Category: General

This Tuesday night the City Council will appoint two new members of the Planning Commission.  These critical appointments come on the heels of a recent decision to appoint former Planning Commissioner Mike Griffiths to the City Council.  That vacancy, along with that created by the election of Geoff Rizzo, created the two empty slots on the Commission.

The primary concern of the Planning Commission is the orderly growth of the community.  This important body is responsible for the preparation of master plans and zoning studies that affect the growth and development of Torrance.  The Commission conducts public hearings on precise plans, conditional use permits, subdivision maps, and other cases relative to land use, and makes recommendations to the City Council on zone changes and variances.

The Planning Commission is also seen as a stepping stone to the City Council.  Three current Councilmembers once held Planning Commission posts and two of the last three appointments to the City Council came from the Planning Commission.  With regard to the most recent of those appointments, one commentator lamented that “the 5 white people seated on the dais chose not to add a person of color to better represent the people of Torrance and had to reach so far down the voting results to pick another white male.”

The Council could choose to address that concern with the Planning Commission appointments.   Indeed, two of the persons of color recently passed over for the Council position have applied for the vacant Planning Commission slots.  These two familiar faces are Leilani Kimmel-Dagastino and Milton Herring and they figure to be front-runners for one of the appointments.  Both have City Commission experience and had a strong showing before the voters finishing 5^th and 7^th respectively.

The Council choice will be made difficult, however, as several other veterans of City Commissions applied for the job.  Of these, a leading candidate may be Robert Rudolph.  Rudolph currently serves as a Traffic Commissioner and as President of the North Torrance HOA.  He was known as a staunch support of Mayor Furey in the recent election and lists the mayor as well as Councilmember Kurt Weideman among his references.  As one of his qualifications he listed his penchant for studying land use issues.  He also expressed his desire to evaluate land use issues with an eye toward “balancing individual rights with public welfare.”

Real Estate Broker, Richard Tsao, also brings a wealth of City experience.  He has served on both the Traffic and Cable TV commissions as well as served in volunteer roles with the Torrance Rose Float, the Arts Foundation and the Historical Society.  He stated that his goal was to “preserve the high standards of residential neighborhoods,” and encourage “responsible economic development.”

Accountant Melvin Glass also applied.  He served 8 years on the Disaster Council and currently serves on the Airport Commission.  Glass has also served on the Board of Directors for Windemere HOA.  The current H & R Block Tax Preparer believes he has the “ability to listen to all points of view” and “see the big picture.”

Retired Sr. Project Engineer on the Space Flight Program, Arthur Plourde, is another applicant. His list of references includes well-known community leader Paul Nowatka and notable republicans Craig Huey and Evan Chase.  Plourde has lived in Torrance for 45 years and now sees a city in trouble.  He claims that bad policies have caused businesses to leave resulting in too many vacant properties that could be generating revenue for the City.  He aims to tackle those issues should he be appointed.

Dan Thomas is another well-known and well-qualified candidate.  He believes that his residency in the hillside overlay area and his own personal experience with the remodel process gives him a unique perspective that would aid him on the Commission.  He has prior commission experience on the Cable TV Board and currently works in sales at Time Warner Cable.  He’s served on the Board of Directors for the Torrance Chamber of Commerce and lists the current President of the Chamber, Donna Duperron, among his references.

Special education teacher Charlotte Svolos, who finished 11th out of 16 in the past recent election, also seeks a seat on the Commission.  Svolos, who is known to wear many hats, has never served on a City Commission but has served the community in several other capacities.  With her expertise in education, she would bring a unique perspective to the Commission.

The applicant field is rounded out by Gregory Taylor and George H. Simon.  Neither has City Commission experience, but that doesn’t mean they are not well qualified.  Taylor is a biology major that currently works in Insurance.  He hopes to bring the “perspective of a long-term resident and future retiree.”   Simon is a Real Estate Broker and President of Dad’s on campus at Seaside elementary.  He describes himself as a self-motivated entrepreneur and successful businessman.

The Torrance Voters PAC to Support Pat Furey for Mayor (“Furey PAC”) made headlines in the recent mayoral election when it received large donations from McCormick Ambulance and the Torrance Firefighters Association that helped propel Furey to an election victory. Where did all that money go? A familiar name that keeps surfacing at the end of the money trail is Patrick Furey, the campaign manager and son of Mayor Pat Furey.

PAC campaign contributions are not subject to the same contribution limits as donations made directly to a candidate. For that reason, the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) forbids candidates, and their agents, from coordinating in any fashion with independent PACs.  As the Campaign Manager for his father any involvement by Patrick Furey in the Furey PAC would trigger concerns about illegal campaign coordination.

Required Campaign expenditure filings show that the Voters to Elect Furey PAC made over $30,000 in payments to Veritas Consulting. The address provided for that business is a residential apartment located at 23930 Ocean Ave #266. Other than the campaign disclosure, no records seem to exist of any business with that name operating at that location.

A business called Zakka, LLC, however, does appear to operate from that apartment. Interestingly, a business search on the California Secretary of State website affirms Patrick Furey as the principal corporate agent of Zakka. The same website also lists Patrick Furey as the principal agent of another company called Veritas Campaigns – a company name that is strikingly similar to Veritas Consulting.  According to the company website Veritas campaigns assisted with Mayor Furey’s then Councilmember campaign in 2011.

Adding to the puzzle, the listed Treasurer for the Furey PAC is a lady by the name of Tina McKinnor. Patrick Furey and McKinnor have been linked working together before on other campaigns. The Daily Breeze in fact reported on a lawsuit filed against the pair for their involvement in a City Council race in Simi Valley.

All of that in itself is surprising, but the story goes further. One way the FPPC determines illegal coordination is if the campaign and the independent PAC utilize the same service. Both Furey’s campaign and the Furey PAC list expenditures to Jeff Taylor Graphics located at 2633 Lincoln Blvd, STE 837 in Santa Monica.  A search for the entity yields no results and the location provided is a P.O. Box at a UPS store in a strip mall.  How is it that both the Furey Campaign and the Furey PAC could have contracted with the same phantom business without coordination? CBS Outdoor is another vendor listed in both financial disclosures.

Maybe all of this is just a random coincidence and there is no connection between the shadowy Veritas Consulting and Patrick Furey.  Given the above facts, however, one has to wonder to what extent, if any, the Furey campaign was involved with the Furey PAC.  Whether there was illegal coordination or just unfortunate circumstance, it does appear likely that Mayor Furey will have some explaining to do before the FPPC.

If that does turn out to be the case, it won’t be the first time. Patrick Furey was already fined by the FPPC in the past election for a deceptive slate mailer.  Despite that, Mayor Furey has been a staunch supporter of his son suggesting that the work Patrick did for his campaign merited an award.   To that effect, Furey’s campaign did reward his son quite handsomely for his efforts.  Indeed, records indicate that Liberty Campaign Solutions, yet another company operated by Patrick Furey, received nearly $40K from the Furey Campaign in what was presumably payment for Patrick’s efforts as Campaign Manager.

 

Sporting a spiffy South Bay Club 350 dress shirt well known environmental activist Joe Galliani, pseudonymed the “Creative Greenius,” made an appearance at the last Council meeting.  South Bay Club 350 is a local climate action group that the Creative Greenius helped organize.  The Greenius took the opportunity to praise the Council for approving the installation of 16 electric vehicle charging stations throughout Torrance.

Galliani, an electric car owner, lauded the $560K project and expressed his belief that it will make Torrance a destination location for electric car owners to come eat, shop, and spend money.  As an advocate for a wide variety of climate related issues throughout the South Bay, he noted that he’s “never seen more Tesla’s in one place than in Manhattan Beach” and that he hoped to see those Tesla’s here in Torrance.  Not to pick bones too much with the revered Greenius, but one might surmise that the prevalence of Tesla’s in Manhattan Beach has a lot more to do with the income of the residents there than the availability of public electric vehicle charging stations.  But I digress.

The Greenius was also undoubtedly ecstatic with an initiative unveiled by fellow electric car owner and green agenda advocate, councilmember Tim Goodrich, to bring Community Choice Aggregation to Torrance.  Galliani’s blog chronicles his recent efforts to fight a bill in the state legislature that he believes would kill Community Choice.  One post even relates how local state representative Al Muratsuchi called him personally to apologize after voting in favor of the Community Choice killing bill claiming he was lied to about the bill’s implications.

Community Choice Aggregation is sold as an opportunity for municipalities to exercise local control and leverage group purchasing power to lower energy rates.  But the real boon for climate activists like Galliani is the potential for it to deliver more “green” friendly energy.  For example, the Greenius quoted the Climate Protection Campaign on his blog stating that “Community Choice is the single most powerful measure under local control to achieve the greatest greenhouse gas reductions in the shortest period of time.”

All of that sounds great, but of course Community Choice is not without its risks.  In an apparent botched rollout of a similar program in San Francisco it turned out that green power could end up costing significantly more.  At one point, it was reported that typical electric bills were set to increase from $73 a month to $300 a month.  Cities also incur significant financial risk as start-up costs and long-term financial obligations may not be recovered if the Community Choice Program fails to retain a large and stable customer base.  One study estimated those at risk costs at nearly $4 Million for the City of Berkeley.

No matter how individual residents feel about Community Choice Aggregation it’s not often that historically conservative leaning Torrance is lumped in with liberal bastions like San Francisco, Berkeley, and Marin County some of the other entities currently pursuing Community Choice.

Further evidence of the advance of the green agenda was the Council’s approval for the Mayor to attend the Global Mayor’s Forum in China co-sponsored by the World Urban campaign.  The main focus of that event will be urban sustainability with agenda topics such as reducing carbon footprints and mitigating climate change.

Resident Mark Stephenson criticized the trip, perceived by some as a boondoggle, due to its 50% percent increase in the Mayor’s allotted travel budget and use of economic development funds that former Mayor Scotto previously characterized as very tight.  Perhaps in an attempt to counter those sentiments, Democratic Councilmember Weideman emphatically voiced his support for the trip stating that he “really approved of the item” as it would foster “international networking and long-term economic development.”

It’s not surprising to see far left leaning progressives such as Goodrich advocating for a green agenda.  What may be a surprise to some, however, is the complete acquiescence and seeming support of such initiatives by the two Republicans on the Council, Councilmembers Ashcraft and Rizzo.  In addition to those initiatives mentioned above, just in the last few months we have also seen the Optimized Street Sweeping Program, Car2Go, an increase in union power, and a bypassing of three culturally diverse higher finishing Republicans in the past election in favor of a non-Republican appointee to the Council.  Not a peep of opposition has come from Ashcraft or Rizzo to any of these left leaning decisions.

Ironically, Ashcraft and Rizzo recently headlined at a meeting for the Torrance Democratic Club (TDC) in an evening billed as an opportunity to reach across the aisle.  Given the recent stances of Ashcraft and Rizzo that event may not have been as bi-partisan as advertised by the President of the TDC Jimmy Gow as the positions of these Republicans appear quite indistinguishable from their fellow Democrats on the Council.