EL SEGUNDO HERALD November 10, 2016 Page 7 DMV Computer Upgrades Were Never Completed By Rob McCarthy The Department of Motor Vehicles computer system that crashed last month and interrupted license and registration services for over a week wasn’t hacked. It just showed its age. The recordkeeping system that stores vehicle and personal information on millions of Californians underwent a multi-million dollar “The Department of Motor Vehicles computer system that crashed last month and interrupted license and registration services for over a week wasn’t hacked. It just showed its age.” upgrade three years ago to existing hardware. The state’s technology agency shutdown the project early, and fired the contractor in early 2013. The California Technology Agency said at the time that the modernization project, which ran for seven years, would be re-evaluated. The first phase of the project on the DMV licensing system was nearly completed when the agency pulled the plug on the $200 million IT project. The agency’s early termination left older hardware running the DMV vehicle-registration system. It’s unclear how the unfinished project affected the massive outage that began on Oct. 24 and affected 122 DMV locations, including Hawthorne and Inglewood. The Technology Agency did not return a phone call asking about the status of the suspended DMV modernization project. The DMV said that a “catastrophic failure” of equipment on Oct. 24 caused the outage. Hard disks failed in both the front-end and backup systems. A department spokesman ruled out a cyber attack as the cause, insisting it was equipment-related and not an act of sabotage. “Absolutely not,” spokesman Artemio Armenta told The Herald when asked if the DMV’s recordkeeping system with millions of California drivers’ personal information was hacked. “There’s no evidence of that.” It wasn’t a matter of replacing broken equipment to restore computer service to the affected offices, Armenta told The Herald. The disks linked each of the 122 offices hardware to the DMV main system, and all of them that failed needed to be rebuilt. It took DMV employees working around-the-clock nearly a full week to restore the disks, according to its spokesman. Three offices, including Inglewood, were still disconnected as of last week. The South Bay offices in Hawthorne, Torrance, Inglewood, Culver City and San Pedro remained open during the outage with limited services. DMV examiners gave drivers license tests and clerks assisted walk-in customers with paperwork and questions. Online license renewals and vehicle registration were not affected by the equipment failure, according to the department. Inglewood was the last of the 122 locations to have service restored. The DMV posted a notice at 2 p.m. Nov. 2 saying that nearly all of its offices were at full service again except for Inglewood. By the next morning, an update said that each DMV location was back in service. The outage extended beyond the DMV field offices. The Automobile Club of Southern California, which serves as an agent of the motor-vehicle department, said a number of offices were unable to process vehicle registrations from Oct. 24 into November. The Manhattan Beach office was among the first locations to have DMV service restored, according to a AAA spokesman. Nearly two weeks after the computer-system crashed, the Rancho Palos Verdes AAA office had limited DMV service to customers. The office as of Nov. 3 wasn’t able to process commercial license plates, handicapped stickers and off-road vehicle stickers. “Their outage is pretty massive,” AAA spokesman Jeffrey Spring said last week. The Automobile Club’s IT staff worked directly with the DMV to get branches back online. Thirty AAA offices in Southern California were waiting for service to be restored on Nov. 3. Spring didn’t have a date when all of the club’s locations would be back online with the DMV. The DMV conducted a planned security update on the Friday before Halloween, which prolonged the service problems at some offices. The IT staff worked with its contractor over the first weekend to get the busier DMV offices back to normal. When staff returned to work on Monday, Nov. 1, computer service was still not available at the high-volume offices. The DMV described the events of Oct. 24 as a “perfect storm” of simultaneous hard-drive failures that overwhelmed the system. It simply was not designed to handle massive failures in such a short period of time, the media were told. The department had never experienced a technological chain of events like it, spokesman Jaime Garza told reporters in Sacramento. The California DMV wasn’t using industry best practices to avoid losing both the front-end and backup systems simultaneously, according to published reports. The primary and the recovery systems should be kept apart and on separate power supplies, technology experts say. The department reportedly kept both the main and backup systems in the same hardware cabinet. Again, it’s uncertain whether the halted modernization project would have addressed the issue or made a difference. The DMV pledged to conduct a full The DMV IT modernization program began in 2006 after an earlier project called Info/ California was called a “hopeless failure” after $44 million were spent. What was supposed to be a five-year, $28 million effort lasted for seven years. The size of the project grew until the projected costs were $170 million over the original budget. State officials criticized the DMV brass for poor management of the project and for lacking computer- technology experience. The embarrassing episode led to a full investigation by lawmakers. The DMV is offering to waive late fees for vehicle registrations that could not be processed during the outage. Vehicle owners must file a waiver form or write a letter to the department asking for penalty forgiveness for missing the due date to renew a vehicle registration. The DMV charges a 10 percent penalty for being up to 10 days late and 20 percent for up to four weeks past due. DMV offices will be closed Friday, Nov. 11 in observance of Veteran’s Day. • El Gringo Receives Green Light for Full Bar By Liz Spear A new restaurant opening on Main Street in El Segundo received the green light to serve distilled spirits in a spot previously approved to serve beer and wine only. The unanimous 4-0 vote came Oct. 27, during a Planning Commission meeting in council chambers at city hall. With Commissioner Brenda Newman recusing herself from the vote and discussion because she owns a business on Main Street near the location of the new restaurant, El Gringo, at 422 Main Street, only the four remaining planning commissioners voted on the matter. El Gringo, which operates locations in Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach and Redondo Beach, is taking over a space previously occupied for some 10 years by Farmstand. Farmstand’s beer and wine license was transferred to El Gringo during the purchase, however, El Gringo Owner William Graw wanted to add distilled spirits, particularly tequila. “Coming here to the City of El Segundo has probably been an eight-year process and I’m happy to be here,” he told the planning commission during the meeting. “I’m ready for El Segundo and El Segundo is ready for me. The purpose of me applying for the full liquor license is because of customer request. Oftentimes Mexican food is accompanied by margaritas, very similar to peanut butter and jelly,” he said. Graw told the planning commission that while he serves just beer and wine at his three other locations, he wanted to take advantage of the bar area Farmstand had already incorporated into the building’s design to offer diners a “full bar to complement our menu.” He noted that during his 20 years of operating restaurants none had ever received a violation from the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, the health department, or a city’s police or fire department. Graw opened his first El Gringo in Hermosa Beach in 1986 after owning Zeppy’s Pizza on Pier Avenue in Hermosa Beach with John Altamura. Before that he was a manager at Kevin Barry’s Sangria restaurant also on Pier Avenue in HB. Graw also said he knew the restaurant would need to close by 10 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, by 11 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, and not offer live entertainment or video games under the terms of the ABC regulations. During the meeting, Planning Commission Chair Ryan Baldino said, “Mexican food and margaritas — it makes a lot of sense. And that’s a great location for a new restaurant. You’ve got the parking right there right in the middle of Main Street. So hopefully you do very well.” “I’m excited watching this (El Gringo) come to life,” said Planning Commissioner Scot F. Nicol. “I think the outside looks great. I love this accordion door, how it opens up. And when Farmstand first left (late March) and they (El Gringo) were coming in, it’s like, “Oh, no, we need to make sure this gets opened quickly so that end of Main Street doesn’t lose its vibe. It used to be that that side of Main Street was where life was happening and then everything kind of shifted south. And so we’re glad to see you come in down there because we think it will really help the Main Street business.” While speaking to the planning commission and fielding their questions, Graw noted that before Farmstand went in, the space was occupied by a florist shop. He explained that he understands how cities want to keep a handle on and regulate alcohol use in businesses, particularly since his mom was on the Manhattan Beach Planning Commission for 10 years. As with the previous planning commission meeting on October 13, city staff notified the commissioners of an upcoming workshop meeting on the Smoky Hollow District set for Thursday, which was held on Nov. 3, at City Hall Council Chambers. Community members had the opportunity to learn more about the city’s historical area during a Smoky Hollow Specific Plan Update, which is expected to define the district’s future land use, parking, and circulation improvements. Community members attending the workshop were able to vote anonymously via clicker on the various options that will be presented at the meeting. A plan for Smoky Hollow, once a hub for aerospace-related work and now a burgeoning entrepreneurial area, has been in the making for some time. In May of 2012, the Urban Land Institute prepared a Technical Assistance Panel Program report for the city, calling the district “an unusual place, even within its unusual setting of El Segundo, California. It is bordered on the south by the Chevron oil refinery, on the west by the Downtown Corridor, on the north by mixed-density residential uses and on the east by the Sepulveda Boulevard stretch of Pacific Coast Highway. “Several decades past, this area was the setting for smaller industrial uses ancillary to the nearby aerospace and refinery industries. Defined by these borders and these uses, the district has remained somewhat frozen in time. The area’s specific plan has not been comprehensively updated since it was adopted in 1985. This has prevented development standards to evolve with market forces. In fact, Smoky Hollow has grown away from the original uses envisioned by the plan: Today, very few businesses serving aerospace and refinery remain, especially as the aerospace industry has declined. Among the new uses that have moved into the area, the ‘creative’ businesses – advertising agencies and architecture firms, for example – are attracted despite existing development standards, not because of it. And yet, these are precisely the types of enterprises, along with a variety of other uses, that may allow Smoky Hollow to profitably keep pace with other business districts in the Los Angeles area. In particular, Smoky Hollow holds great potential to become the L.A. region’s next successful ‘incubator’ zone for technology and creative firms, similar to Santa Monica’s ‘Silicon Beach’ or Culver City’s ‘Hayden Tract’. Indeed, many elements are in place for this transition to naturally and quickly evolve: The neighborhood’s stock of Mid- Century buildings appeal to the tastes of these types of users. Its small parcels are perfect for start-ups. Its beach-close location is also ideal. The character of El Segundo – small-town yet business-friendly – offers a positive environment for entrepreneurs. Even the industrial vibe of Smoky Hollow,epitomized by its name, can be a strong draw for creative types. At the planning commission meeting, the commission directed staff to “notice” the public of the meeting so that more than two planning commissioners may attend. • Douglass Burkley & Brandlin LLP A T T O R N E Y S A T L A W Living Trusts/Wills, Probate, Employment Law, Personal Injury Trust and Estates Litigation, Business Litigation, Civil Litiga tion 310-540-6000 Lifetime El Segundo Residents *AV Rated (Highest) Martindale - Hubbell / **Certified Specialist Estate Planning, Trust & Probate Law, State Bar of California, Board of Legal Specialization Brian R. Brandlin • Bruce R. Brandlin • Christopher P. Brandlin M O R T U A R Y “Our Family Serving Yours Since 1954” B U R I A L - C R E M A T I O N - W O R L D W I D E T R A N S F E R P E T M E M O R I A L P R O D U C T S 500 EAST IMPERIAL AVENUE EL SEGUNDO, CALIFORNIA 90245 Telephone (310) 640-9325 • Fax (310) 640-0778 • FD658
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