At a recent Hermosa Beach City Council meeting, Peter Tucker was peppering an engineer with questions. He asked about drainage, elevation and angles. He brought up materials, costs and man-hours. Scenarios were played out, questions were settled, new ones were raised.
It was an unusual level of involvement for the council member, who mostly steers clear of the squabbles that have engulfed the council in recent months. It was also a revealing one. As he runs for re-election to the city council in the Nov. 3 election, Tucker’s years of experience, as a contractor and building inspector, have given him valuable background in a town that is perpetually confronting issues of planning and development.
“That’s a wonderful thing about Pete: he knows all the new things, and all the old things,” said David Garrett, a Hermosa resident who got to know Tucker through the construction industry.
Building issues, Tucker said, are bound up with the community’s sense of identity. As a Hermosa resident for nearly 40 years, Tucker has a strong attachment to the town, and urges residents to think carefully about how decisions made today resonate in the future.
“It’s your city; how do you want it to look in 10 years?” Tucker is fond of asking.
As the town and the council consider Hermosa’s general plan, Tucker is hopeful that the town can hang on to its eclectic charm.
“I don’t want to do like what Huntington Beach did,” Tucker said. “I talk to people down there, and they are very unhappy.”
As a council member, Tucker was deeply involved in the renovation of upper Pier Avenue. He points to that project as an example of what can be done when the city perseveres through tough challenges.
“There was a lot of opposition, but we got it done, and it came out well,” he said.
As the city considers the direction development will take, particularly in its downtown core, Tucker has taken a long view. He is quick to note that Hermosa, as a dense town of 1.3 square miles, has always had its share of parking problems, and is hesitant to solve them by adding an unsightly parking structure.
“We have parking issues. Parking has always been an issue here,” Tucker said. “But do we need another giant parking lot right by the beach? I don’t think so.”
In addition to serving on the council and in business, Tucker spent years on the city’s Planning Commission. He recalled a moment years ago when the commission approved a pizzeria’s plan to add a full bar, only to see the pizzeria quickly sell to a new tenant.
“He understands the history, and that it’s not that easy to go backwards in land use decisions,” said Peter Hoffman, a member of the planning commission. “He gets the mechanism, the process.”
In a race in which four of the five candidates have criticized the current council as dysfunctional, Tucker’s incumbency and long record could be a liability. Tucker disagrees.
“No one likes the process,” he said. “But experience is absolutely an asset.”ER
