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About Town: Hermosa Beach
One more time
Kathy Bergstrom, who made an unsuccessful run for city council in the last election, is leading a charge to repeal Hermosa’s six percent utility users tax, despite the fact that the tax was preserved by a landslide vote.
Bergstrom has lent her well-known name to a petition drive aimed at bringing the tax before voters once again, possibly in November 2001. During her council campaign she had supported a similar ballot initiative that failed by a margin of 61 percent to 39 percent.
Bergstrom, whose name appears on an anti-utility tax press release along with City Hall watcher Shirley Cassell, said the new push was prompted in part by forgotten talk during the campaign debates about some reduction in the tax, and by "the whole atmosphere regarding utilities and power sources" in California.
"If the rates go up the tax will go up as well," Bergstrom said.
During her council campaign, Bergstrom said the tax revenues are placed into the city’s unrestricted general fund when the original intent was to use the money only for sewers, a downtown police foot patrol and enforcement against illegal "bootleg" apartments.
Notice of the new initiative petition drive was filed with the city clerk’s office last Monday, supporters said.
Logo wanted
Organizers are urging local artists to participate in a $100 contest to create a logo for the Beach Cities Health District-sponsored International Surf and Health Festival Aug. 3 through Aug. 5 in Hermosa, Manhattan and Redondo.
Plans call for the 38-year-old festival’s traditional logo to adorn the back of the official event T-shirts, while a "new and unique logo" is pictured on the front, health district officials said.
Logo entries should be no more than three colors and no larger than 12 inches wide by six inches high, and because the logo may be shrunk the artwork should not include "too much detail."
For information call Charlotte Lesser at 374-3426 ext. 119.
Gazin memorial
A memorial honoring Patricia A. Gazin -- the city’s first female mayor, author of the definitive Hermosa history book "Footnotes on the Sand" and a founding member of Hermosa Beach Friends of the Library — has raised about $1,200.
The money will be used to purchase biographies of women, announced the library fund-raising group.
Gazin died last month of complications from diabetes, at age 76.
Remember founder
Hermosa’s newly established Founder’s Day will be celebrated with an open house 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 1 at its museum, located inside the community center at the southwest corner of Pier Avenue and Pacific Coast Highway.
The city council has set aside April 1 as Founders Day to mark the date in 1901 when surveyor C.L. "Bob" Reinbolt defined a tract of coastal land as the resort community of Hermosa Beach. ER