Redondo Passes $59-Million Budget : Finances: The City Council raises fees for developers and adds five police officers in an effort to battle gang violence.

The Redondo Beach City Council on Thursday passed a $59-million city budget that, among other things, raises fees for developers and business licenses, ups the tax on hotel rooms, adds five new police officers to combat gang violence and creates a commission for teen-agers.

The budget also includes $7.25 million in capital improvements such as seismic work on the city’s main library at Veterans Park and on the pier parking structure. Mayor Brad Parton said the library will have to be temporarily relocated, possibly to a vacant building next to the city’s North Redondo branch library, while the old building is brought into compliance with a state law requiring that all unreinforced masonry buildings be earthquake-proofed.

On the revenue side, the budget includes a 6% across-the-board increase for all business license tax rates, an amount City Manager Tim Casey said is roughly even with the local inflation rate.

The council also mandated a 17% increase in building, planning and other development-related fees, a 6% increase in district assessments for street lighting and landscaping, and a yet-to-be-determined increase in garbage collection rates.

And the 9% transient occupancy tax--a surcharge on the price of hotel rooms--will rise to 10%, with the extra money earmarked for a new Visitors Bureau, intended to draw tourism to the beach city.

The budget contains few new projects but does beef up the police force. The Police Department requested the five additional officers as a response to complaints that inner-city street gangs are moving into Redondo Beach and that white “skinhead” gangs have been clashing in the beach city. Although drive-by shootings, gang wars and other forms of violent gang crime are rare in Redondo Beach, police say gang members have been rousted from local malls and video arcades, spotted cruising Artesia Boulevard and caught scrawling graffiti on city walls.

The Teen Commission, a pet project of Mayor Brad Parton, is intended in part to combat youth gang crime and will explore activities for younger teen-agers.