City employee contract talks
The City of Redondo Beach agreed to new, three-year contracts with two of its three major employee unions in December, after workers made appearances at city council meetings throughout the year.
During one meeting, a 911 dispatcher told the council that low staffing and mandatory overtime in her department made her work “dehumanizing.”
Her union signed an agreement for pay raises of up to 19 percent over the next three years. Teamsters, which represents Public Works and city parks employees, signed a deal for up to 25 percent raises.
One major union remained without a new contract, the Redondo Beach Professional Supervisory Association, which represents analysts, planners, engineers and more.
The unions made the case that they took pay cuts going back to the 2008-10 recession, and remained underpaid compared to neighboring cities.
Drone show 4th
A new L.A Regional Water Quality Control Board rule regarding fireworks over water led a longtime Redondo Beach fireworks contractor to pull out of the 2023 show just three weeks before the Fourth of July.
City Hall debated what to do and eventually an arrangement was made with a Texas company to put on a 200-drone show over King Harbor. The devices flew in unison to create images and colored formations in the night sky.
The city hopes to return to a traditional fireworks show next year.
Two guns in two days at RUHS
In the first week of December, on back-to-back-days, two Redondo Union High School students were arrested for bringing a loaded gun to school. The sophomore boys were caught by administration and Redondo Beach Police after anonymous students tipped off administrators.
The first boy was apprehended in class. A handgun with a high-capacity ammunition magazine was found in his backpack.
After receiving a tip the following day about a second student with a gun, officers went to his classroom, but found he had left for a restroom. A search ensued, the boy was spotted and ran. Administration and police intercepted him.
School was canceled the next day to allow installations of metal detectors to be used until Winter Break.
Superintendent Nicole Wesley commended RUHS Principal Anthony Bridi and Mitchell Yonemura, campus safety assistant, for their bravery in actions taken to arrest the second boy, who was armed with a loaded handgun.
Earlier in the year, a reconvened 32-member “Ensuring Safety Proactively Task Force” at Redondo Unified School District made recommendations for changes to district buildings for security, including adding more locked doors and buzzer systems, and panic buttons in front offices.
Election
Voters in the City’s March election put two new councilmembers in place, approved ranked-choice voting for Redondo Beach and set a tax range for retail marijuana sales.
Eight-year councilmembers Laura Emdee and Christian Horvath were termed out. Paige Kaluderovic, in her first run for public office, defeated Candace Nafissi, to succeed Horvath in District Three. In District Five, planning commission member and business attorney Scott Behrendt ran unopposed to succeed Emdee.
The domicile of Christian Horvath
The residential status of Christian Horvath was front and center at a 3 p.m. special city council meeting in January, called by Mayor Brand to investigate whether City Councilman Horvath had violated council rules by his family moving to Torrance, and Horvath remaining in the family home in District Three, with roommates, in the modified garage. Residents packed the chamber for the hearing, which held Horvath’s seat on the council in the balance.
In the end, his colleagues voted that Horvath could remain in place, and for the language in section 6.5 of the City Charter to be clarified as far as what constituted a “domicile” and a “residence.”
Councilmembers had initially cited Section 6.5 of the city charter, which read: “…if a councilmember is convicted of a crime involving moral turpitude, or ceases to be a resident of the district from which such Councilmember was elected, such Councilmember’s office shall become vacant and shall be so declared by the city council.”
City Attorney Mike Webb confirmed that the city charter does not define residency.
“The right to hold office is a fundamental right… if there is any ambiguity (the elected representative) should remain in office,” Webb said.
Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr., amended the final motion to “take no action based on Section 6.5 of the charter.”
CenterCal settlement
The Redondo Beach city council approved a $2 million settlement to conclude five lawsuits with CenterCal Properties, and close the book on the failed $400 million waterfront development plan.
Fred Bruning, CenterCal chairman and founder, characterized the settlement as recouping costs after the city backed out of a 15-acre public/private partnership deal in 2018. City Attorney Mike Webb described the settlement as a victory for the city to proceed with its preferred, smaller redevelopment of the waterfront.
Upon Webb’s announcement of the agreement, the five councilmembers applauded.
The CenterCal project stalled when then-city councilmember Bill Brand led a coalition to rezone the waterfront, which disallowed the CenterCal/city plans.
“In my 45-year career, I had never before sued anybody. I never had the occasion to (react) to offensive behavior,” Bruning, of Palos Verdes, told Easy Reader. “My personal view is we didn’t want the city to suffer. It was individuals who had acted without character.”
“When the community wants to change direction after a good way down the path, lawsuits are probably an inevitable outcome,” Webb said.
“Revitalize, not supersize” was the slogan of CenterCal opponents.
Green Line
A plan to extend light rail to the South Bay moved ahead in early 2023, following Metro’s release of a Draft Environmental Impact Report. As opposition grew to a proposed route on a Metro right-of-way through neighborhoods in Lawndale and North Redondo Beach, a vote by L.A. County Supervisors approached in the fall.
The Redondo Beach city council discussed renting two buses to arrive in force at an October Supervisors meeting. Shortly before, a gravestone was found in a Lawndale yard along the right of way. The subsequent reaction led to postponement of the Green Line meeting.
Local County Supervisor Holly Mitchell wrote letters seeking more funding to eliminate cost as a key factor in the choice of routes. Mitchell also held a Community Walk in mid-December.
Three options remain on the table for an expected decision by County Supervisors in early 2024: build the extension on the right-of-way between neighborhoods; build it on an elevated track down the Hawthorne Boulevard median; or don’t build the extension.
Obagi, Jr. State Bar ruling
In December, City Councilman Zein Obagi, Jr. was ruled to have committed two counts of “moral turpitude” by a State Bar judge, who recommended a two-year suspension of his law license for “grossly negligent” misappropriation of $515,000 of a former client’s money, and “willful violation of State Bar rules.”
Judge Manjari Chawla wrote in her ruling that “Obagi placed his interest above those of (his former client), not because he knowingly sought to deprive him of the money.”
The judge went on to say that the State Bar prosecutor did not prove the misappropriation was calculated.
Obagi said it was not intentional and he did not gain from it.
The judge’s recommendation for sentencing went to the California Supreme Court, which decides attorney discipline.
Pride flag at City Hall
The City of Redondo Beach raised an LGBTQ+ Pride flag for the first time in 2023.
A large crowd of supporters cheered as Mayor Bill Brand sent the flag up the pole at city hall for the month of June.
The ceremony came together after a May 30 city council vote, which addressed three items the council had sent to city staff to explore: the creation of a city flag policy; to decide whether a ceremony will be held for the Pride flag; and whether lighting the Pier in rainbow colors was feasible.
Lighting the Pier, assistant city manager Elizabeth Hause reported, was possible, but not this year.
City Councilman Nils Nehrenheim did not take part in the flag-raising ceremony.
“My thing is, real simple: we have one flag, right over there, for one nation, we’re underneath that flag, that tent,” Nehrenheim said at the May 30 meeting.
City Attorney Mike Webb told the council that flying a Pride flag at city hall would represent government speech on behalf of the city.
“It’s important that this remains only for official government speech,” he said.
The final vote, to raise the Pride flag, and have the June 6 ceremony, passed 4-1.
The flag that was used was flown underneath the U.S. flag and California’s flag. It is known as the “Progress Flag”. It was designed in 2018 to incorporate race as well as sexual orientation/gender identity.
AES
The AES power plant site began the year with 12 months remaining on its standby-status for the State of California, and as the subject of new lawsuits against the city by the plant site’s co-owner. Then a foreclosure action by the plant’s previous owners, AES, ended with an 11th-hour bankruptcy filing by its current owners, led by Leo Pustilnikov.
All the while, the state took no action to extend the plant’s standby status for power generation.
At the end of the year, the bankruptcy was still pending. The city won one of the lawsuits – subsequently appealed by Pustilnikov. And the State of California decided not to renew the plant’s standby status, allowing it to close after 69 years of operation.
The lawsuit the city won established that Redondo Beach had a state required-housing plan (known as a housing element) in place in July – the date it was approved by the city council, as opposed to the date the State approved it in September. If the judge had ruled for the latter, Pustilnikov may have been able to sidestep city zoning to develop the 51-acre site.
The Pustilnikov bankruptcy filing is partially tied to a question of who will pay for an environmental clean-up of the 1954 plant. Each side argued in court papers that the other is responsible. The AES creditor claim is $28 million.
Matador sinking
A bystander on the Redondo Beach Pier in the early morning of Feb. 8 heard yells for help out on the water. It led to the rescue of four people, clinging to debris after their 42-foot fishing boat, Matador, sank 1,000 feet off of the Esplanade. The men had been in the water for more than an hour without life jackets, according to Harbor Patrol.
The bait fisherman told rescuers that the vessel took on water and went under before they could radio an S.O.S.
The four men were taken to shore and transferred by ambulance to a hospital, to be treated for hypothermia.
The next day, local volunteer free divers (without air tanks) located the Matador wreck in 130 feet of water. The Matador operated regularly out of King Harbor. On Feb. 7-8, it was nighttime fishing to gather bait for the bait barge inside the breakwall. ER
