Brann, Boyles, Pirsztuk elected to El Segundo City Council
Newly elected Councilperson Carol Pirsztuk ( center) celebrates her victory with her father, Christopher Kelly, husband Michael Pirsztuk, mother Joan Kelly, and daughter Mikyla Pirsztuk. Photo
El Segundo will have a vastly new City Council after three new councilmembers were elected Tuesday night and both incumbents on the ballot suffered defeat.
But both incumbents, Marie Fellhauer and Dave Atkinson, took solace in the fact that a ballot measure each helped put in motion in order to address sagging city finances was overwhelmingly approved. Measure B, an increase in the city’s hotel “bed tax” from 8 to 12 percent that will produce $3.2 million annually for the city, won 72 percent of the vote — a remarkable exception in a city historically averse to new taxes of any kind.
“That’s the most important thing, that Measure B won,” Atkinson said. “I fought for that. And I can leave knowing the city will be financially healthy.”
In the council race, Drew Boyles led all five candidates vying for the three seats up for election, earning as many votes as City Clerk Tracy Weaver and City Treasurer Crista Binder, each who ran unopposed. Boyles earned 2,330 votes, followed by Carol Pirzstuk with 2,135 votes, and Don Brann with 1,439 votes.
The three new councilmembers will replace Atkinson and Fellhauer, who each served a single four year term, and Carl Jacobson, the six-term councilman and former mayor who did not run for reelection.
For Boyles, the election was a milestone in a two decade love affair with his adopted hometown.
Boyles, 46, an entreprenuer, business owner and the head of the city’s influential Economic Development Advisory Council, recalled his inauspicious arrival in El Segundo in 1995. He’d come from Chicago, a single dad with two young boys, working as a store manager for Starbucks as he also worked toward his MBA at USC, renting an apartment from “Mike the Tailor” on Main Street for $750 a month.
“I was living check to check,” Boyles said, amidst campaign celebrations at the Smoky Hollow warehouse that serves as headquarters for his business operations. “Raising two boys by myself, working as hard as I could to just get by, against all odds.”
Team Boyles: Patty Brown, Drew Boyles, Lee Boyles, Heidi Weiss, Tracey Miller Zarneke, Scot Nicol, and Jeff Brown. Photo
It was in El Segundo he met his wife of 16 years, Lee, started another family and launched an array of a half-dozen thriving businesses. “This town gave me everything,” Boyles said. “I love this town. And my background also gives me a unique perspective to help make it even better.”
Pirsztuk grew up in El Segundo but left as she embarked on a varied business career in which she rose to become a vice president for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment. She eventually returned to her hometown to raise her family. She and her husband, glazing contractor and stained glass artist Michael Pirsztuk, bought a house on Main Street in El Segundo in 2001.
“I knew the day we moved into this house that I would one day run for City Council, and that I would be mayor of this town,” Pirsztuk said. “I just knew.”
The couple lovingly restored the tattered old Craftsman home, located equidistant from City Hall and the high school, and built a studio in the backyard that housed his workshop on the ground floor and a family business she runs (along with her twin sister, Claire, and her mother, Joan Kelly), The Kelly School of Irish Dance, on the second floor.
Pirsztuk, 52, became CEO of the El Segundo Education Foundation in 2011 and has overseen fundraising drives that have contributed more than $4 million to local schools. She said that her background has perfectly prepared her to address the three priorities residents identified in a campaign survey — safety and services, education, and leadership.
“I understand all three,” Pirsztuk said. “It’s everything I’ve been doing.”
Brann, who was unavailable for comment at press time, began his four decade career as a fourth grade teacher at Center School in El Segundo and has made the city his home ever since. He eventually served 15 years as the superintendent of the Wiseburn School District, retired in 2008, and was elected that year to the El Segundo council and served a four year term. Brann, 70, was named as the state-appointed trustee in 2010 for the struggling Inglewood School District and its 1,500 employees. At a campaign forum in February, he touted this fiscal management experience in particular, noting that he’d inherited an $18 million deficit and left with $4 million surplus.
“The issues I see here that stand improvement are getting more police officers in our neighborhoods to prevent crimes instead of needing to solve them after they occur,” Brann said at the forum, listing his priorities. “Whatever we can do to lessen the noise at LAX. There doesn’t need to be any new taxes on residents here, there’s plenty of money coming in from the very successful economic development efforts. I’m interested in maintaining the El Segundo charm. I’m interested in issues related to aging and accessibility. Salaries and pensions are going to have to be kept competitive but also under control.”
On election night, both Boyles and Pirsztuk emphasized that El Segundo is at a critical time in its history, as the city’s small town character is under threat from the gentrification that has overrun surrounding communities.
Boyles, while noting the city’s successful economic development efforts are likely to even more fully blossom in the next five years, said the challenge is to balance development with maintaining what El Segundo already has.
“This town is all about that small town feel,” he said. “How do we maintain that charm? That’s one of the real challenges we face.”
Pirsztuk said part of the answer is “change management” that can occur by improving the systems infrastructure of City Hall. “We don’t have the infrastructure to manage what we are building,” she said. “We’ll need to move it forward. And we will.”