Identity Crisis : Hermosa Wants to Shed Image as No-Holds-Barred Community

Hermosa Beach.

A rowdy, Bohemian community.

A quiet place to raise a family.

A good place to get a parking ticket.

The beckoning sun, sand and sea.

A happening town of young singles.

A town of many, sometimes paradoxical images, Hermosa Beach is struggling with an identity crisis--trying to squash its rowdy, anything-goes, we-haven’t-left-the-’60s reputation and striving to promote a quaint, “happening,” affluent-but-we-don’t-brag image.

“We tend to suffer from this image of a left-over hippie community that’s non-family oriented, a lot of drugs and all those kinds of things,” said Councilman Tony DeBellis. “The community has changed dramatically in 10 years--there’s no doubt about it--yet the perceptions haven’t.”

Many city officials blame the media for the negative images, while other community leaders and some residents say it’s the questionable activities at City Hall that have been dragging Hermosa Beach down.

Whatever the reasons, the City Council wants to improve the image of Hermosa Beach, and as a start it has decided to have 10,000 promotional bumper stickers made up. What they’ll say hasn’t been decided. But suggestions include: “I Got Mine in Hermosa Beach,” “Only in Hermosa Beach” and the old standby, “I Hermosa Beach.”

Perhaps the city’s parking officers can put them on the cars they ticket, because parking enforcement--which accounts for the city’s third-largest source of revenue--does more than anything to give the city a bad name, many say.

“Parking-ticket capital of the world” is the label many in the South Bay attach to Hermosa Beach--a big claim for a city that’s only 1.3 square miles.

But while many residents and business leaders agree that lack of parking and the strict parking enforcement are Hermosa Beach’s major faults, they seem to agree on little else.

Of course, that is nothing new in a town where the issue of cityhood itself was decided by one vote in 1906, when residents voted 24-23 to incorporate. More recently, they split 2,400 to 2,399 in favor of a proposed beachfront hotel--an outcome still being challenged in court.

And the frequent lack of consensus adds to the image problem, officials say.

“Everything in our community is a controversy,” DeBellis said. “I think that perpetuates that we’re a very confused community and we don’t know what we want as a collective whole.”

But, he and others say, the close votes also are an indication of the town’s diversity. As Mayor Pro Tem Etta Simpson said: “If you would describe the community in one word, it would probably be ‘diversified,’ which is good.”

And it’s that diversity that creates the multitude of images.

“It’s not the small-town community it once was,” said David Collis, who grew up in Hermosa but moved to Claremont last year. He said Hermosa Beach has more “Mediterranean” qualities now, such as quaint cafes and boutiques. He added that he prefers Hermosa Beach the way it used to be.

Bob Kennedy, a Palos Verdes Estates resident, enjoys Hermosa Beach as it looks today, although his image of the town is a bit different. “I like it because anything can happen here,” he said, while having a drink at the Lighthouse Cafe on Pier Avenue.

“You get wharf rats and derelicts down here,” he said. “A lot of people don’t like to be exposed to it, but I think it adds character to the place.”

The pier area has a reputation as a hangout for drug dealers, runaways and transients. Public Safety Director Steve Wisniewski said that area is somewhat troublesome but not a major problem. The Police Department, however, has recently increased foot patrols in the area.

Few Violent Crimes

Hermosa Beach has a problem with property crimes and robberies, he said, but a relatively low rate of more violent crimes like murder, rape and assault.

For a variety of reasons, Hermosa Beach has an ambiance that attracts lots of visitors, many of whom are drawn to the city’s expansive beach.

“Hermosa Beach is one of the most popular beaches,” said Howard Lee, an assistant chief of the lifeguard operations of the county Department of Beaches and Harbors, which maintains the city-owned beach. He confirmed a city report that said although the city has only about 5% of the county’s beach, it attracts about 12% of the beachgoers.

Yet the beach is not Hermosa’s only attraction. The 89 restaurants are usually full, the bars are crowded and landlords can pick and choose eager tenants for their high-priced apartments, which are never vacant for long.

Well-Known Businesses

Many businesses are regionally and even nationally known: the Lighthouse Cafe--a bar popularized by jazz music performed there from the 1940s through the late ‘70s; Either/Or Bookstore, which has a wide assortment of books and magazines; the Comedy and Magic Club, and C. J. Brett’s bar and restaurant, owned by baseball’s Brett brothers.

Some Hermosa Beach residents also have put a spotlight on the city: Greg Jarvis, a civilian astronaut killed aboard the space shuttle Challenger last year, and the Brett brothers, Ken--known as “the most traded player in baseball”--and George--a Kansas City Royals third baseman. Both live in Hermosa.

In a 1985 Washington Post article about George Brett, who grew up in El Segundo, the reporter mistakenly wrote that the athlete “grew up in Hermosa Beach, Calif., and that, some say, is all you need to know about him: Brett the Hermosa Beach boy, good-natured and easy-going, fun fun fun till daddy took the T-bird away.”

In many ways, Hermosa Beach does conjure up many of the images of Southern California: trim and tan bodies blanketing the sand; surfers riding each morning wave; joggers and roller skaters moving to the beat of Walkmans; skateboarders--in multicolored trunks rolling up walls; volleyballs crisscrossing nets; bicyclists cruising The Strand; oceanfront homes watching over the Pacific, and young couples gazing at sunsets.

The average Hermosan (if there is such a thing) is young--under 30--single and a professional--typically in technical or scientific vocations--who earns an above-average income, according to officials and the most recent statistics available from city and state officials. The average Hermosan is drawn to the city by the beach and the night life, is a renter, lives in the city for only three years, does not take an active role in city issues and usually does not vote in municipal elections.

Children are less and less a part of the community as shown by the closing of five of the school district’s six elementary schools in the past 11 years--four of them since 1981.

“It all depends on what age you are,” said Wilman Burt, a 31-year resident and homeowner. “If you’re young and you’re going to stay in an apartment for a little while, it’s fine because there’s the beach (and) there’s eating and drinking establishments.”

Burt and many residents, onlookers and even some Hermosa officials say that it’s uncaring, indecisive--and sometimes unethical--government officials who have given the city a negative image.

Politicians Come and Go

“It’s been a standing joke in this town about the city government,” said resident Robert Feuer, who also works as a plumber in Hermosa Beach. “They come and they go and a lot of people have the opinion they really don’t care.”

Some community leaders, however, blame the media for whatever bad image the city has. One of those, Garrison Frost, a resident and local business owner, told the council last fall: “We have an emergency with regard to our image.”

He suggested that city officials and business leaders talk only about the positive aspects of Hermosa and “come up with a united front on what kind of interviews we’re going to give.”

Councilman Jim Rosenberger said in a interview once: “We’re not on the front pages of the paper like we were and that’s an improvement in itself . . . because you guys like to print stuff that’s of a very deleterious nature.”

Can’t Keep Lid On

Mayor John Cioffi disagrees, saying: “There is no way you can run a city government the way you might run an individual business. . . . Nobody likes to air their dirty laundry in public, but I think that’s a fact life in this country (in) government.”

Still, Rosenberger and other city officials say that the media tend to blow stories out of proportion and specifically referred to publicity that the city ended the 1985-86 fiscal year with a budget surplus 75 times higher than anticipated and the district attorney’s insurance-fraud investigation of several former city officials.

While the district attorney’s office declined to prosecute anyone, it released a report criticizing former City Manager Gregory T. Meyer for counseling employees to falsify insurance forms to obtain benefits to which they were not entitled. The report said there is no evidence that Meyer--who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing--profited from his actions, so a jury conviction would be unlikely.

Meyer left the city Thursday to become a deputy administrator of the Los Angeles City Redevelopment Agency.

Most complaints about the city government and Hermosa Beach eventually turn back to the parking problems and the $18 tickets. To further complicate things, residents and merchants say, city officials have constantly changed the time limits and costs of parking meters.

And it’s no secret that the parking tickets are the third largest revenue source in the city’s budget--an irritant to some and a joke to others.

“It’s such a tempting method for the city to make revenue,” said City Clerk Kathleen Midstokke, “and they pay the price of a negative city image because of it.”

Councilman DeBellis said that perhaps issuing a lot of parking tickets is not the best way for the city to raise money. “I personally don’t care if we make $1 of parking violation money,” he said, adding that he would rather have the city catching speeders and other traffic violators than giving parking citations.

Many residents, including the city manager, and visitors have horror stories about overly zealous parking enforcers.

Streets must be cleared of vehicles for four-hour periods for cleaning, and several residents--including city officials--say they have gotten tickets for parking in a forbidden zone five minutes before being allowed to do so, even when the street sweepers have already passed.

Civic activist and City Council candidate Roger Creighton and others say limited parking and intense housing density--another frequently cited complaint--are the trade-offs residents must pay to live in a wonderful, ocean-front community.

With about 21,000 residents--or 25 per acre--Hermosa Beach is the most densely populated city in the South Bay and ranks sixth in the state, according to the most recent figures available.

“You can reach out and open your neighbor’s window, we’re so squeezed in,” said Donald Barnhart, a former Hermosa Beach resident who nonetheless wants to move back. “I’m just living in Redondo because the rent’s cheaper.”

Not everyone rates Hermosa Beach so highly. Many list Hermosa as their last choice of the three beach cities. Manhattan Beach is usually first, followed by Redondo Beach. Some Hermosans want their community to get some of Manhattan’s prestige and higher property values, while other residents want Hermosa to avoid the “pretentiousness” of Manhattan Beach.

Councilwoman June Williams is one Hermosan who likes the city just the way it is.

“It seems to me like there’s a big demand to move into Hermosa Beach,” she said. “I don’t really see anything wrong with our image. I think we’re like the jewel on the Nile. I think we’re a wonderful, little city.”

Mayor Cioffi said it is up to the city--not the media--to put out a positive image of Hermosa Beach. He said the city needs to promote itself and find a way to let people know about its accomplishments, such as sewer improvements and the bicycle rest stop memorial to Challenger astronaut Greg Jarvis.

Cioffi said the city also should inform people, especially visitors, of its parking regulations and where public lots are available.

City Council members unanimously agree that improving the city’s image will be a continuous effort.

“That’s an on-going thing that’s probably going to be on every goals list from now until doomsday,” Rosenberger said.

The council is considering additional landscaping and new signs throughout the city.

Council members say they have already made some strides toward improving the city’s image, pointing to such actions as downzoning and offering downtown businesses incentives to validate customer parking, and to more intangible things like a City Council that cooperates more and fights less.

And the City Council voted 3 to 2 for the bumper stickers.

Rosenberger, who voted with Williams against the bumper stickers, said: “If you don’t have anything to brag about, why go out on people’s bumpers or anywhere else?”

City Clerk Midstokke added: “I don’t think Hermosa Beach’s image is bumper stickers.”

“It doesn’t have an image, that’s the problem,” said Jimmy Miller, who handles public relations for the Comedy and Magic Club and lives in Hollywood. He said that Hermosa Beach is his favorite beach community, but “I firmly believe that there are people who don’t even know where Hermosa Beach is or what it is.”

Gary Brightwell, an emcee at The Comedy and Magic Club and a Redondo Beach resident, thinks he has the answer: “It’s just a beach community.”