Redondo Beach Settles 1 Suit Over ’88 King Harbor Storm

The flurry of litigation that hit the city of Redondo Beach in the wake of a devastating 1988 winter storm subsided a little Tuesday with a settlement in a multimillion-dollar lawsuit brought by one of King Harbor’s major leaseholders.

The city, which has been charged in three other lawsuits with varying degrees of negligence in the harbor’s maintenance and design, admitted no liability in its settlement with Redondo Beach Marina, home to such popular attractions as the Sport Fishing Pier and the Blue Moon Saloon.

However, the agreement did address a number of longstanding disputes between the city and the marina and cleared the way for structural repairs necessary for several businesses, including the Blue Moon, to rebuild.

The city and the marina had been negotiating since October, said Gordon McRae Jr., executive vice president of Redondo Beach Marina, adding that neither side wanted to take the suit to trial. “We wanted to go on with our business,” McRae said. “We didn’t want to go to court and fight for five more years.”

Mayor Brad Parton agreed that the settlement “is in the best interests of the city.”

But not everyone was as pleased.

Boater Mike Ford noted that a provision of the settlement calls for the eviction by Aug. 31 of about 20 vessels, including five live-aboards, from moorings on the outer harbor. Although boats have been anchored in the area for decades, the city and the marina contend the practice is unsafe, and the city agreed to buy the mooring area from the marina for $1.5 million in lieu of condemnation.

“What are you going to do after you create a condition of homelessness for the affected people?” asked Ford, a frequent critic of the council. Ford does not live in the mooring area but does live aboard a boat.

But McRae said most of the 103 boats anchored in the outer harbor before the storm have moved to other slips, in part because the marina has no showers or other facilities for live-aboards. Moreover, engineering studies done for the city have also concluded that the breakwater around the area is vulnerable to waves, McRae said.

Of the 20 boats still anchored there, McRae said, at least five have made arrangements to anchor elsewhere, and the marina is working to help the remaining 15 find a new home. Any live-aboards, he added, are violating their leases and should not be living in the outer harbor.

Among other provisions in the settlement, the marina will pay $730,000 in back rent that it had withheld from the city in the wake of the storm and will continue to operate the two expensive five-ton boat hoists that provide boaters with access to the water. The rent for restaurants on the marina also was increased from 3% of sales to 3.5%.

In return, however, the city gave the marina some of its city-owned parking spaces near the hoists to free up parking for restaurants and other businesses that generate more money for the marina. And it reduced rents for the marina’s parking lots and for recreational businesses, such as sportfishing and whale watching enterprises.