Hawthorne Press Tribune The Weekly Newspaper of Hawthorne Herald Publications - Inglewood, Hawthorne, Lawndale, El Segundo, Torrance & Manhattan Beach Community Newspapers Since 1911 - Circulation 30,000 - Readership 60,000 (310) 322-1830 - January 26, 2017 South Bay Coastliners Help Ring in a Centennial On January 18, members of the popular area barbershop harmony troupe The South Bay Coastliners performed at El Segundo’s Library Park to help celebrate that City’s Centennial. The vocal group now totals more than 75 singers and continues to put on its own annual show, as it has for over 65 years. (Photo by Marcy Dugan) “What has happened is that certain blocks have been granted preferential parking and these blocks have created more problems for the residents that live outside of those blocks.” Inside This Issue Certified & Licensed Professionals.......................7 Classifieds............................3 Community Briefs...............3 Food.......................................5 Hawthorne Happenings....3 Legals............................2, 6-7 Letters...................................2 Pets........................................8 Sports....................................4 Weekend Forecast Friday Sunny 62˚/45˚ Saturday Sunny 66˚/46˚ Sunday Sunny 70˚/49˚ Hawthorne City Council, Clerk Discuss the Pitfalls of Preferential Parking By Derrick Deane up and down the streets,” Huber said. “All In one of the briefest meetings in recent of you are aware of the parking problems memory, the Hawthorne City Council zipped that we have in the city. I’m encouraging through a 50-minute list of votes and closing the City Council to possibly have a town statements before retiring for a closed session. hall meeting or have some citizens group The Council voted unanimously to approve come together and discuss options that we the purchase of three automobiles and one can put together.” police-configured motorcycle for the Police Huber noted that while the Council can Department at a cost of $116,500. The money discuss the matter at the biweekly meetings, will be acquired through asset forfeiture “there is a lot of input that can come from and not through the City of Hawthorne’s the citizens coming forward. Certain areas general fund. of the city-- especially Holly Park and Holly “I can tell you that the mileage and the Glen--are fine because they were designed age of the vehicles in question put us at for off-street parking.” a disadvantage both for service and parts availability as well as the changeover from our fleet which previously used to be natural gas based and we’re now in the hybrid world,” Hawthorne Police Chief Robert Fager said. Fager added that the cars being replaced were over 15 years old. City Clerk Norb Huber brought the topic of parking back to the forefront while addressing the Council. “Preferential parking has become a problem--albeit this council had nothing to do with the policies that are in place,” Huber said while adding that he was speaking on behalf of numerous people who had approached him about the issue. “What has happened is that certain blocks have been granted preferential parking and these blocks have created more problems for the residents that live outside of those blocks.” Huber used his mother’s house as an example saying that she lived on a block that was close to a preferential parking area. He said that while the preferential area had only a couple of cars parked, he ended up having to search and eventually park four blocks away from her house. “I was cruising Mayor Alex Vargas cited bad development and “junk housing” among the main causes for the parking issues. “It’s those people that live in those multi-unit housing that are packed together like sardines with cardboard walls almost with not enough parking because developers have come here and taken advantage of councils before us which have consisted of people who have had real estate interests,” he said. Huber added that the parking issue goes all the back through the history of Hawthorne and how the North Hawthorne area was laid out with one car per family in mind. “We are very concerned about parking,” Councilwoman Olivia Valentine said. “In weeks to come, we will be talking about it and we will be working to resolve the problem or at least discuss the problem and get input from others on it.” Councilwoman Angie Reyes English echoed the same thoughts, saying that she spoke on it when the Council discussed preferential parking. “I think there has been an overabundance of that without really doing a survey or studying what we currently have on the books,” she said. “There is a brief moratorium that we placed on there and I think we need to come back with a report back to Council with what exactly we’re looking at.” Vargas urged the public to remain politically involved with issues in the city, stating that the first step came when voters decided to revamp their City Council. “The city did pay attention this last election and we were able to change the previous administration that was taking us down a hole,” the Mayor said. “Even when things are good, we want to ask you to be involved. For so long, we’ve had political apathy that anything that happened up here, people didn’t pay attention to.” Vargas added that the Council cannot “undo 55 to 60 years of developments in one meeting, one year. It’s going to take a lot of effort, but what this council can do is if we see a development up here that’s going to pack more people with practically no parking for whatever they’re going to offer, we’ve got to respond.” Vargas said that it is key for the Council to stop aggravating the situation by the decisions it makes going forward, adding that he felt Huber’s pain and frustration with the parking issue. “It’s not just my pain, it’s the community,” Huber said in closing. “I just bring it up because there are many individuals that don’t know how to come forward to a City Council meeting like this and express their concerns about it. Essentially, there’s fighting going on over a parking spot.” •
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