September 2010 Archives

Hawthorne's newest city manager, Jim Mitsch, will receive a $180,000 annual salary, according to his newly approved contract.

The City Council hired Mitsch, who was already working there temporarily as an interim administrator since the former manager was removed in April by the council majority.
On Tuesday, the council gave him the job permanently without interviewing other applicants.
The council voted 4-0 in favor of Mitsch, who they applauded for passing a balanced budget with employee salary cuts and spending reductions. Mayor Larry Guidi was absent from the vote.

*This corrects this item to say the drive is at the Fair

County elections officials began mailing sample ballots last Thursday for the Nov. 2 election, a spokeswoman announced today.

You can look up your sample ballot at the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk's website.

Rancho Palos Verdes voters who have followed the saga of Measure P, Marymount College's bid to get voter approval for its campus expansion (most of which was already approved by the city), will be particularly interested.

The sample ballots contain the pro and con arguments and rebuttals for the initiative. The language was changed after a Los Angeles Superior Court judge earlier this month sided with opponents of Measure P in two separate but related lawsuits.

The statements are on page 18 through 21 of the RPV sample ballot, and I've pasted them after the jump. City Attorney Carol Lynch's analysis is on pages 16 to 17.

Here's your regular update on the ongoing, heated campaign for and against Marymount College's Measure P, an effort to win Rancho Palos Verdes voter approval for an expansion plan that includes dorms. With the exception of student housing, most of the plan has already been approved by the City Council, which opposes the initiative in part because it removes some city oversight.

Councilman Anthony Misetich this week laid into Marymount officials -- in a speech at a public meeting and in a robocall made to residents -- for a newspaper advertisement and mailer that featured a quote from him that he says was taken out of context.

Misetich opposes Measure P and authored a ballot argument against the initiative.

But that might not have been clear to readers of a recent pro-P mailer and full-page ad in the PV News ("Your Vote. Your Right.") that stated: "The citizens of our City are well informed and quite capable of making the right choice. Councilman Misetich agrees, telling the Peninsula News 'I have full confidence in the citizens of Rancho Palos Verdes being an engaged electorate.'"

"My comments were hijacked," Misetich told me yesterday. "It's implying that I'm in favor of Measure P when I am not. I've publicly come out against Measure P."

In the quote, he had been referring to RPV's effort to get voter approval for a city charter.

Chris Mauro, the former Editor of Surfer Magazine, argues that nine-time surfing champion Kelly Slater could be the world's greatest athlete - ever. Slater, 38, took home top honors last weekend at the Hurley Pro, beating 27-year-old Australian Bede Durbridge during epic, flawless conditions at Trestles us mortals could only dream about surfing alone.

The win marked an unprecedented 43 elite tour victories for the legendary Floridian.

Mauro writes:

I know this sounds like an absurd notion. There's simply no way a surfer can enter the conversation when we're talking about the most dominant athletes ever, right? Can we even dare to measure Slater's athletic feats against Wayne Gretzky and Jerry Rice? Those two really did dominate physically grueling sports for two decades. That's why they're considered the greatest. And maybe being blasted into the reef at Teahupoo isn't as scary as being checked, or catching an ill-timed pass over the middle, but watch, then consider which fate you'd choose given the choice.

Whether surfing is a sport or not is an argument even surfers can't agree on. In fact, anything with judges is suspect since it's crossing into art. But there's no denying that whether you're paddling into 25-foot waves at Waimea Bay, or flying high at five-foot Bells Beach, the act demands endurance, timing, speed and flexibility, not to mention commitment, all which favor the young and athletically spry...or so we were told.

After winning five straight titles in the 90s (six total) Slater retired in 1999, which, when translated, means he went surfing more. He chased swells around the planet for three years, visiting friends at every stop, waiting for a new crop of talent to mature and actually threaten his legacy before coming back to competition in 2003. In his first year back, he fell short in the final heat of the season. But by 2005 he had his title back, repeating again in 2006, and nabbing another in 2008. Now he's leading in 2010.

And here's a South Bay connection: Local artist Alison Wright has paid tribute to Slater at Metlox Plaza in Manhattan Beach. Her work, a 10-foot tall red surfboard shaped like a gigantic bowling pin, is titled "If Slater Bowled" and will be on display through mid November.

A group of grocery store employees received a $400,000 settlement earlier this week stemming from a lawsuit against Hermosa Beach and the city's police department.

From my colleague Larry Altman:

The settlement, which also cost Manhattan Beach $20,000, was the only known litigation against a police agency to stem from the 2003-04 labor dispute that affected all of Southern California, said attorney Olu Orange, an attorney representing 14 workers

United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 1442, filed suit in 2004, charging that officers verbally harassed picketing workers outside the Vons supermarket on Pier Avenue from Jan. 11 to March 1 of that year.

The picket lines were part of a contract dispute between management and workers at Vons, Albertsons and Ralphs supermarkets that began Oct. 11, 2003. Workers walked the picket lines at the supermarkets throughout Southern California.

Union officials and workers said Hermosa Beach police officers threatened them with arrest if they spoke to supermarket patrons, helped customers walk their shopping carts to their cars, and cocked weapons to threaten workers on the picket lines.

 

 "They essentially wanted the workers to stand in one place with their signs down and their mouths shut," Orange said.

 

City attorneys for Hermosa and Manhattan Beach did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

But in a statement released Wednesday, the day the article was published, city manager Steve Burrell said the settlement will be paid through the city's insurance policy.

"It was economically advantageous for the city to settle this lawsuit, rather than incur the cost of an ongoing trial," Burrell said in the statement. "Hermosa Beach's leaders and its police officers continue to deny the plaintiffs' allegations, and we continue to stand by the upstanding work of Hermosa Beach's police officers and its employees."

The average city manager in California earns just under $200,000 a year, according to a recently released survey.

Here is a link to the analysis by Steve Proffitt.

 

The survey shows a broad pay scale for city managers, ranging from $30,000 to $450,000 a year.

About 90 percent of city managers responded to the voluntary survey, released earlier this month by the League of California Cities, a group that represents city interests in Sacramento.

Local radio station KPCC crunched the numbers and found that San Jose city manager Debra Figone manages the most residents for the least amount of money. Although her salary - $273,000 - is above avrage, she oversees a city with more than a million residents. Figone earns just 27 cents for each person living in the city.

At the other end of the pay scale is Vernon city manager Mark Witworth, who earns $211,000 annually. Vernon, a small industrial community in Los Angeles County (coincidently located near Bell), has a population of just 96, making his cost per resident $2,201.79.

Her are what some local city managers earn and their per-person cost (in parenthesis):

Steve Burrell, Hermosa Beach: $258,283 ($13.31)

Bill Workman, Redondo Beach: $256,342 ($3.72)

Richard Thompson, Manhattan Beach: $153, 091 ($4.22)

 

Anton Dahlerbruch, Rolling Hills: $173,018 ($87.65)

Doug Prichard, Rolling Hills Estates: $177,897 ($21.12)

LeRoy Jackson, Torrance: $268,382 ($179 $1.79)

Carolyn Lehr, Rancho Palos Verdes: $178,800 ($4.17)

 

You can check out what your local city manager earns, and their per-resident cost, by checking out KPCC's compensation spreadsheet.

My post yesterday on a local unit of the California Republican Assembly voting to endorse Marymount College's Measure P touched a nerve.

Rick Marshall, secretary to the Palos Verdes Peninsula unit and Senate District Director for the 25th Senate District, leapt to take the blame for the vote. He apologized for the incident, saying the vote was nullified.

"On these kinds of things, the speculation is rampant," Marshall told me. "I fully take responsibility for the error. It created a controversy where it didn't need to be."

Though he knew the unit's bylaws required membership for 30 days before voting in a "local endorsing convention," Marshall said he did not know the rule existed at the statewide level and could not be suspended.

"What happened is I made an error," Marshall said.

After the jump, you can read on to learn more about this fun installment in the Marymount College expansion controversy.

The New York Times had a short story on Sunday looking at Josh Fisher, a law student who's been blogging about the divorce proceedings of Frank and Jamie McCourt. The former couple are fighting over which one of them now owns the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Fisher, 24, is a student at University of Minnesota's law school. He's been blogging at Dodger Divorce, and getting a bit of attention for it.

He grew up "in and around" San Pedro, which the Times calls "a working-class suburb at the edge of the Port of Los Angeles." Fisher's blog says "I am a lifelong Dodger fan--grew up in the South Bay."

Breeze archives indicate he was a 2004 graduate of Mary Star of the Sea High School.

The president of the conservative statewide Republican network has condemned the vote of a South Bay chapter in support of Marymount College's November ballot initiative, saying the local group's endorsement was made unfairly.

The vote of the Palos Verdes Peninsula unit of the activist California Republican Assembly took place at a meeting at Torrance Airport on Sunday.

"I find the vote that took place yesterday absolutely appalling and unconstitutional, signing in, becoming members the same day and voting?, whether you agree or disagree on the issue brought for a vote, the process was WRONG," CRA President Celeste Greig wrote in an e-mail, adding that the "vote is null."

Here's what happened, according to a series of e-mails that I've been copied on or forwarded today. These events come amid an ongoing flurry of campaigning, e-mailing and accusations made on both sides.

The Daily Breeze has available a limited number of "exchange coupons," for the 7:30 p.m. game at the Rose Bowl, which are redeemed at special ticket booths at the stadium in exchange for an actual ticket.

Syndicated columnist Thomas Elias (whose political column appears regularly in the Daily Breeze opinion page) plans to celebrate the holiest day in the Jewish year with an unusual ceremony.

Elias received a kidney transplant 13 years ago, and he sees no reason why his kidney shouldn't receive a bar mitzvah just other teenagers. The ceremony is planned for Saturday, on Yom Kippur, and will be conducted by the rabbi at his reconstructionist synagogue in Pacific Palisades.

The Jewish day of atonement is "concerned with life and death," said Elias, a Santa Monica resident. "It's a very serious time, very solemn time. ... This kidney very much gave me life."

Elias believes it is the first religious ceremony of its kind celebrating organ donation. He hopes it will catch on the Jewish tradition, and other faiths, as a way of gratitude and thankfulness for his renewed life.

The ceremony will also mark the ongoing life-giving aspect of organ donation. Those close to recipients pay attention when their loved one is faced with death prior to receiving a new organ, but quickly forget, he said.

"They kind of lose sight of what it is and what it does for someone," said Elisas, who suffers from polycystic kidney syndrome. "Some of these people are literally a day away from dying. I would have been dead within six months if I hadn't received a donation."

The ceremony will also fall within Polycystic Kidney Disease Awareness Week. For more information, visit www.pkdcure.org.

 

 

Baby turtles seem like an adorable, low-maintenance pet for a child.
But the problem is that baby turtles grow up to be adult turtles, and Red-Eared Sliders - the most commonly traded turtle - live about 50 years. The semi-aquatic reptiles also need a lot more than a small plastic aquarium and a fake palm tree to live happily.
It is illegal here to buy baby Red-Eared Sliders because they can pass on salmonella poisoning. Still, they can be found for sale at swap meets and open markets in Chinatown, among other places.
We wrote about the problems with their popularity this week, and you can read that article here. Many of these turtles are abandoned, and left to either die or threaten other native animal populations.
Members of the Orange County branch of the California Turtle and Tortoise Club passed along these photos of thousands of baby Red-Eared Sliders that were found smuggled in a San Pedro home on July 4. About half of the 10,000 turtles found packed tightly in the boxes below died.

The dehydrated turtles desperately tried to escape the boxes when they were opened:

From the Associated Press:

SAN FRANCISCO -- A federal appeals court has struck down a Southern California city's ban on tattoo parlors, saying the operations are protected by free speech rights.

The ruling Thursday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is the highest court ruling so far addressing tattoos and First Amendment guarantees.

The San Francisco-based appeals court overturned a lower court ruling upholding the ban in Hermosa Beach. The city had banned the businesses, arguing they were a risk to public health and safety.

Johnny Anderson, a Redondo Beach native and owner of a tattoo parlor in Gardena, sued the city after being denied a business license to open an outlet in the upscale beach town.

The court says the ban is an unconstitutional overreaction to the health concerns, which can be addressed through regulations to ensure sanitation.

 

 

Photo courtesy of Quicksilver

Well, it was fun while it lasted.

Quicksilver announced in early July it had signed local icon Mulligan Man, who stands, driver in hand, overlooking the 405 freeway at the 18-hole Dominguez Golf Course in Carson. Mulligan Man was fitted for the summer with a fresh pair of Dane Reynolds' signature striped board shorts.

Word is Mullligan Man - or "The Guy" as he's known around the popular golf course - is back to his regular outfit of slacks, baseball cap, blue polo shirt and that mysterious smile.

It should be noted that Mulligan Man, who stands 20 feet tall and is made of fiberglass, wasn't always so iconic. He once was relegated to the course's driving range, where he served as a target for practicing golfers.

 

Here was Quicksilver's announcement in July of the historic signing:

Quiksilver is proud to announce their newest team rider, The Mulligan Man. Straight out of Carson, California, The Mulligan Man is widely known and one of the most visible personalities in Southern California. After years of mutual respect, the decision to bring The Mulligan Man on the team was a no brainer. The only challenge, getting the right boardshorts to keep him going all summer. The Mulligan Man wisely chose Dane's Cypher Brigg Board Short and we made it happen. Look for The Mulligan Man off the 405 in Southern California, throw him a shaka, and help us welcome him to Quiksilver.

Welcome to the team Mulligan Man 

"If Slater Bowled," a tribute to surfing icon and nine-time ASP world champion Kelly Surfer, is on display over the escalators at Metlox Plaza in Manhattan Beach through mid November. 

The 10 foot tall red surfboard, shaped like a gigantic bowling pin, is the work of artist Alison Wright. She collaborated with local shaper Mark Brog on the project, which also includes a  bowling ball four feet in diameter.

Here's more from Quicksilver:

Like the 10 foot tall bowling pin, heroes are larger than life and with this sculpture, Wright explores the nature of modern myths and heroes and our culture's relationship to them. 

Although Kelly Slater's prowess is clearly not bowling, his competitive spirit, ambition and charisma would most likely take him to the top of whatever he attempted.

"If Slater Bowled" was made sea worthy by Wright's collaborator, South Bay surfboard shaper Mark Brog.

The pin shaped surboard is made of EPS Styrofoam and epoxy resin while the 4 foot diameter ball is made of polyester resin.It has been put in the water near the Manhattan Beach Pier and the results of the outing are available on the Single Pin Red website.

 

He may only be two days removed from breaking a distance running record, but 44-year-old Christian Burke is already preparing for his next challenge.

Burke, a Hermosa Beach resident and noted endurance race competitor, ran the 3.4-mile loop between the Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach piers for 24 hours during the Labor Day weekend to raise money for Hermosa Beach schools, where his daughter, Halle, is a sixth-grader.

Money raised from Burke's run went to the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation, which supports programs in the Hermosa Beach City School District. The small, two-school K-8 district is faced with a $670,000 budget shortfall. Burke was able to raise more than $5,000.*

 

*Burke's run generated more than $9,000 for Hermosa schools, said Stephanie Bell, President of the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation. And they're still counting. 

"The community response was unbelievable," Burke said. "People were saying they had goose bumps while they where running with me. People asked me 'What if you don't finish? But with all that support, how could I not?"

Stopping only to eat, drink water and use the bathroom, Burke ran barefoot on the soft sand and broke the previous sand running world record of 62.14 miles with a new mark of 83.04 miles. He completed the run, which coincided with Fiesta Hermosa, at noon Monday. Hundreds of spectators came down to the beach to watch Burke during the run; many even joined him for a lap or two. Television news crews documented his progress as helicopters circled overhead.

Burke spent several weeks training for the event and only suffered a few minor injuries - blistered toes, a sprained ankle and some rashes along his legs from his board shorts.

"I feel like someone threw a sack over my head and clubbed my legs," Burke said. "I've got gnarly blisters on toes and rashes and scars from the waste down from my board shorts. But I'm alright."

After the run, Burke took a quick shower before heading over to a popular Hermosa Beach bar with some friends to celebrate his achievement. That's when fatigue and pain began to set in.

"Somebody poured me a shot of Patron and my stomach was in knots," Burke said. "It hurt. That's when I knew it was time for bed."

He is gearing up for his next feat - a corporate-backed humanitarian effort that will bring him and another endurance race competitor, Eric Sullivan, to run a marathon in every sovereign nation in the world in 18 months. "Run Every Nation" will aim to bring awareness to global health and fitness issues. The run is expected to begin in January 2011.

Meanwhile, Burke will continue resting and recovering, but won't be staying in bed for long.

"I'll be running next weekend," he said.

Donations to Hermosa schools can be made by visiting www.hermosa24.com or texting HB to 20222.

 

 The city of Lawndale has posted the contracts of elected officials and city employees on its web site. The information has been posted for a week or so and comes as other local cities, including Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, Torrance and Rancho Palos Verdes disclose public employee compensation information in the wake of the Bell salary scandal. Last month, the Daily Breeze took a look at what city workers and elected officials across the the South Bay are earning.

In Lawndale, council members earn $450 a month and are eligible participate in the city's benefits package while in office. Interim city manager Dayle Keller earns a base salary of $168,000 and deputy City manager Otis Ginoza earns a base salary of $148,500.

 

The Lawndale City Council tonight will consider hiring an outside firm to hire a new city manager. The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at 14717 Burin Ave.

An epic fundraising event is nearly here.

Chistian Burke, 44, will attempt to run for 24 hours straight this weekend between the Hermosa Beach and Manhattan Beach piers - a stretch of 3.4 miles round trip. He has dubbed the run The HERMOSA 24.

Burke plans on logging more than 100 miles and is running to raise money for programs in the Hermosa Beach City School District, where his daughter, Halle, is in the sixth grade.

He'll be attempting to set a world record along the way. Burke's run coincides with Fiesta Hermosa, which will be held from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Sunday and Monday.

The money Burke raises will be going to the Hermosa Beach Education Foundation. Specifically, 80 percent of it will go into the non-profit's general fund and the other 20 percent will be going into the foundation's endowment.

You can sign up to donate, and maybe even join Burke for a lap or two, at the  base of the Hermosa Beach Pier.  He'll start his run Sunday at noon.