Harbor Funding Stalled

The Redondo Beach City Council had planned to allocate $1 million this year toward raising King Harbor’s main breakwater--criticized as being too low to protect the area from a powerful storm Jan. 17 and 18. Instead, the city may have to spend that money on storm cleanup and repairs.

The council had been expected to allocate the $1 million, as well as $1.3 million for other harbor maintenance, dredging and other improvements, on Jan. 19. But in the preceding days, the storm caused $17 million damage to the area, including about $3 million to public property. The vote was postponed until last Tuesday so the mayor and council could deal with emergency matters during the previous week’s meeting.

But City Manager Tim Casey told the council that it would be imprudent to spend $2.3 million on harbor projects until the city determines how much the city will have to pay for repairing storm damage. The council agreed. Redondo Beach is eligible for state assistance--and will be eligible for federal funds if a presidential state of emergency is declared.

“It doesn’t mean that we have abandoned the dredging and/or the breakwater improvements,” Casey said in an interview. “Those are priorities, but at the moment, it didn’t seem practical.”