by Mark McDermott
Many issues drew Stewart Fournier into the Manhattan Beach City Council race, including public safety, intelligently addressing state housing requirements, and confronting the hate crimes that have occurred on school campuses. But there is one overarching issue that inspired him to run, and that is the political rhetoric and divisiveness that he believes threatens the core of what Manhattan Beach is, or what he likes to call “beach values.”
Fournier filmed a series of deep dives on issues he feels are important, including a detailed discussion of the Verandas Project. But the series begins with Fournier standing in the “golden hour” light on a local beach and emphatically calling for the town to heal its rifts.
“How did we get here?” Fournier asked.” At no time in its history has the image of Manhattan Beach been in a crisis as it is today. Members of our current City Council have only exacerbated the situation. The most experienced and respected City Councilman summarized it by saying only a future council could undo the image mistakes of this council. It’s time for a change. It’s time for the image of Manhattan Beach to be fixed.”
Fournier knows exactly where he’d begin. He’d move to issue an apology over the City’s racially-motivated actions at Bruce’s Beach a century ago, an issue that has put Manhattan Beach in headlines across the nation.
“That would be one of my first motions,” Fournier said in an interview. “We need to get over that. I respect the fact that we took on this issue. We spent over two years on it, and the bottom line, the more important message, is we took ownership of it. We did something with it, and we were to be admired for that. But then we didn’t apologize in the end, and that became the new issue, overshadowing everything we’d accomplished.”
Fournier has been a fixture in Manhattan Beach for four decades as a business owner, volunteer, and public commissioner. It began back in the ‘80s, when he owned and operated a courier service and used his business to assist a non-profit called Teen Safeguards, which gave resources to teens to help each other with everything from suicide prevention to safe rides home at night. He also served on the board of the South Bay Free Clinic, and through the years volunteered with everything from the Hometown Fair to the Manhattan Beach Coordinating Council. But the volunteer work that most deeply changed his life was the 13 years he spent co-founding, and volunteering for the victim assistance program within MBPD.
“I was part of the on site team, where we would actually go on patrol or be called in. We were on a 24 hour watch,” Fournier said. “We handled burglary, homicide, domestic violence — I took women to court — death notifications. I worked four homicides. It was a real eye-opening experience. It could be 1 or 2 in the morning, you could be called in at any time. That was probably the most character-building time of my life.”
While Fournier isn’t running as “the public safety candidate,” he believes that his familiarity with the culture of MBPD and relationships within the department mean he can best advocate for what is needed to enhance and support public safety.
Fournier is no stranger to the dais. He served six years on the Public and Parking Improvements Commission, and five years on the Planning Commission, the only body in city government other than the council to have quasi-judicial decision making authority. This has in part informed his stance on Verandas, specifically, and the City’s approach to complying with state housing law more generally. He believes the Verandas project could have been scaled down if the City had worked on a compromise with the developer, and understands why the 79-unit project has engendered public opposition. But he doesn’t believe defying state law would be fiscally responsible, because he says it’s an expensive fight the City simply will not win. Fournier said he has seen first hand the state office that monitors housing law compliance. Flouting state law will result in less local control, he said, not more.
“This is not a plastic bag ban,” he said, referring to the City’s successful legal fight a few years ago. “What people don’t get is there are 25 people who work five days a week, eight hours a day, looking for this opportunity to make an example of a city.”
Fournier has offered a pledge regarding how he will serve. He said he will not participate in any motions that “smack of national politics,” and are nothing more than political posturing; he will abide by rules of decorum; he will not advocate taking on state statutes, breaking state laws or county health mandates; and he will not advocate on issues outside the council’s purview as a private citizen.
“I will be a city councilman 24 hours a day,” Fournier said, “seven days a week.” ER
