. 18 council meeting he was asked by Councilman Pat Aust if BBR had a problem with it. Light did offer caveats – specifically, that he was troubled that the zoning used the Heart of the City Environmental Impact Report, which he had long argued understated traffic impacts of full build-out – but was largely positive.
“I thought it was a very fair thing that you did cutting it back from 750,000 to 400,000 [sq. ft.],” he told the council. “But there are others who didn’t like specific things, like including timeshare capability in that zoning. So you know, I wouldn’t want to speak for the whole group.”
The council would soon learn that its long zoning battle was far from over.
Traffic and timeshares
Light is an engineer who first became involved in the Heart of the City because of his experience with Environmental Impact Reports, which he first became familiar with as an Air Force officer working on space shuttle launch sites. In this sense, the 176-page pamphlet Redondo voters received last week is very much Light reading.
Light is highly analytical. He wants data. And he has long been convinced that the city’s traffic impact analysis has been skewed to favor development. The city has defended the ongoing use of the Heart of the City EIR on the grounds that it contemplated higher levels of development than the new zoning and is still legally valid as a state-certified document (as well as the fact that a new EIR would cost up to $200,000 to produce).
Light’s activism has helped produce two alternative traffic studies. His involvement in a city growth and management task force partly resulted in a traffic study that he says shows 11 intersections in the harbor area degrading to “E” or “F” grades – that is, fully congested – under the full build-out allowed by the proposed zoning. And a traffic analysis required under DD shows full-build-out resulting in 30,000 additional car trips per day.
“The council shouldn’t have rushed this zoning,” Light said. “They should have said, ‘Now we have real data in front of us, you know, we want to balance it better.’”
Brand, who was elected to the council in 2009, says the entire 176 page Measure G booklet is worth it for one page alone – the table showing traffic impacts.
“I would urge any voter to turn to page 132, T-9,” Brand said. “Even if it was only half built-out, that’s still 15,000 car trips down there….It would still drive the area to gridlock.”
Councilman Matt Kilroy said that the traffic argument is very South Redondo-centric. He noted that North Redondo, which produces the lion’s share of city revenue, also contains its busiest street, Inglewood Avenue.
“You don’t see any caps on development in North Redondo,” Kilroy said. “It’s very frustrating for us up here. We generate most of the income for the city and suffer most the traffic.”
Kilroy, a former engineer who now teaches middle school, expressed skepticism that even in the unlikely scenario of full build-out under the new zoning 30,000 trips would be produced.
“There is 900,000 sq. ft. of development on the ground there now,” he said. “Go ahead and make the assumption that we’d add another 400,000 sq. ft. That would only increase traffic 50 percent of what is generated in our harbor now. I don’t know about you, but I have never seen harbor drive gridlocked. Sure, a theoretical study comes up with these numbers…but I don’t see it going up by more than 50 percent of what is going on now.”
Aspel said the EIR by its nature contemplates a worst-case scenario that is almost sure not to occur. He said Light has tried to engineer Measure DD – with all its data-driven requirements – so that all development in the city fails.
“He’s an engineer and most people aren’t so it’s confusing, and frankly I wouldn’t blame people for voting no because they are confused,” Aspel said. “It’s over-engineered….30,000 car trips a day is just not going to happen. It’s just impossible. We are not building a stadium – you know, Dodger Stadium has 30,000 car trips going to it when they have a game. I am not an engineer, but for whatever reason the way they have this is just not common sense.”
In addition to traffic, Brand, Light and BBR have taken issue with several other elements of the proposed zoning: the inclusion of time shares as an allowed use as part of hotel development, the three story height allowed in some parts of the zoning, and what they argue is not enough protection of view corridors.
“People don’t want three-story time-shares in the Ruby’s parking lot,” Brand said. “People don’t want zoning for a mall which, has already been considered by a leaseholder down there. People don’t want zoning that creates enough development to create traffic gridlock on the waterfront.”
Councilman Pat Aust said BBR has used all these issues to great rhetorical but completely disingenuous effect. He noted that Brand actually approved time-shares use for the Shade Hotel proposal because he understood it was a financing mechanism for the developer – the Shade project itself, he noted, includes no time-shares.
“They are misusing this because most people are fearful of time-shares,” Aust said. “Then they increase the fear by hooking up the words ‘three story’ with time-shares and suddenly it sounds like a horrible thing.”
In any case, Aspel said, the zoning includes strict limits, allowing people to say no more than 60 days in a year on only 30 days in the summer, and requiring all such facilities to look and operate as a hotel room the rest of the year. Aspel said that BBR has spread a fear that somehow residential uses have crept into the harbor zoning.
“There is no residential allowed,” Aspel said. “No condos, no apartments, no low income housing – which people are being told. There is none. I can’t say zero any better than that.”
Aust said that in any case he would not approve any time-share use in an actual project. He said that the distinction between zoning and an actual project has been blurred by BBR. As an example, he cited a slide that BBR has on its website showing a large three story development on the corner of Harbor Drive and Beryl Street. It is labeled “Future under new upzoning.”
“They are totally lying to people showing them that picture,” Aust said. “That is the part that pisses me off. They have to stoop down to absolute lies. That isn’t even coloring it – that is absolute falsehood. That is what could be built, they say – but Port Royal Marina has that leasehold at least 20 more years and they are asking for an extension.”
Light defended the image.
“The picture shows what a three story timeshare would look like on that corner,” Light said. “There are discussions about what to do with the land behind the rental bike shop. They want to do something on that corner. They have also talked about land swaps and combining leaseholds. This is just a rendering of what three stories looks like in a part of the harbor that is now relatively open and single story development. It is allowed by the zoning they approved. No where do we say it is an approved project.”
“But just to appease Pat, I will re-label it to say ‘Allowed Under Measure G,’” Light added.
In the Shade
One actual project does potentially hang in the balance depending on the outcome of Measure G.
Ironically, it is a project both sides have embraced – a three-story, 45-room Shade Hotel proposed by Manhattan Beach entrepreneur Mike Zislis.
Zislis has called his project the tip of a spear that will lead to the revitalization of the harbor. Like the Shade Hotel in Manhattan Beach’s downtown Metlox development earlier this decade, Zislis thinks that the hotel would anchor a new, upscale, low-intensity wave of development in the Redondo Beach harbor. His project alone would generate an estimated $600,000 a year in “bed tax” for the city.
But if Measure G fails, Zislis fears the ensuing uncertainty may doom his project.
“I don’t get it,” Zislis said. “The people I know in Redondo want Shade Hotel, and want the area redeveloped. With the city having a coastal plan that it took 10 years to figure out, finally you are going to see some redevelopment of the area. If the ‘No’ vote wins that will just put a stranglehold on it. You might not get a Shade Hotel.”
If approved. Measure G creates a Coastal Land Use Plan. Part of the function of such a plan is that once it is certified by the Coastal Commission, it gives the city permitting authority over its coastal zone, a power the commission itself currently holds. The plan has already been tentatively approved by the Coastal Commission – which added 17 modifications, including the requirement for a public boat ramp and language protecting view corridors – and would in all likelihood be officially certified should Measure G pass.
Zislis said if G fails, he would be forced either to withdraw or take his project to the Coastal Commission. He estimated it would take two years and cost at least an additional $100,000 to go to the commission. He also believes that the project could very easily be rejected because the commission prefers low-cost accommodations that encourage more public access.
“It’s a tough thing,” he said. “If the Coastal Commission had its way, you’d have $50 rooms on that property. That is their goal. They advocate access so much they’d rather put a Motel 6 on the beach. You can get that approved – but $200 rooms? That is next to impossible. In this coastal plan, I can do it. So, do you really want another Sunrise? Another Best Western? We need to step up the game down there. Let’s get it going. In three years, we could have real revitalization in the area. Without G, it won’t happen.”
Brand said that the Shade Hotel is not in danger. The process may take slightly longer, he said, but it is clearly a project the community wants.
“It will take a little time, but we have zoning in place right now that has allowed revitalization at the Portofino Inn, a new harbor Patrol building, over $1 million in upgrades coming to the Kilkennys and El Torito building, as well as the opening of the George Freeth Plaza in a couple weeks,” Brand said. “And we have zoning for the boutique hotel Mike Zislis wants to build.”
Light said the larger point is that such large zoning decisions should not be rushed – with a lack of public input – just to accommodate a developer. Light and Brand both argue that no substantive public input has been taken on harbor zoning since visioning process in 2004.
“The last real opportunity for a resident to provide input was the workshops after Heart of the City failed,” Light said. “These ended in Spring 2004 and as we’ve seen, Measure G exceeds even the most pro-development plan that came out of that process. Since then public input has been limited to the minimum required by law, the three minutes a resident gets to speak on an agenda item at a Council or Commission meeting. Three minutes of one way testimony does not constitute meaningful input or dialog.”
Both Light and Brand say that a new consensus process could take place within a year.
“We are already very close,” Brand said. “We have a lot of people that understand what our options are in the harbor. It shouldn’t take more than nine months to come together and bring something back to the voters within a year. We shouldn’t throw the entire harbor under the bus just running from bad zoning. We need to do this right. That is an important point.”
Light also said that in the city’s rush to pass zoning it failed to do economic feasibility studies to see if there is even market demand for the more commercial development. He said new business could have the opposite of its intended effect, cannibalizing existing businesses rather than providing revitalization. He said he worries the city could end up with something like the failed “Top of the Pier” project, an underutilized development built in the 1990s.
“I just think they are rushing,” Light said. “We’ve got to think about years from now, and get something in place that really balances it all. Measure G just doesn’t do that.”
City Manager Bill Workman estimated that a new consensus process would take at least three years and cost a minimum of $800,000. He also noted that the total costs of the Measure G election will exceed $200,000.
Sean Guthrie, a vice president of the harbor’s largest leasehold, Marina Cove, said that BBR doesn’t understand the interplay between the private and public sectors. He said it isn’t the city’s job to perform feasibility studies.
“Their job isn’t to be a developer,” he said. “That is the biggest mistake the city made – they acted as the developer with the pier, risking taxpayer’s money. That is what a developer does – he takes all that risk, proposes a project and takes it to the public and says, ‘This is what I want to build.’”
Guthrie said that BBR also doesn’t really understand how the continued uncertainty they propose to foster undermines the possibility of new investment or reinvestment by existing leaseholders. And he estimated that the failure of Measure G would cost the city $50 million if it lost the 65-year lease of the Shade Hotel.
“It’s huge,” Guthrie said. “Right there that sums up in a nutshell why this has to pass.”
Power to the people
One last very large area of contention is the future of the AES power plant site.
Brand has been staunchly advocating that the City Council move to phase out its industrial uses by rezoning it to another use. Light argues that any comprehensive rezoning of the harbor should do so, as the 2004 advisory vote clearly indicated that this is a priority among residents.
“I made a motion last summer to direct the City Attorney to research our rezoning options at the AES site like our own staff recommended six years ago,” Brand said. “He said it would cost nothing and not expose us to litigation. No one on the Council wanted to even look at it. Their unwillingness to even explore all our options is a policy to allow AES to build a new power plant and allow a large desalination plant here…Measure G misses a once in a generation opportunity to rid us of a power plant on our coast.”
AES Southland president Eric Pendergraft said that taking away the his company’s ability to economically function as a power plant at the site would come with a price tag of about $400 million. By law, he said, the company would deserve such compensation.
“It’s fantasy,” Pendergraft said. “I don’t know where the money would come from. But I do know this — a ‘No’ vote allows us to do anything we want with the site. If want to revisit the Heart of the City and put residential in there – which creates more value on that property — it would allow us to do so. Obviously, we are not going to do that. But we would have that opportunity.”
Brand said the city would not be required to purchase the plant so long as it allowed a proper amortization period for the plant to convert to another economically viable use. He said that is why city staff recommended such a move six years ago.
“Redondo Beach is not responsible for cleaning up the land, not responsible for buying the land,” Brand said. “It’s still their land. They just cannot build another power plant. We have to give zoning that maintains economic value for them. But we don’t want a new power plant there.”
Councilman Steve Diels said that Brand’s stance on the AES plant is indicative of a larger credibility problem both he and Light have in that they have not been consistent. He said they opposed the city six years ago when the AES rezoning possibility was discussed. But the larger contradiction, Diels argued, was that by opposing Measure G they would achieve the opposite of what they seek because the proposed park zoning would be lost.
“It’s funny, because Jim Light uses the term gridlock,” Diels said. “He projects a lot. Gridlock is what he wants. Nothing will get done down there if Measure G fails.”
“He opposes park zoning,” Diels added. “He opposes the Coastal Commission recommendations…It is the end of Heart of the City yet he likens it to Heart of the City and is endorsing a vote that could return densities greater than Heart of the City. The list goes on and on. Measure G is very close to everything BBR has asked for. But it is a compromise. Jim Light thanked us for it. He called a reduction in density up-zoning. Funny thing, he complains that we don’t listen to him. To which Jim are we to listen?”
Brand noted that Diels took $3,000 from AES during his council campaign, and that AES has contributed $11,000 to the “Yes on G” campaigns. Light acknowledged that he thanked the council after it passed the harbor zoning, but he said he did so because they took such a rare good step in the right direction.
“You’ve got to pat the dog on the head when he starts doing a trick right,” Light said.
Diels had frequently said that BBR is “against what they are for, and for what they are against.” Aust echoed that comment, noting that both Brand and Light live in condos and commute to El Segundo for their jobs.
“If traffic is the problem, they are part of the problem,” Aust said. “I understand why they hate traffic, because they are creating it.”
“Eighty-three percent of Redondo residents commute outside of Redondo everyday to go to work,” Light said. “Some of this problem was created by our City’s conversion of commercial property to high density condos. So Bill and I are more representative of the majority of Redondo work force. I am unsure how having a job makes me for what I am against.”
Brand said that he refused to make his campaign personal.
“This isn’t about me, it’s about future generations and what we’re going to leave them,” he said. “I don’t want to leave another power plant, 30,000 more cars per day, three-story timeshares that block our ocean views of the Harbor and a large development in the Ruby’s parking lot. Measure G allows all that, so I hope the majority votes it down.” ER
