The intermission of Mayor Steve Aspel’s State of the City address, held March 19 at the crown Plaza Redondo Beach Hotel, featured a music video, starring — who else? — Aspel himself. The song, a re-worked version of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” entitled “I Love Redondo,” was actually written by Aspel, line-by-line from the original, celebrating his city with his “lovely blonde” by his side — both in song and in video.
Like “I Love Redondo,” Aspel’s address was a celebration, an attempt to smooth over the rifts in a city that split along the seams during what could generously be considered a “contentious” election on March 3.
The elephant in the room, of course, was the topic of Measure B’s failure at the polls, where Redondo Beach voters defeated it, 52 percent to 48 percent. B’s defeat killed the “Harbor Village” plan, which would have built residential, retail and office space onto 40 acres of land underneath the site of AES’s Redondo Generating Station along Harbor Drive.
As noted by Aspel, AES will move forward with plans to reapply for a permit to build a new power plant, “which they have every right to do,” Aspel said.
He also stated that his plan is that the city will not hire an outside lawyer to aid in acting as an intervenor in the face of AES’s plans to maintain an industrial facility on their land. “It’s not necessary, and we can’t waste that kind of money,” he said. “I hope my council holds true to that, and doesn’t throw our money away” — though claims that it is “his council” could be presumptive, given the fact that councilmen Bill Brand and Steve Sammarco, both of whom opposed Measure B, declined to appear.
In spite of that, Aspel referred optimistically to his “back room” sessions with Brand, in which the two set up what Aspel has tentatively called a “Mayor’s Task Force,” a public, Brown Act-compliant coalition that will bring together all manner of people from around Redondo Beach in an effort to figure out what’s next for the AES property, with the aim of finding a use that the entirety of Redondo Beach could be pleased with.
The roster of the task force will be made up of stakeholders of the property surrounding the power plant, as well as representatives from AES. The mayor and the city council will each select two members of the community to join the task force, as well. Finally, the task force will be headed by a moderator to help the meeting run smoothly — and someone who will have the power to make changes “if someone is disruptive, or a knucklehead,” Aspel said.
“We’re going to have 25 to 30 people from all walks of life, from people who want to rebuild Miami Beach to people who want to build a park,” Aspel said. “There are going to be people who don’t like each other, but we’re going to try to get them to get along. We’ll call it Survivor: Redondo Beach.”
The mayor soon transitioned into talking about the Centercal project, which is currently undergoing an Environmental Impact Reporting process that will be up for review by this fall, he said.
“The International Boardwalk has restaurants and businesses clamoring to get in there, but it gets flooded out and needs to get repaired. The city doesn’t have the funding for that. Centercal is ultimately going to take care of this – they’re going to invest, and we won’t have to pay for it,” he said. He then touted an independent financial analysis that turned out “better than we even anticipated.”
“It will attract local people, people wanting to fly in to stay in our hotels…it’ll be a wonderful, substantial addition to the income of the city,” he said.
Aspel also touched on the city’s ongoing labor situation, joking that the room’s attendance was helped out by the fact that “last year, employees were outside picketing.”
“The employees have worked their asses off for our city,” he said, happily reporting that the city’s labor organizations have signed agreements with the city. “The council found funds and we worked out out – we gave back concessions, and we gave them all a stipend. They earned it — no matter what the pay scale was, everyone got an equal amount,” he said. “Our employees are our greatest asset; everything revolves around city services, from the guys fixing potholes and trimming trees to police and fire.”
Other topics Aspel mentioned included a kickoff to Special Olympics activities, the improvements along Harbor Drive, the future of the Shade Hotel, and a celebration of Wedgewood Inc., which was named the Business of the Year by Aspel.
Aust Receives Lifetime Achievement Award
Pat Aust, Redondo Beach’s District 3 City Councilman, was given the Lifetime Community Service Award by Aspel, in celebration of a career within a city that began as an electrician at the age of 20 and reaching the rank of Fire Chief.
He’s a man with an extensive resume: Thirty-seven years within the Redondo Beach Fire Department; Board President of the Beach Cities Health District; President of the Historical Society; and eight years on Redondo’s City Council. On top of that, Aust is an avid collector of historical artifacts, with more than 4,000 photos of the city throughout the years.
Now 66, Aust’s career as a public servant is nearing its close. Though his term is set to expire this year, he was granted a reprieve as Christian Anthony Horvath and Candace Allen Nafissi face one another in a runoff.
“I’m happy I got the opportunity to do the things that I did,” Aust said. “I started at 20, I’m 66 now, and if you do what you love, you love going to work every day.”
“I’m not done. We still do the Morrell House, I’ll still do the car shows,” he said. “This isn’t the finish line, this is just recognition for what I’ve done so far.”
