March 1 marks the final day to submit ballots for Hermosa Beach’s Special Election. The all-mail election will restore the Hermosa Beach City Council to its full size for the first time since last September, when former councilmember Nanette Barragan resigned to run for a seat in Congress.
Candidates Stacey Armato and Trent Larson are familiar to observers of Hermosa politics. Larson ran for a seat in the general election last November, while Armato served as the chairperson for Stop Hermosa Beach Oil, the central organization in last year’s campaign against lifting the city’s ban on oil drilling.
The two have staged a friendly campaign while staking out different political territory.
Stacey Armato
Armato has been encouraged by the results of the November election, in which Jeff Duclos and Justin Massey won seats on the council. The message appears to be that in politics, personality matters.
“Now it seems like the city council is building camaraderie and working better as a team,” Armato said. “Council members are much more respectful of one another, they’re getting meetings done sooner. It’s been a relief.”
But the environmental issues that propelled Massey and Duclos onto the council are still awaiting solutions. Her positions on these issues have won her endorsements from the Sierra Club and the Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters.
“Our endorsement team found her to be a smart and a genuine candidate who is running for office because she cares deeply about her community and has a strong desire to serve its residents as a strong environmentalist,” said league president Tom Eisenhauer in a statement announcing the endorsement.
Although Armato is proud of her environmental credentials, she is also positioning herself as a candidate of fiscal stewardship. She served on the financial committee of the city’s Community Dialogue program and is aware of the limits and competing demands on the city’s general fund.
“I don’t want to be seen as making all of these green decisions without regard to the effects on the budget,” Armato said. “I’d like to get us to the point where people see those decisions benefitting our bottom line.”
With the passage in November of Measure H, which boosted the city’s transient occupancy tax from 10 to 12 percent, Armato is looking forward to having an increase in city revenue to work with: an estimated $500,000 per year, with even more thought to be in the pipeline with the opening of the H2O Hermosa and Strand & Pier hotels.
The two proposed hotels are still several years and multiple board approvals away, Armato noted.
“They’ve changed the project to more clearly meet our needs and they’re integrating themselves into the community in a good way,” she said, pointing to the recent installation of Dane Capo’s pop-up art gallery in the vacant space formerly occupied by Scapegoat Coffee. The storefront is owned by Strand & Pier developer Bolour Associates.
“I think we have to point out acts that are acceptable, but also speak up occasionally and say, ‘I think this or that might be unreasonable.’”
Trent Larson
Trent Larson will be the first to tell you about his belief in the power and importance of the free market. But that does not mean that he is inured to the positive impacts government can produce.
“We just re-did South Park and thank God we did,” Larson said. “Now look how many people are using it.”
The park recently reopened after a multi-year redevelopment process spearheaded by community members. For Larson the park is an example of municipal government done right. And it’s a process he would like to repeat if elected, saying that the success at South Park made the need for improvements at Clark Field and Valley more apparent.
Yet such improvements are only possible, he cautions, if the city gets its fiscal house in order.
“We pay good money in property taxes and we’re frittering it away,” Larson said.
Larson pointed to the recent cost-benefit analysis of the city’s downtown, which examined whether the area and its late-night establishments consume more in city services than they produce in municipal revenues. The candidate said the report was an example of how a small group of city activists were able to force the city to expend funds tackling issues that are not of broader concern to the community.
While Larson has been mostly complementary of Armato during the campaign, he said that the squandering of funds would likely increase if she were elected. He predicts Armato will join council members Duclos, Massey and Mayor pro tem Hany Fangary to form a four member voting block. That this makes his candidacy especially important, because he will act as a buffer against against that, he said
“I’m not a person who is going to be pushed around,” said Larson, who is fond of pointing out the sturdiness he displayed as a center playing football in college. “And I feel there is some shoving and pushing going on.”
The need for an independent voice on the council has drawn others to Larson’s candidacy. Matt McCool, who serves on the city’s Emergency Preparedness Advisory Commission, said he is supporting Larson because the city council needs to expand its focus beyond environmental issues He noted that the city’s police and fire departments are both working out of trailers.
“With Stacey, her number one priority is going green, which I support,” McCool said. “But I think people are starting to recognize that public safety does need to be a higher priority right now.”
