“Manhattan Beach has been nicknamed the ‘Pearl of the South Bay’ for its beauty and desirability.” (Wikipedia) Further, we deservedly have pride in our volunteer and philanthropic organizations whose generosity and contributions illustrate our characteristics as an ideal community defined by Stephen Covey (“7 Habits of Highly Effective People”): principled-centered goodness; being of one heart with a common vision and direction; and, one mind with an approach to problem solving that is synergistic, not adversarial.

However, the flawed iridescence of our “Pearl” is inadequate resident participation in our city’s governance – a flaw not sufficiently addressed by city council candidates. In the previous election, 21.41 percent of registered voters cast ballots. Perhaps only 50-100 residents actively attend city council meetings and organize to shape our city’s mission; challenge councilmembers when their policy decisions are imperfect; or, praise their gems.

The main culprit for the flaw are 15 past years of city councils directed by a former city manager and city attorney to minimize engagement of residents in public policymaking – allowing only comments at council meetings to pacify the “gadflies,” the civic activists often denigrated by councilmembers.

To magnify the iridescence of our “Pearl” requires “public engagement” by councilmembers, i.e. delegating authority to residents through education, outreach, dialogue, and empowerment in the public policymaking arenas such as strategic planning, labor relations, budgeting, community development, and in the often stated but neglected goal of “maintaining our small beach-town character.” Then our “Pearl” will attain the metaphor of it being something truly rare and admirable.

Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D. Manhattan Beach

Is the Manhattan Beach City Council being fiscally responsible? The multi-millions required to upgrade Manhattan Beach facilities and infrastructure, following massive needed street lighting and sewer repairs, will culminate in increased taxes and further cast doubts on the accuracy and sufficiency of city cash reserves.

Councilmembers D’Errico and Burton are right in confronting the council on fiscal responsibility by targeting flaws in the current budget they opposed and in opposing managerial salary increases acquiesced to by Councilmembers Lesser, Howorth, and Powell. Further, D’Errico and Burton are challenging the Council to forge and adhere to its policymaking responsibilities while holding the city manager accountable for fiscal mandates – thus ending the travesty of trying to do his work as well as their own.

Rather, the Lesser-Howorth-Powell trio defends their rear-guard failures by acquiescing to the continued lack of performance and fiscal accountability by City Manager Carmany. Their failures include squashing budget reform efforts and abdicating responsibility for measurable results-oriented fiscal stability outcomes.

Illustrative of the trio’s malfeasance include not justifying recent department increased salary and benefit packages and establishing yearly performance contracts; and, not approving budget reforms that provide the Council a results scoreboard. For example, Lesser, Howorth, and Powell allocated millions to the Office of the City Manager without any required results. Not one!

An ethos of public service is accountability of taxpayer dollars entrusted to elected officials and public servants. Those who embrace this ethos should stay. Those who resist fired. Councilmembers Burton and D’Errico are aligned and steadfast to this ethos. Support them!

Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D.

Editor Daily Breeze

Re: “Meetings to focus on residents’ priorities,” (Daily Breeze, December 11, 2013)

Manhattan Beach residents should note and applaud Hermosa Beach’s continued “Community Dialogue,” a “public engagement” process whereby elected officials are encouraging Hermosans to influence critical decisions on priorities and revenue generation. Through outreach, consultation, and creative consensus building dynamics, Hermosa Beach is promoting empowerment of residents and consultative democracy.

In contrast, Manhattan Beach has eschewed public engagement. Its elected officials rely on formalized “public participation” characterized by one-way communication patronizing residents into impotency rather than public deliberation and sustained problem solving. Cities and counties throughout California are recognizing the benefits of public engagement.

For Hermosans, the process is benefiting the building of their unique community identity rather than wanting “to be like Manhattan Beach” or “become Rodeo Drive at the beach.”

Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D. Manhattan Beach

To counteract resident alienation, the Manhattan Beach City Council (MBCC) should employ public engagement strategies to increase civic involvement by residents in the deliberation of public policymaking thereby promoting the overall public interest rather than of a minority of interests (e.g. those of real estate developers, architects, contractors, and realtors).

A resident significantly impacted by a major neighborhood construction project appeared before the MBCC pleading for its intervention. Yet, the same resident rejected the responsibility of the MBCC to promote civic engagement but rather stated:

“…[A] few weeks ago you wrote of voter apathy and seemed to blame it on City Council's behavior. I believe our local voter apathy is based on self-centered APATHY…Our residents are too interested in throwing parties in their mcmansions, earning money to pay for their mcmansions, showing off their BMW's and designer duds, taking Johnny to soccer practice, etc. Think about how many garages you pass with the Beach Reporter lying outside all week. City Council's fault?”

The resident is not alone. In a survey of elected officials, 87% viewed the public as disengaged but still valuing yet cautious of deliberative processes. Therefore, are we in a “chicken or egg” quandary? How do we ensure the MBCC meets its governance responsibilities to promote our community’s public interest?

Perhaps the answer is inherent in approximately only 20% of those registered voting in the last municipal election meaning each member of the MBCC did “not” receive votes by over 80% of registered voters. Representative government? No way!

Manhattan Beach >> This city needs to spend $12 million over the next 10 years to bring its aging facilities and parking structures up to par.

Consultants hired to evaluate the condition of 43 city-owned buildings and three parking structures say only 20 of the buildings are in “good” condition. The other 23 buildings are in “very poor,” “poor” or “fair” condition, requiring $10.5 million in maintenance and improvements.

“With the close proximity to the ocean and corrosive nature of the salt air, the life cycles of buildings within the city of Manhattan Beach are substantially reduced,” said consultant Dean Leonard of Faithful+Gould. “(The need for) exterior painting is a common theme with the buildings. It deteriorates really quickly in this environment.”

Leonard identified $3.3 million of “urgent” deferred maintenance at the buildings, with City Hall, the pier, Roundhouse Aquarium and police/fire building in the most need of repair.

On top of the millions identified by the consultants for facility improvements, the city is expected to spend $5.6 million on capital improvement projects in 2013-14 and $20.8 million in 2014-15. Capital improvement projects are infrastructure needs that typically exceed $10,000, said Public Works Director Tony Olmos.

The city has $21.3 million in unfunded projects, including asphalt paving, bike lanes, concrete street repairs and storm-water filtration systems, over the next five years, Olmos said.

The facility assessment consultants said City Hall will require $1.4 million over the next 10 years to repair structural damage, replace windows, repaint exterior and interior walls, renovate the restrooms, and replace the heating and ventilation and interior lighting systems, among other upgrades.

The pier and Roundhouse need $1.6 million in improvements, including repainting, restroom renovation, piping work, welding repairs, piling repairs and pier railing repainting.

Although the public safety building, which houses the Police and Fire Departments, was built in 2005, it will require $1.8 million in repairs over the next 10 years, Leonard said. The stucco finishes are already deteriorating, and the overhead doors, carpeting, water heater, rooftop exhaust fans and control systems need to be replaced.

The city’s three parking structures are in “fair” condition and require $2.1 million to be brought up to standard, according to Pawan Gupta from Walker Restoration Consultants.

Lot 2, located at Highland Avenue and 12th Street, has cracked and deteriorated concrete walls, floors and ceilings; steel reinforcement strands exposed; and vehicular barriers that do meet current code for spacing and load resistance.

“Codes have changed quite a bit since the structures were built (in the 1970s),” Gupta said. “They’ve become a lot more stringent.”

The concrete repair, waterproofing, drainage and architectural fixes require $457,000 over the next 10 years.

Lot 3, located at 12th and Morningside, needs $1.3 million over 10 years to fix spalls in the ceilings and floors, steel corrosion, deteriorating concrete and vehicle barriers that are not up to code, while Lot 4, located at Highland and Rosecrans avenues, needs $368,000 for similar repairs.

Olmos said staff will recommend that the city spend $2 million in 2014 to address the immediate “life safety” improvements to the facilities, and $417,000 in 2014 for the “life safety” repairs in the parking structures. The city would need to spend $2 million per year over the next five years to address all of the deficiencies, he said.

The results of the facility condition assessment and the city’s capital improvement plan will be presented to City Council at its Dec. 10 meeting. The CIP is scheduled to go before the City Council for adoption on Feb. 18.

The assessment report for each city building and parking structure, the CIP plan and the consultants’ presentations are available on the city’s website, www.citymb.info.

Carley Dryden, Reporter, Daily Breeze

Forces against open government

The ironic, but on-point, article headline, “City Council imposes 15-minute rule while embracing transparency” (The Beach Reporter, Oct. 3), illustrates the continued hypocrisy of the Manhattan Beach City Council’s commitment to open government by imposing duplicitous measures to gag the voices of residents.

Specifically, under the guise of improving meeting management, the time limits reinforce other actions to silence opposition (e.g. via limiting residents to one three-minute comment by grouping numerous policy issues under one agenda item). Further, the council failed to address strengthening required speech protections under California’s open meeting laws, but rather trampled the spirit of these laws to silence speech and redress of grievances. In addition, in an act of cowardice, it reneged on a commitment to allow public comment on policy decisions made at its meetings prior to their conclusion.

It has been nearly 100 days since the Daily Breeze editorial, “MB needs to better manage its meetings,” chided the council on problems that still remain – late meetings; postponing of agenda items; lack of transparency; and how “council members themselves contribute to the interminable length of the meetings by each making extensive remarks before every vote.”

The measures to silence residents is antithetical to addressing the real source of these problems, namely, the City Council’s failure to address its deficiencies in holding itself accountable to policymaking roles and responsibilities and holding the city manager and staff accountable for policy implementation. As the Daily Breeze stated, “Manhattan Beach is a first-class city. It deserves first-class meeting management.”

Edward Caprielian

Manhattan Beach

The recent crime spree in Manhattan Beach is terrifying residents. These incidents include homes ransacked, residents pistol-whipped, students robbed at gunpoint, and car thefts – leaving many in fear of their lives and under siege. The perception if not the reality of increased crime is raising questions on the viability of the Manhattan Beach Police Department, particularly its leadership. Unfortunately, the MBPD Strategic Plan does not provide adequate reassurance.

Although the MBPD Strategic Plan focuses on needed priorities to strengthen management of its human and financial resources (e.g. leadership development, operational effectiveness, inner-departmental communications, teamwork, and increased employee proficiency), it omits concrete goals and objectives aimed at MBPD’s ultimate mission – strengthening public safety.

To further confidence in the MBPD, its strategic plan should incorporate specific measurable results-oriented objectives aimed at reducing those crimes of key concern to the community, e.g. burglaries, armed robberies, violence, and threats to our youth. These measurable results would similarly serve to determine whether MBPD’s management priorities, as described above, correlate with achieving its bottom line mission “To protect life, liberty, and property.…”

Further, the MBPD strategic plan should replace generalized statements of intentions and activities with performance outcomes. Focusing on intentions and activities is akin to measuring the success of baseball players by their number of times at bat versus results measured by batting average, runs batted in, and home runs.

Outcome measures in public safety include crimes against persons and property per capita; percentage of crimes cleared; operating and maintenance expenditures per capita; and, resident ratings of safety in their neighborhoods.

These recommendations are commensurate in achieving performance accountability of police departments with those by the California Commission on Peace Officers Standards and Training, the Commission on Accreditation of Law Enforcement Agencies, and the United States Department of Justice.

Edward C. Caprielian, Ph.D.

As a car owner, it is essential to stay on top of your vehicle's maintenance to ensure that it meets the required safety standards for driving on public roads. One crucial aspect of vehicle maintenance is the MOT (Ministry of Transport) test.

The MOT test is an annual test that all vehicles over three years old must undergo to ensure that they meet the minimum safety and environmental standards. To get a car MOT check, you can use our free and instant MOT checker tool available online.

You can check car MOT history as well, to see when the last test was done, the results, and the expiry date of the current certificate. If you're wondering ‘is my car MOT due?’, you can find out by entering your vehicle registration number online.

Use our online MOT check to check car tax and MOT. You can also check the expiry date of your car's current MOT certificate to see when you need to renew it.

It is important to note that driving your car without a valid MOT certificate is illegal and can result in significant fines and penalty points on your driving license. Check MOT, and even get your MOT history at Service My Car. In addition to the MOT test, you should also check your car tax status to ensure that you are driving legally. You can use our online MOT checker to not just get details about your MOT, but also to check car tax and book your MOT online by entering your vehicle registration number.

If you are caught driving without valid tax or MOT, you can face hefty fines and penalty points on your driving license. Still left wondering, ‘when is my car MOT due?’ Check and book your MOT using our online MOT check feature.

If your car fails its MOT test, you will receive a list of the items that need to be repaired or replaced to meet the required standards. Don’t stay wondering ‘when does my car need an MOT’ when you can check and book your MOT with us in a matter of seconds. You will have a limited time frame to complete the necessary repairs and retest your car.

If you fail to complete the repairs and retest your car within the given time frame, you will need to book a new MOT test, and you will not be able to drive your car legally until it passes the test. It is essential to take care of your car's maintenance to prevent it from failing the MOT test.

when does a new car need an MOT

Even new cars have to carry out the MOT service. If you have a new car and you’re wondering ‘when does a new car need an MOT’ - the government advises you to get an MOT done within the first 3 years of its registration.

Moreover, regular servicing can help identify potential issues early and address them before they become more significant problems. You can also check your car's MOT history online to see if there are any recurring issues that need to be addressed.

A lot of people wonder - ‘if car fails MOT how long do I have to fix it?’ The government has stated that you have 10 working days to get your car fixed. If you’ve booked an MOT and your car has unfortunately failed, it’s no matter to fret about. Just book a service or repair with us, and we’ll ensure your car is roadworthy in no time. In conclusion, the MOT test is an essential part of vehicle maintenance that all car owners must take seriously. To check your car's MOT status, you can use the online MOT checker tool or enter your vehicle registration number online.

It is also important to check your car tax status to ensure that you are driving legally. If your car fails its MOT test, you will need to complete the necessary repairs and retest your car within the given time frame. Regular servicing and maintenance can help prevent your car from failing the MOT test and keep it in good working order. Whether you require a service, a repair, or just your MOT done - look no further than Service My Car. Book online or download the Service My Car app today.

As a car owner, it is essential to stay on top of your vehicle's maintenance to ensure that it meets the required safety standards for driving on public roads. One crucial aspect of vehicle maintenance is the MOT (Ministry of Transport) test.

The MOT test is an annual test that all vehicles over three years old must undergo to ensure that they meet the minimum safety and environmental standards. To get a car MOT check, you can use our free and instant MOT checker tool available online. You can check car MOT history as well, to see when the last test was done, the results, and the expiry date of the current certificate. If you're wondering ‘is my car MOT due?’, you can find out by entering your vehicle registration number online.

Use our online Mot check to check car tax and MOT. You can also check the expiry date of your car's current MOT certificate to see when you need to renew it.

It is important to note that driving your car without a valid MOT certificate is illegal and can result in significant fines and penalty points on your driving license. Check MOT and even get your MOT history at Service My Car.

In addition to the MOT test, you should also check your car tax status to ensure that you are driving legally. You can use our online MOT checker to not just get details about your MOT, but also to check car tax and book your MOT online by entering your vehicle registration number.

If you are caught driving without valid tax or MOT, you can face hefty fines and penalty points on your driving license. Still left wondering, ‘when is my car MOT due?’ Check and book your MOT using our online MOT check feature.

If your car fails its MOT test, you will receive a list of the items that need to be repaired or replaced to meet the required standards. Don’t stay wondering ‘when does my car need an MOT’ when you can check and book your MOT with us in a matter of seconds. You will have a limited time frame to complete the necessary repairs and retest your car.

If you fail to complete the repairs and retest your car within the given time frame, you will need to book a new MOT test, and you will not be able to drive your car legally until it passes the test. It is essential to take care of your car's maintenance to prevent it from failing the MOT test.

When does a new car need an MOT

Even new cars have to carry out the MOT service. If you have a new car and you’re wondering ‘when does a new car need an MOT’ - the government advises you to get an MOT done within the first 3 years of its registration.

Moreover, regular servicing can help identify potential issues early and address them before they become more significant problems. You can also check your car's MOT history see if there are any recurring issues that need to be addressed.

A lot of people wonder - ‘if car fails MOT how long do I have to fix it?’ The government has stated that you have 10 working days to get your car fixed. If you’ve booked an MOT and your car has unfortunately failed, it’s no matter to fret about. Just book a service or repair with us, and we’ll ensure your car is roadworthy in no time.

In conclusion, the MOT test is an essential part of vehicle maintenance that all car owners must take seriously. To check your car's MOT status, you can use the online MOT checker tool or enter your vehicle registration number online. It is also important to check your car tax status to ensure that you are driving legally.

If your car fails its MOT test, you will need to complete the necessary repairs and retest your car within the given time frame.

Regular servicing and maintenance can help prevent your car from failing the MOT test and keep it in good working order. Whether you require a service, a repair, or just your MOT done - look no further than Service My Car. Book online or download the Service My Car app today.

Governance, as it relates to governing by the Manhattan Beach City Council (MBCC), seeks to bring stakeholders together to participate in the dialogue, decision-making, and implementation of solutions to common problems or goals. The word governance derives from a Greek verb “to steer.” Unfortunately, over the past decades the MBCC has lost control of its distinct role and abdicated the steering of public policymaking to a city manager and city staff.

Councilmember Tony D’Errico and Councilmember Mark Burton have courageously brought forth the challenge for the council to reverse course and reap the benefits of policy governance. These embrace centering the MBCC to provide visionary leadership and strategic concentration on the “what” and “why” of city operations; a focus on desired results and outcomes for the residents; and, a proactive, not reactive, forward-looking focus on the future of Manhattan Beach.

The achievement of these benefits requires full council support; strictly requiring the city manager to focus on his management responsibilities to implement council policies; monitoring his achievement of desired end-results; and, ensuring performance accountability by the city manager and staff in matching taxpayer dollars consumed to benefits gained.

We, the residents, as stakeholders, must support the efforts of those councilmembers willing to take the helm of policy governance including accepting the challenging responsibilities; demonstrating the required competencies; and, most importantly, having the will to steer the MBCC through unchartered waters towards a destination promoting the public interest and common good, not politics as usual.