The Weekly Newspaper of El Segundo
Herald Publications - El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale & Inglewood Community Newspapers Since 1911 - (310) 322-1830 - Vol. 109, No. 8 - February 20, 2020
Inside
This Issue
Certified & Licensed
Professionals.......................8
Classifieds............................9
Crossword/Sudoku.............9
Entertainment......................4
Legals............................. 7,8,9
Neighborhood Therapist.....3
Pets......................................11
Police Reports.....................2
Real Estate..................5-6,12
Sports....................................4
Weekend
Forecast
The Future Looks Bright for
El Segundo High Students
Congratualations to our student athletes who have signed to play at the collegiate level. (Left to Right) Gerardo Blanco - Occidental College Football, Denis Vezina - San Francisco State University Men’s
Soccer, Casey Lund - Middlebury College Men’s Soccer and Logan Sharp - University of Hawaii Men’s Volleyball. See story on page 4. Photo El Segundo School District.
Teen Center’s Future in Doubt
By Rob McCarthy
The Parks and Recreation director revealed
on Tuesday that $800,000 that El Segundo
officials earmarked for the Teen Center
wouldn’t be nearly enough to complete the
project - but that the skate park next door
could really use that money. Meredith Petit
delivered the news at Tuesday night’s City
Council meeting, putting in doubt the future
of the aging Teen Center building at 405 E.
Grand Avenue. Fewer programs are being
offered at the center and drop-in attendance
has declined steadily, she said. And it’s not
just in El Segundo; teen centers nationwide
are seeing a similar pattern.
Kids prefer to hang out at the skate park,
which attracts bigger crowds of skater and
their friends, according to Petit. Young people
in town have talked with Parks and Recreation
staff about enlarging the venue and making
it safer, she notes in her report. Helmets are
required at the facility, and signs about the
helmet rule are posted. Skaters know the
risks and lawsuits against cities with public
skate parks are rare, according to City Attorney
Herald’s Candidate Q & A
For the 2020 El Segundo Election for
City Council, there were three seats open
and three qualified candidates Incumbent
Drew Boyles, Incumbent Carol Pirsztuk
and Business Executive Lance Giroux.
The El Segundo Herald has collected
questions from local business owners and
prominent members of the community
to post to the candidates. Here are our
questions and their answers:
1. The city has a structural deficit
and is dipping into its reserves this
year. How do you suggest the city address
this deficit to balance spending
and revenues?
Drew Boyles: El Segundo is not using
reserves, instead leaving 5% of positions
vacant. Our public employee pension
requirement is growing to almost 25%
of our annual general fund revenues.
Two years ago, we formed a committee
comprised of all union groups to educate
on the gravity of this situation while
analyzing options. Since then, we have
enacted solutions that have saved our
city over $11 Million in pension interest,
including a shift to greater employee
contributions to pension, establishing a
pension trust fund, aggressively directing
funds towards negatively amortizing
pension debt, and establishing a shorter
amortization for our existing debt.
We have forecast several million-dollar
deficits over the next three to four years,
without a macroeconomic downturn. To
See Candidate Q & A, page 10
Mark Hensley.
The use of the facility has been constant
and redesigning the skating venue would make
it even more popular, Petit says. Expanding
and redesigning the skate park would exhaust
the $800,000 in the capital improvement fund
for the Teen Center. That sets up a decision
for the City Council to make: which project
serving the city’s youth is a better buy.
A decision about the Teen Center property
might come later this year during the council’s
strategic planning and budgeting process for
the 2020-2021 fiscal year. The City Council
on Tuesday ordered a broader study of parks
and recreation needs. At the suggestion of
the parks department head, the council will
base a decision about the remodel of the Teen
Center building on the needs assessment. The
5,500-square-foot Teen Center building could
be converted to other uses, council members
suggested Tuesday. The city also owns the
Boy Scout House in the same block, and
Mayor Pro Tem Carol Pirsztuk assured the
Scouts they’d be included in any discussions
involving their meeting place.
Money from the $800,000 Teen Center
improvement fund will pay for the study,
and the council allocated $50,000 on Tuesday
from the special fund to have it done.
The city’s investment portfolio stood at
$63.5 million at the end of 2019, outgoing
City Treasurer Crista Binder told the council.
She is finishing her elected four-year term
as city treasurer and will leave the post
after the March 3 election. Matt Robinson,
a financial analyst, is running opposed for
El Segundo City Treasure in the March 3
primary election.
Under Binder’s leadership, the city’s portfolio
of government bonds and securities
soared to $63.5 million between October
and December of last year. A former deputy
treasurer for the city of Los Angeles, Binder
was appointed city treasurer in 2013 and
elected to her post in 2016. When she took
over responsibility for managing the city’s
money and investments, El Segundo had a
balance of $32.5 million and an annual yield
of less than 1 percent. Last year, the city’s
See City Council, page 4 Friday
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