Dear Friends,
Happy New Year! Ron and I had a wonderful holiday spent with our children and grandchildren and hope your holidays were fun as well.
City Hall was closed the week between Christmas and New Years allowing City Employees to celebrate the holidays with their family while saving taxpayer dollars. As we begin the New Year here are some items you may be interested in.
Memorial Committee
The City Council will be appointing a Memorial Committee this Monday night, January 9th. The purpose of this committee will be to go through suggestions received for a memorial site to remember those who gave their life in the shooting tragedy last October. If you would like to serve on this committee, please fill out the application (click here)
and submit it to the City Clerk at City Hall Monday morning. With the holidays, I’m concerned the word may not have gotten out as very few applications were received as of last week. Also there is a memorial input form for you to fill out and return with any ideas you have for a memorial to remember those we lost from our community.
Graffiti
The graffiti vandals have been very busy over the holidays. After receiving reports of graffiti reappearing around Old Town, Lion Ray Longoria went right out and took care of it. Thank you, Ray. Also, Lt. Bob Mullins went right to work in Old Town writing, “Effective immediately, the Seal Beach P.D. will assign the patrol officers in the Old Town area to conduct “Directed Patrol Checks” in the alleys between 1st St. and Seal Beach Blvd. and between Pacific Coast Hwy. and Ocean Ave. These random checks will continue for the coming weeks.” Thank you, Lt. Mullins. The Lion’s graffiti removal team can be reached at graffitiremoval@sealbeachlions.com. Please notify the Lions and the Police Department as soon as you can after seeing any graffiti. Working together we will keep our town clean.
Air Traffic over Old Town
Thursday, January 5th, Congressman Rohrabacher and his staff held a meeting in our Seal Beach City Hall conference room with me, Jill Ingram, our City Manager, Mike Levitt, our Mayor, Jet Blue, the FAA and Long Beach Airport representatives. Congressman Rohrabacher was very firm in telling the FAA that we don’t want the planes coming over Old Town when there is the whole Naval Weapon’s Station to fly over. The meeting was quite interesting and resulted in both a short term resolution and a long term, permanent solution. The short term resolution is to have an LOA (Letter of Agreement) signed by the FAA, The Long Beach Tower, and the airlines in which all agree that when landing pilots are not to turn inland over Seal Beach, but fly further south to an agreed upon coordinate that will bring them in over the Navy Base. The long term solution is to establish a “Charted Visual Approach” for landing at Long Beach which directs the air traffic across the Naval Weapons Station rather than Old Town. Right now we have a verbal agreement with the FAA, Long Beach, and Jet Blue. In the next couple of weeks we are expecting a written synopsis of the meeting along with a progress report from the FAA. I will keep you informed.
Redevelopment Agency Dissolution upheld by California Supreme Court
The California Supreme Court has upheld AB26 abolishing Redevelopment Agencies across the state. In addition they have declared AB27, which was the legislative “fix” unconstitutional. So we are left with a decision requiring us to abolish the Redevelopment Agency with unclear ramifications. While there is much litigation and legislation working on these problems, at this time we are still bound to dissolve our Redevelopment Agency and appoint a successor agency to oversee the dissolution by February 1. The City Council will be working on this aspect at its regular meeting on January 9, 2012. While we suspect that projects and programs within the Redevelopment Agency may be affected, exactly which will be affected and how they will be affected is still unclear. Legal Counsel continues to research and inquire as to exactly how we will be impacted. To make it even more difficult, the law suits and legislation that are all in the works could completely change the outcomes. So, Monday night the Council will begin the process by considering a successor agency. As more certain information comes down, the Council will consider each aspect carefully and I will get back to you with more specific information.
Pier Improvements
Numerous comments have been received regarding the unclean condition of the pier. The issue is that the Regional Water Quality Control Board (State of California) has banned power washing of the pier. That combined with our pier being designated a “fishing pier” (The City agreed to allow fishing on the pier as a condition of
previous grant funding for the decking) makes it difficult, if not impossible to keep the pier clean. Sean Crumby, our Asst. City Manager and Public Works Director has been giving the issue a lot of thought and will be trying some new ideas. This winter you will notice work going on at the pier that is designed to help with keeping it clean. We are continuing to monitor the pier and brainstorm ideas to keep our pier clean, accessible and enjoyable.
Repairs to Mary Wilson Library
This week repairs are being made to several doors within the Mary Wilson Library. The repairs are being funded by the Friends of the Library.
Road and Alley Construction
Traffic: Moving around Seal Beach has been difficult the last few months. And there is good news and bad news. The good news is that the construction on Seal Beach Boulevard is now completed and it is a great improvement. The contractor was easy to work with when they were asked to work around rush hour to help people get in and out of Old Town. The realignment construction at Lampson and Seal Beach Boulevard is now completed also. This is a huge safety improvement. There is still some construction to be done at the North Road at Seal Beach Boulevard which may continue to plague us for the next few weeks. The bad news is that the Seal Beach Boulevard bridge is scheduled to be redone, adding an additional lane in each direction. That is going to give us traffic tie ups. Rather than trying to get over the bridge once that construction begins it might be worthwhile to take the 605 and get off at Katella, bypassing the bridge all together. CalTrans has said that they will try to keep one lane open going each way across the bridge all during the project. After this project is done, traveling north and south over the bridge should be much improved over what it has been for years. But, it will be trying as we get there.
Alleys: The contractor has completed all work for 2 blocks between 12th and 14th streets and is near completion with the work on the alley between 11th and 12th St. Additionally, the project was on hold during the holidays, but will resume on January 9th.
Rivers Mountains Conservancy Improvements
The City received the Coastal Commission permit on Monday, November 14th. This project is being funded with a $2,000,000 grant from the Rivers and Mountains Conservancy. The parking lot will be open during construction but on a limited basis. Restrooms will be closed during the duration of the project however temporary portable restrooms will be set up for the public’s use. The City Council approved an agreement with Long Beach at the December 12th council meeting to fund the bike trail paving portion of this project. Construction began on Monday, November 14th. The contractor is pouring curb & gutter along the driveway and throughout the parking lot this month. Removal of existing grass, planter and organic materials has been completed. The contractor is installing conduit for electrical, lighting and irrigation. The contractor has also begun remodeling the restrooms.
Main Street Improvements
The Main Street Lighting improvement project has now been awarded to Fehr and Peers. A kick off meeting was held on Thursday, November 17, 2011. Tentative public meeting dates are to follow in February 2012. Final plans for the Main Street Tree Planting has been received by our City staff. It is anticipated that bidding for construction will begin in January 2012. These plans are being incorporated into the Main Street lighting study.
OCTA Electric Avenue route
Currently the OCTA is working on removing the busses off Electric Avenue. Sean Crumby, Public Works Director, is waiting to hear from them. Hopefully I’ll have more news next month.
New District Lines
District One now includes all of 6th Street, all of 5th Street, all of 4th Street and all of Central Avenue. Please let your neighbors know and if they would like a copy of the District 1 Newsletter, just email me and I’ll put them on the distribution list.
DWP Property Project
The discussions regarding the rezoning of the property at 1st and Ocean have gone dark for the month of January while the consultant takes all the comments received about the project and formulates the Final EIR which will be published Friday, February 24th. Other meetings about this project that you may be interested in attending are: Subdivision Technical Review Committee, Technical Review of Subdivision Map Monday, February 06, 2012 6:00 PM; Tree Advisory Board Street Tree Removal and Street Tree Selection Tuesday, February 14, 2012 3:00PM; Recreation & Parks Commission Open Space & Parks Issues Wednesday, February 22, 2012 6:00PM.
Free Tax Assistance Program
The Community Services Department is now accepting appointments for Free Tax Assistance. The program offers free tax assistance for taxpayers with low and middle income, with special interests to those 60 years and older. Appointments are going to begin on February 6th at 8:30am in the community room at Fire Station 48. Available appointments can be arranged by calling the Community Services Department during regular business hours.
Spark of Love Toy Drive – On December 22nd OCFA collected a full box of toys from City Hall that had been collected by Seal Beach. Thank you Seal Beach.
May 2012 be the best year yet as we work together to improve our community. Thank you for the opportunity to serve as your representative.
Sincerely yours,
Ellery Deaton
Councilwoman for Old Town and Surfside
562-743-4355
SealBeachDistrict1@gmail.com
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