Torrance City Council – A Town Hall Style Conversation About Local Politics

With his long gray beard and gruff demeanor you might find it easier to picture Lloyd Brown riding atop a Harley Davidson than speaking from behind the podium at City Council meetings.  Nevertheless, Lloyd has become a familiar face on Tuesday nights at City Hall as this “man of the people” has sacrificed his time to speak rather effectively on behalf of the public on a wide range of issues ranging from money spent on AYSO to the dangers of permissive yellow blinking lights at intersections.

At one meeting Lloyd queried why the Council and City staff were allowed to have water, but not the public. He was initially rebuffed by City Staff as they claimed it was against a City ordinance to allow the public to have food and drink in the Council Chambers.  Undeterred, Lloyd returned the next week claiming he researched it and could find no such ordinance.  The Council relented and the next week water was made available.  It was a trivial matter, but represented a symbolic victory for the people and offered an important reminder that the Council is there to serve the public, not the other way around.

Lloyd is a 5th generation Californian and resident of Torrance since 1964.  He graduated from Seaside Elementary and Bishop Montgomery High School and has owned his current home in Torrance since 1985.  He does Internet marketing and event photography and has recently been using his talents to promote the burgeoning local craft beer movement with his website CraftBeerGuy.com.  He was kind enough to respond to my request for a Q and A session and for that I thank him wholeheartedly as I think he offers some valuable insights.

Q. What do you enjoy most about living in Torrance?

A. The weather; having had the opportunity to travel fairly extensively I can state with no reservations, there is no place like home when it comes to the weather.

Q. What motivated you to initially start attending Council meetings and what has kept you coming back?

A. I started attending City Council meetings sometime in the middle of 2013. There were a couple of issues that were going on at Columbia Park that I found ridiculous, such as the posting of new signs saying you cannot do this and you cannot do that, and making it illegal to feed birds. On top of that, the City kept closing up the park which was a place I used to walk my dogs. I did some research and saw that the City had authorized the park to be closed for 30 days beginning May 2013; the park was closed to everyone until September 21 and when they reopened it had signs all over it saying we had to have a permit to play on the fields. The thing was, you could not get a permit unless you were affiliated with AYSO.

It was things like this that irritated the heck out of me, so I kept returning so the council would not forget that there was an outstanding issue that needed to be resolved. Additionally, various issues are presented at the council meetings that I feel it is important to make comments, even if it is not going to sway the council one way or the other. I keep reminding myself that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, so I keep squeaking away.

Q. As a close observer of the City Council, how you would rate the job the Council is doing on scale of 1 to 10. Why?

A. I wish I could say they are a 10 but I give them a 5. It is a new council so we will see if anything earth shattering happens before we get a new one.

Q. What is one thing the Council does well in your mind?

A. They are very good about spending money and supporting AYSO.

Q. Is there anything specific you would like to see the Council do differently?

A. I do not like the fact that they jump on every grant available, whether we need it or not. Just because the federal and state levels of the government like to hand out money they don’t really have does not mean we have to encourage them by taking it. If you had a crazy uncle, would you take his money if he could not really afford it? I wish budget was used as a verb instead of a noun.

Q. You were an outspoken supporter of Mayor Furey during the election? Are you pleased with his leadership of the City as Mayor thus far? Why or why not?

A. As stated above, we have a new mayor and council; I do not expect to see any major sweeping changes any more than I expected Obama to close Gitmo. The wheels of government turn slowly. I will say that it is obvious that Mayor Furey is becoming more comfortable in his position and more at ease in running council meetings.

I was looking forward to the fireworks that people like Daily Breeze writer Nick Green seemed to imply would happen with this “divided” council but 99% of everything put up for a vote before the council is unanimous in the decision.

I do look forward to seeing what they do with the new city website, even if I am not sure the people in charge of it have enough Internet experience to ensure the desired results, but only time will tell. Mayor Furey mentioned a new transportation initiative at the last State of the City address and I am looking forward to hearing more about this.

Q. You have advocated before the Council on a wide range of issues.  Is there any one of those in particular that you would really like to see the City address or treat differently?

A. There are a couple of things I would like to see addressed; 1) litter and 2) cooperation between city departments.

The city plans to implement no parking days for street sweeping in our residential neighborhoods; I have no problem with this minor inconvenience. However, we walk around Torrance quite a bit and I notice a ton of trash on the major streets (think Hawthorne Blvd) and I never see street sweepers on those thoroughfares. I understand that this could be due to the fact that streets like Hawthorne are state highways but if Torrance is at risk for being fined for too much trash in the storm drains something must be done.

Part of the problem are the businesses that seem to have no concern with aesthetics. I always am astounded when I am walking around large strip malls and cannot find one single trash can. Very few businesses seem to care about all the trash sitting in their bushes; heck, some won’t even trim their weeds back unless forced to (I’m looking at you Chase Bank). The City of Redondo has crews made up of mentally challenged adults to help clean sidewalks and other areas off the street.  I would like to see Torrance do something like that or possibly use residents of the Torrance City jail or those assigned to community service to help clean up this mess.

As far as the cooperation between departments, I am thinking primarily about the food truck issue for the microbrewery tasting rooms. It seems like the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing and the small business owner is the one that suffers. Under the current ordinance the breweries are only allowed to have 1 food truck on premise 26 times a year, so essentially 1 day every two weeks. The brewery must obtain a permit at the cost of a little over $200. They also had to present all 26 dates at the time they applied for the permit. When the council decided to pass an emergency ordinance to allow up to 5 food trucks to be at the 555 Maple Toyota sports complex I decided I had to get involved.

I am close with the brewery owners so I hear what their concerns are. When I talk to members of the council they agree with us that food trucks should be allowed as they are not taking away from brick & mortar food providers (no restaurants are around the breweries).  We (the brewery owners and I) have been informed that the city will be coming out to meet with the individual brewery owners but we were told that a couple months ago. So far, nothing has happened and the breweries lose business every week as a result.

Q. When you think of Torrance’s future, what is your biggest worry? Or are you not concerned at all?

A. I guess most of my concerns are financial. With a governor like Brown it is tough enough to keep money in the State; with the way Torrance spends money I can see this becoming a major issue.

Q. You have spoken several times before council on Biotinidase Deficiency.  Why is this cause so important to you?

A. My fiancée Tanya was misdiagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) for close to 10 years at a cost of about $500,000. A little over a year ago we accidentally discovered that she  did not have RA but was actually deficient in Vitamin B-7 which is found in just about anything you eat. It turned out that she carried an enzyme that prevented her body from separating the B-7 from the protein it is attached to, so her body could not absorb it. Through research we discovered that this is a condition that many people suffer from, and most do not even know it. The only reason we found out Tanya had the deficiency is because these days newborns are tested for genetic issues, her sister’s grandson was found to be a carrier so Tanya went and had a vitamin deficiency test done only to discover she was profoundly deficient. It is our opinion that anyone that has been diagnosed with any chronic disease/illness should immediately have a vitamin deficiency test done; you will have to request the B-7 test done because it is not normally included since most doctors do not seem to think it is a problem.

Q. I know people have approached you about running for Council.  Have you thought about it or do you have plans to do so in the future?

A. I doubt it. I spend enough hours just attending the public portion of council meetings; council members have executive sessions, committee meetings and obligatory photo ops to attend. I work pretty cheap, but they are making $100 a month or something like that. I go to meetings for free but I do not have to show up if I do not want to; council members are pretty much roped into it for several years. I would need to see a much better ROI before I would really consider it.

With election day dominating much of the news, the City Council quietly moved by unanimous vote to continue its support of Discover Torrance. Discover Torrance is a not for profit corporation designed to market the City of Torrance as an overnight tourist destination and to help fund marketing and sales promotion efforts for Torrance lodging businesses. The entity was created after the City formed a Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) in January of 2010. The TBID is comprised of lodging establishments within the City that have 50 or more rooms and is funded primarily through a 1% tax on all room rental revenue at those hotels.

Discover Torrance is led by a Board consisting of one representative from each assessed hotel as well as one representative from the City of Torrance. Economic Development Manager Fran Fulton currently serves as the City’s representative. The President and CEO of the Torrance Chamber of Commerce, Donna Duperron, also serves on the Board in an advisory capacity.

Shortly after the TBID was created the City of Torrance approved a one time $100,000 payment to help the organization with startup costs as well as a $33,000 annual membership fee for the City to reserve a voting seat on the Board. The Council voted to continue that annual payment last Tuesday evening.

An annual summary provided by Discover Torrance showed that they received $676K in income during 2013. The organization used that money to help the city attract and host events like the AYSO National Tournament and the Herbalife Triathlon.  They also promoted the City at a number of trade shows and marketed Torrance through their website and other print media.  Expenditures for 2013 included $165K in payroll and administrative expenses, $74K for tradeshows and special projects, and $345K for marketing.  The annual summary also noted that occupancy rates at participating hotels have been increasing steadily since 2009.

The role of Discover Torrance presents several interesting points for discussion.  It gives local hotels control over how assessments levied against their organizations are used with the idea that they will spend those dollars to benefit their companies and the City.  To that end, Discover Torrance has certainly produced some praiseworthy work. The City, for example, might want to review the well done Discover Torrance website for ideas as they look to revamp the current City website.  Whether this good work ultimately represents a good value to the taxpayer is less clear. Yes, occupancy rates have risen at local hotels but records show we are just barely getting back to the levels we had in 2008.  Thus, it could be argued that the increases over the past few years have more to do with an overall improving economy than solely Discover Torrance’s marketing efforts.

The organization is also essentially a taxpayer funded enterprise yet the allocation of those funds is governed by a private board and not by any elected official thereby limiting taxpayer oversight.  It seems to be a really good deal for local hotels as the taxpayer is basically subsidizing their advertising budget, but is that really how we want taxpayer dollars spent.

Given that the City’s representative on that Board only accounts for 1 out of 15 votes, you also have to wonder whether the continued $33,000 annual expense to reserve that voting right is really worth it. Why not make the City representative an advisory/non-voting role as was done with the Chamber of Commerce?  Taking it a step further, one could also ask if tourism is really that important to Torrance, why not market itself through its own budget versus ceding some of that responsibility to local hotels?

That thought raises the larger debate of just how important tourism truly is to Torrance and what emphasis should be placed upon it as the City shapes its future identity.  I mean let’s face it, historically Torrance hasn’t exactly been a hot spot for tourists.  Should that change?  Torrance City officials certainly seem to think that it should.  Mayor Furey, for example, campaigned on the idea of making Torrance the mecca destination for youth soccer as Williamsport is to Little League.  Is that what residents want?  Tourism is obviously great for many local businesses and City revenues, but it also tends to bring with it problems such as increased traffic and crime.

The Council only voted on their intent to renew the TBID.  Hearings will be held in January to allow for public comment on the matter.  The first of which is scheduled for January 13, 2015 in the Council Chambers at 7:00 pm.  At that time, Torrance residents will have a chance to join with the Council in voicing their approval for Discover Torrance or they can let it be known if they prefer that Torrance remain undiscovered.

The City Council voted 6 to 1 at their most recent meeting to allow Collection Bin enterprises to continue to operate within Torrance.  The vote of approval will end a moratorium on new bins that the Council had previously put in place.

Councilmember Ashcraft cast the lone dissenting vote to the measure.  While commenting on the subject, Ashcraft noted that she had not heard from one resident in the community that was in favor of the bins, but that she had received many phone calls and e-mails from residents opposed to them.  In previous meetings on the subject Ashcraft had expressed her opinion that the bins were a blight on the community and that Torrance should ban them as other surrounding cities have done.

Councilmember Barnett observed that the bins had been appearing as if by magic in the night as unscrupulous operators would drop them in various locations throughout the City without permission.  Possibly due to this concern, he confessed that he initially felt similar to Ashcraft.   He admitted, however, that he has since been persuaded that regulations drawn up by City were sufficient to alleviate his concerns.

Some of those regulations approved by the Council include imposing a maximum limit to the number of bins allowed to operate within the City at 100 and requiring that each bin must be at least 750 feet apart from the next closest bin.  The City will also require the operators to pay a fee of approximately $1600 dollars per bin on an annual basis for a license to operate within the City.

During the aforementioned moratorium period, City Staff acknowledged that the number of bins placed illegally within the City increased substantially.  The proliferation of these illegal bins that occurred during the moratorium period raises questions as to whether City staff has enough resources available to enforce the sensible regulations imposed by the Council.  Those questions may be what spurred Ashcraft to insist the Council receives an update on the matter sometime next year.

Ashcraft presented herself during the recent campaign as an independently minded voice.  She is beginning to assert herself as such by offering a dissenting viewpoint from the rest of her colleagues on the Council on this issue and on the vote with regard to whether the City should join the U.S. Conference of Mayors that occurred last week.