Hermosa Beach

Tattoo artist tattoos city with lawsuit

by Robb Fulcher

“Everybody’s daughter has one.”

A Nov. 20 hearing has been set in a federal lawsuit by a tattoo artist who says he’s barred from setting up shop in Hermosa Beach.

The tattoo artist, Johnny Anderson, filed a similar lawsuit against the city of Torrance. That lawsuit was settled, with Anderson receiving financial compensation from the city and signing an agreement not to disclose the terms of the settlement, said a spokesman for the city attorney’s office, who declined to elaborate.

The lawsuit against Hermosa claims that the city is violating the Constitutional rights of Anderson, who operates a tattoo shop in Los Angeles, by disallowing tattoo parlors within the city limits.“Tattooing is prohibited in Hermosa Beach,” Anderson’s lawsuit states. “There is no zone in the city that allows the establishment of a facility devoted exclusively to tattooing.”

The Hermosa Beach City Council in 1995 considered amending the municipal code to allow tattoo parlors, but decided against it, the lawsuit states.  The lawsuit notes the popularity of tattoos, and states that the art form has overcome an “unseemly” reputation and enjoyed “a resurgence of interest and something of a rehabilitation” in the past 15 years.

“More than 20 percent of American adults have one or more tattoos, including movie stars, policemen, lawyers” and others, the lawsuit states. “The designs that are applied have become enormously varied and complex, reflecting kinship, artistry, the communication of messages, and self-expression.”

Proper fit?

Mayor Sam Edgerton said he’s not against tattoo wearers or the people who operate tattoo businesses.  “Everybody’s daughter has one,” he said.  But, Edgerton added, he doesn’t see the addition of tattoo parlors “as helping the town.”  “I can see both sides of the argument,” he said.   

In the ‘90s Edgerton joined a Council majority rejecting the parlors. He said the possibility of a tattoo haven in Hermosa drew the attention of many tattoo artists.  “If you become the first beach city to do it, you could have 20 of these guys jumping on you,” Edgerton said.  Tattoo parlors “fit in certain places, and the general thinking is that there are other places they don’t fit in,” he said.  

Premature?

Councilman Michael Keegan called Anderson’s lawsuit premature, saying the tattoo artist turned to the courts before trying the simpler route of applying for a city permit.  “He has sued us, assuming we wouldn’t approve him,” Keegan said.

Keegan said the wearing of tattoos has become mainstream, and the City Council could consider allowing tattoo parlors, and restrict them to certain parts of town, such as along Pacific Coast Highway.  “I don’t want to attract them, but I don’t want to get in the way of the people’s right to get inked,” Keegan said.

Anderson, who co-owns a tattoo parlor on Vermont Avenue in LA, “has a number of regular customers, many of whom come from Hermosa Beach and other South Bay cities, most of which prohibit the establishment of tattoo parlors, and it is his desire to establish a tattoo parlor in Hermosa Beach,” according to the lawsuit.  “He has received training in the safe application of tattoos, both in a yearlong apprenticeship and from the Los Angeles County Health Department, from which he received certification that allows him to practice in most of the county,” the lawsuit states.

“During the years he has practiced his art, he has been careful to adhere strictly to the sanitary and health guidelines advocated by leading tattoo artist associations and the county Health Department, and, although he has applied thousands of tattoos, he has done so without health-related incident,” according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit offers a brief history of the tattoo, which is traced back to “the iceman” discovered in 1991 in the Italian Alps, who had “markings on his frozen and mummified remains that appear to be tattoos.” ER 

Hermosa Beach

No lane reduction, no Plaza wall

City of HB preserves Pier Avenue, Plaza

by Robb Fulcher

A busy City Council rejected permanent traffic-lane reductions on Pier Avenue and nixed a proposal for a concrete wall bordering the Pier Plaza, after many residents said the changes would be unnecessary and burdensome.

The council also raised its own pay in a split vote, postponed discussion of a proposed deal with Coca Cola to place beverage-vending machines at city parks and the Community Center, and delayed approval of an upscale restaurant in the Hermosa Pavilion mall on Pacific Coast Highway.



Four lanes again

The council voted 4-1 to end a temporary lane reduction on upper Pier Avenue, the town’s main drag. City officials had re-striped the roadway from four lanes to two in a summertime experiment that was repeatedly slammed by residents.

At Tuesday’s council meeting 13 residents said they wanted the roadway restored to four lanes, and one resident supported the two-lane plan.

Mayor Sam Edgerton, who cast the dissenting council vote, said two lanes would be safer.

“With me safety has always been the biggest thing,” he said.

No wall

The council voted unanimously to reject plans to protect the pedestrian Plaza from runaway vehicles with a low, 30-foot long concrete wall at the Plaza’s eastern end. The council instead opted for sturdier bollards to replace the row of low metal cylinders that currently protect the Plaza.

Edgerton likened the proposed wall to the concrete bordering freeways, and said more expensive granite bollards would be worth the extra money.

In a related action, the council decided to place a 15-foot tall pedestal clock in the center of the Plaza instead of the eastern end. The clock was donated to the city by Hermosa Kiwanis.

Councilman JR Reviczky, who had previously argued unsuccessfully for the center placement, marveled that in the end he got his way with no resistance.

Pay raise

The council voted 3-2 to nearly double its pay to $530 a month, marking the first increase in 20 years. A doubling of the pay to $600 a month would have represented a 5 percent increase per year, city officials said.

Edgerton and Councilman Pete Tucker dissented.

Tucker said it was “not appropriate” for the council to receive a larger increase than city employees, who struggle to wring raises of 5 percent or less from the council. Tucker also cited the council members’ available medical coverage and their $350-a-month auto allowance as adequate compensation.

Reviczky said he works hard for the city and was “not embarrassed” to ask for more money.

“I’m tired of making 36 cents an hour,” he said.

Councilman Michael Keegan said he represents the city in four or five out-of-town meetings per month, missing work and hiring extra help at his business. He said the increased pay will reduce the hardship and will keep the council job “open to people in all walks of life.” ER

Hermosa Beach

Plans are put on hold for an upscale hotel on PCH

by Robb Fulcher

Plans are up in the air for an upscale hotel on Pacific Coast Highway where a BMW auto dealership once stood.

“We are reevaluating all the options out there,” said Allan MacKenzi, president of the Torrance-based Mar Ventures Inc., which has planned to build a 72-unit project on the land. Mar Ventures owns the property at Pacific Coast Highway and 30th Street.

At a meeting last year, Mar Ventures told neighbors of the site that some of the hotel units would be built as condominiums selling for about $1.3 million.

“The residential market is not as strong as it was a year ago,” MacKenzi said on Monday.

He said plans for a hotel have not been abandoned, but he also did not rule out a sale of the property by Mar Ventures.

“We are trying to come up with the best project for the city of Hermosa Beach,” he said.

Neighbors were told of plans for a hotel with a restaurant and pool, and a pedestrian bridge across 30th Street leading to the hotel lobby, located where a parking lot now sits.

The non-condominium hotel rooms would be available at rates comparable to those of the Beach House Inn along The Strand in Hermosa.

About 12 neighbors attending the meeting last year seemed agreeable to the project, which would stretch from 30th Street along the west side of PCH to a Lotus sports car dealer located on a small portion of the land that belonged to a BMW dealership. ER

Hermosa Beach - About Town

Councilman remembered - Former three-term Councilman Jack T. Belasco, who served on the Hermosa Beach Council throughout the 1960s, passed away last weekend, current council members said. (A profile of Belasco, which appeared in South Bay People, is reprinted on page 30.)  “He was a true public servant,” a choked-up Carol Reznichek told the council on Tuesday. Belasco, like Reznichek, was a parish member of St. Cross by-the-Sea Episcopal Church. Reznichek said a service was planned at the church on Sept. 30.  “He was one of our own,” Mayor Sam Edgerton said.  Belasco was a founder of the Hermosa Beach Sister City Association and a driving force in programs to aid sister city Loreto, Mexico, in matters such as paramedic training and firefighting equipment.  He also served on the council that completed the Hermosa Beach Civic Center, which was dedicated in its current form in August 1962.  

Eatery stalled - City officials will take another look at plans for a 7,000 square-foot restaurant inside the Hermosa Pavilion mall on PCH just north of Pier Avenue, after some residents expressed concern about closing times and an additional alcohol-serving establishment near downtown.

The City Council placed Stillwater restaurant’s conditional use permit on hold and agreed to hold a public hearing on the matter, probably in October. Stillwater is described as an upscale eatery with adjoining wine and cheese shops. The restaurant area would be larger than the Union Cattle Company restaurant, which occupies a large building on Manhattan Avenue just off Pier Avenue.

Casino school - The Hermosa Beach Education Foundation hosts its fall fundraiser, “Casino Night,” 7 p.m. to midnight Saturday, Sept. 30 at Gallery C in downtown Hermosa.  
The evening will feature appetizers and “buffet bites” catered by Simple Gourmet and desserts by Sweets for the Soul. One drink ticket per reservation is also included. Tickets are $100, cocktail attire is encouraged and patrons must be 21 or older.  The evening’s entertainment will include blackjack, craps, double roulette and Texas hold ‘em. Bidding on silent auction items will be available until 11 p.m.   The Hermosa Beach Education Foundation is a 14-year-old nonprofit corporation operated entirely by volunteers that promotes investment in the city’s Blue Ribbon public schools, “helping to bridge the gap between what the state funds and what kids need.”  Using fundraising drives and events and soliciting local businesses and community groups for funds, the foundation has helped pay for bread-and-butter school programs in the arts, sciences, technology, reading and physical education.  

Casino Night tickets can be purchased online with a credit card at www.hbef.org or by checks made payable to Hermosa Beach Education Foundation and mailed to Casino Night, PO Box 864, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254.

Handy reminder - Hermosans are invited to leave their painted handprints on the walls outside the municipal skate park to mark the city’s 100th birthday next year.  For $5 per kid and $10 per adult, people can come to the park 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16, dip their hands in paint, leave an imprint on the walls and sign their names. Plans call for the handprints to remain up throughout 2007, gracing the walls along Ardmore Avenue and Pier Avenue. Proceeds will benefit Centennial events throughout next year.  The event, spearheaded by well-known Kiwanian Dick McCurdy, is sponsored by Hermosa Beach Kiwanis and the Hermosa Arts Foundation. Also on hand will be Hermosa Beach Neighborhood Watch and the HBPD, offering fingerprint identification for kids.  For more information call 318-0280, listen to the phone company recording, then hang up and dial 1-310-318-0280.

Coastal cleanup - Area residents will gather at 50 LA County sites, including the Hermosa Beach Pier, for California Coastal Cleanup Day Saturday, Sept. 16. Plastic gloves and trash bags will be provided; for info call 1-800-HEAL-BAY.

The 21-year-old Heal the Bay is dedicated to making Santa Monica Bay and Southern California coastal waters safe and healthy for people and marine life. Heal the Bay is one of the largest nonprofit environmental organizations in the county, with more than 10,000 members.

The organization focuses on education, outreach, research and advocacy through programs like Coastal Cleanup Day each September and the Santa Monica Pier Aquarium. Beach Report Card weekly and annual updates are available at healthebay.org. ER 

Letters to the Editor

You can’t change Pier’s stripes

Dear ER:

During Hermosa’s birth, city traffic flow planners designated Santa Fe Ave (Pier Ave.) as a primary traffic artery. Primary streets are necessary to handle higher volumes of present and future vehicular travel.

The restriping of Pier Ave. and reduction of its intended traffic flow function from a primary traffic artery to a secondary traffic corridor has caused unnecessary traffic congestion on Pier Ave. To seek relief from this unnecessary traffic disruption in residential neighborhoods residents and visitors alike are forced to use secondary residential streets. This increase of traffic multiplies the safety risk to all Hermosa’s, particularly its youth.

Good traffic planning is critical to the safety of our citizens. The city council must conclude the Pier Ave traffic test. The council majority must refute Councilman Sam Edgerton’s assertions that the implementation of the results of this traffic reconfiguration test will benefit our residents. This assertion flies in the face of thoughtful logic and surely does not benefit Hermosa’s residential community.

Gary Brutsch

Hermosa Beach


Hermosa's stripe tease

Dear ER:

Robb Fulcher's story regarding the Pier Avenue four-lane to two-lane, reconfigured striping test brought to attention that a few in power seem absolutely hell-bent on jamming a two-lane Pier Avenue upon the city's people (“Hermosa residents to chart future of Main Drag” ER Aug. 31, 2006). Widening sidewalks for more eating/drinking, display of clothing racks, and placement of other "merchandise" on Pier Avenue public sidewalks, with traffic congestion and intrusion be damned. However, exactly which residents will be charting the decision? The councilmembers and their friends? Now that many Hermosans, visitors, and especially the cabbies, are using shortcuts through residential neighborhoods to avoid Pier Avenue, the council may want the main drag to be a wall-to-wall black concrete slab like lower Pier Plaza with the non-existent curbs, while asserting there would be lanes and parking spaces, but of course never having meant it. (That was one of the council's deceptions fostered during the Pier Plaza approvals.)

Fulcher's report also indicated councilmember(s) said the people needed to be better sold on its two-lane design. Better propagandized? Some on council must assume the average IQ of Hermosa residents and business people are lower than their own.

Per Fulcher's report, the council, evidently to avoid hearing directly from angry Hermosans, will further insulate themselves from the two-lane issue and drag it out by directing the people back to the council's puppet Public Works Commission on Wednesday, September 20 at 7 p.m. for a repeat public hearing on the two-lane blunder. There the council will likely try to orchestrate support and attempt to neutralize resistance.

The people have already spoken, so why does the council need to further waste the peoples' time? Doesn't the council get it? And by the way, all this is not about road flooding, pavement condition, sidewalk condition, or pedestrian safety as some council members have disingenuously alluded to in their comments. Those issues are incidental and an excuse for spending at least $6 to $10 million of the peoples' money on the widening of city sidewalks for nighttime eating and drinking, while dumping more traffic impact into the residential areas.

Hermosa's Public Works director and city manager will be expected to include in their staff report for the September 20 public hearing all the letters, emails, and documentation of the phone calls they and the council have received from the people regarding the two-lane striping matter. That’s because those were the communication methods they and the council have been directing the people to use rather than coming to the meetings in person. Those are important public testimony and hopefully are not being sifted from the records and placed out of the peoples' view.

Howard Longacre

Hermosa Beach

Hermosa Beach News

 We Get Letters

Not enough income

Hermosa Beach has a severe imbalance of late-night liquor-consuming visitors when residents are home. Cash from those visitors is going to restaurant operators, cabs and other associated entities, with a tiny trickle reaching the city to pay for the safe environment provided them.

City spending for policing and public safety is now $43,000 per day. Citywide, policing is stretched thin as an increasingly large share has to be focused in Hermosa's bar district to prevent riot, serious injury, death and property damage from the interaction of large crowds of intoxicated visitors there.

Council members of the last decade continue to be singularly obsessed in having more restaurant space selling liquor. They refuse to recognize the resident impact and simple arithmetic of how the policing and lawsuit costs related to this type of business continues to escalate while city infrastructure and staffing is in decline. The city is receiving just $780 per day total from the city's portion of sales tax from all of the full liquor-selling restaurants citywide, yet still the city accepts and encourages applications for new and existing restaurant/bar businesses that want more square footage and with increasingly late liquor-selling hours.

Thus removal at election or by recall of those on council with continuing restaurant and liquor expansion voting records may be the only way Hermosa residents take back their city as this council and administration is not representing the long-term viability of Hermosa Beach as a residential and daytime beach city.

Howard Longacre, Hermosa Beach

Eroding welfare

Directly and indirectly, the welfare of every Hermosan is eroded by the proliferation of alcohol outlets.

The Hermosa Pavilion applicant plans a new 8,000-square-foot drinking destination that will radiate impact throughout our cherished neighborhoods, degrading our safety and living environment.

During a public hearing in July, the applicant's pitch was full of fluffy talk about cuisine, décor and culinary expertise, to distract from the inescapable issues.

An approval if granted would require evaluation in isolation. Aggregate impacts and high concentration of alcohol businesses within our community to be dismissed. Risk variables, complaints, public testimony and police service calls (alcohol-related) all to be dismissed as immaterial, to achieve the goal of increasing alcohol density. What is the benefit of increased alcohol density? The inordinate amount of city staff time to rehabilitate the pink elephant (1601, 1605, 1617 PCH) is a dismal failure if this alcohol land-use permit is granted by the city.

In the interest of neighborhood and community, the pending application submitted by the owner of the Hermosa Pavilion requires rejection-denial. This 8,000-square-foot commercial space then becomes an opportunity for the owner to focus on an ideal leasing option such as a professional (low-impact) office tenant to offset the popular high-impact gym tenant that operates 24/7.

The next public hearing regarding this matter is scheduled Tuesday, Aug. 15, at 7 p.m., in City Council chambers. Protect neighborhood and your safety.

Patty Egerer, Hermosa Beach

Sunday Letters to the Editor

HB bar plan a threat to public safety

This letter represents a plea that the Hermosa Beach Planning Commission and City Council exercise whatever influence they have to deny a permit for a 15,000-square-foot restaurant/bar at the Hermosa Pavilion. I currently own a business in Hermosa -- after 33 years in law enforcement for Los Angeles County. There was a time when I didn't think any city could have too many bars. What has happened to our little community shows me I was wrong.

The proposed monster bar at the Pavilion is not planned to meet the needs of the Hermosa drinkers. If every resident drank, we'd still have plenty of bars. It's an effort to draw drinkers and their wallets from out of the area. Make no mistake, that effort will be successful. As a former gang investigator, I found that every unsavory element imaginable between here and Riverside would find his way to the 91 freeway and drive toward the sun. That would drop them right here, about six blocks north of the proposed mega-bar.

This proposal represents a huge public safety issue ripe for a citizen's backlash. Weekend policing/patrols and 911 response times are already seriously compromised by the Pier Plaza bar scene, even when things are going smoothly. Between 1 a.m. and 2:30 a.m., I have to assume the majority of drivers here in Hermosa are drunk and trying to find their way out of town.

This bar is being planned and bankrolled by a truly interesting character, and local officials know it. He has relied on brinkmanship and foot dragging on other issues with the Pavilion, and the notion of a real, viable, restaurant is laughable. If the restaurant doesn't make him money -- which it won't -- he'll have a bigger bar. If he has entertainment, he can charge a cover, which is cash and under the radar as to reportable revenue.

In terms of planning, let's make some plans for our kids and their kids. This is not Moreno Valley. The folks who can afford to live here are bright, successful and obviously did something right with their lives, or have a trust fund. Please don't allow our elected officials to turn their backs on these people and pander to the developer and an army of horny twenty-somethings who will descend on our community. They will not be driving down here for dinner.

-- RICHARD HALLIBURTON

Hermosa Beach 

Hermosa Beach – Letters to the Editor

Audit ‘em

Dear ER:

I read with great interest last week’s letter “Drink to me thine eyes.”  I am in complete agreement with the writer’s scathing disapproval of what is happening in Hermosa Beach’s downtown bar district.  As a Hermosa Beach home owner, I am disgusted and appalled at what our fair city has become. 

All of our cops are down in the bar area.  You never see police around the rest of the city Thursday thru Sunday nights.  I hope my house isn’t being robbed because there would not be any police watching out for me.  They are all downtown stopping the fights, urinating, underage drinking, and doing their own share of checking out the chicks and admiring groupies.  It is pathetic.  Recent figures show that residential burglaries in Hermosa rose in 2004 from 137 in 2004 to 187 in 2005.  That is a whopping 36 percent.  It is no wonder, as our cops are all downtown where the fights and scenery are.

I heard recently that one homeowner who lives up the street from the pier awakened at midnight to strange noises outside his house and after looking out his window, discovered a young couple exploring their carnal knowledge on his front yard.  He turned the sprinklers on and that ended it.  He didn’t even report it to the cops.  How much of this sort of thing isn’t even added to the list of published statistics?

If I want to go downtown in my own city for a dinner on Friday night after working hard all week, I would have to wait in line behind a screaming bunch of tiny-bobs and gang bangers who live everywhere but here to get into a restaurant where the decibel level approaches the level of a jack hammer.  And then when I did get out of there with my lady without being thrown up on, leered at, and commented about, I could go home to my peaceful neighborhood…maybe.

Do I have to go to a neighboring city to eat on weekends?  Have we ever asked the ABC Board to audit those Pier bars to see if they are even paying their fair shared of city taxes?

Anonymous

Hermosa Beach

Hermosa Beach – Letters to the Editor

Drink to me with thine ayes

Dear ER:

The downtown drinking district continues to generate numerous quality of life issues and a negative image for our community.  Destruction is not limited to vandalism spilling into our neighborhoods. 

On May 25, 2006 during a candidates’ forum a resident spoke of violence (drunken brawl) that occurred in front of their home.  The victim’s scream awakened residents in the early morning hours, as the assault was in process.  I was especially distressing to witness because the victim was a woman.

The atmosphere of public intoxication, which is encouraged pay no dividends.

How unfortunate, families and children who desire to visit the beautiful beachfront and pier have to pass a throng of bars.

Hermosa’s permissive drinking policies in the downtown bar district is having a debilitating effect on our community.  The erosion of public safety touches the lives of every resident and property owner. 

Remedial action in the bar district is essential and will require significant policy changes.  The answer is not to saddle residents with more costs to support a highly undesirable section of town.

Name withheld by request

Hermosa Beach

     Hermosa Beach News

Man is killed in late night traffic crash

by Robb Fulcher

A 36-year-old Hermosa man was killed when the 'pickup truck he was driving went out of control on Sepulveda Boulevard and smashed into a metal wall outside Hotel Hermosa shortly before 1 a.m. last Wednesday, police said.

Only minutes before, the man had plowed into parked cars on two Hermosa streets, police said. He then drove the 2001 Toyota Tundra into Manhattan and was making his way south on Sepulveda where he struck some concrete trashcans on the northwest corner of the intersection with Artesia Boulevard, police said.

The pickup also struck the concrete median and knocked over a traffic light pole. The vehicle skidded sideways across part of the intersection, flipped over and went the rest of the way upside down, a passing motorist told police.

The pickup struck the wall and came to a stop upside down. The driver, who was alone in the vehicle, was taken to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center where he died from his injuries about 6:15 a.m., Manhattan Beach Police Sgt. Bryan Klatt said.

The Los Angeles County Coroner's Office identified the man as Lance Juracka.

Hermosa police first began getting calls when the pickup hit a parked vehicle near 16th Street and Hermosa Avenue, Sgt. Tom Thompson said. As police rushed to find the motorist they got further calls saying the pickup had bashed into a parked car at about 22nd Street and Manhattan Avenue. A witness to the second crash said the parked car was pushed 50 feet down the roadway.

"All three crashes happened within six minutes of each other," Thompson said.

"We were getting calls left and right."  Some of the initial callers reported that the pickup was heading south, unintentionally throwing off police a little. Just the same, officers arrived at Artesia and Sepulveda/Pacific Coast Highway about the time the pickup got there, Thompson said. Long streaks of paint were seen at two of the crash sites, and police said the pickup appeared to be equipped for painting jobs. ER

On Local Government

The saddest rule of government

by Bob Pinzler

One of the maxims told to me about government when I was first elected to office was a simple, sad, and frustrating one: “You don’t get a crosswalk until a kid gets killed.”

The accident that occurred on PCH two weeks ago, killing a teenage boy trying to cross the street, was tragic not just because it was likely preventable. It is tragic because the need for a signaled crosswalk at that intersection has been known for years.

But, before you start blaming the city for the lack of movement on this issue, it is important to note that very often the driving force in keeping structures like a traffic signal from being installed are the people who live in the neighborhood. In this specific case, neighbors have long been concerned that a light at that intersection would make it easier for people to go around the crowded intersection at PCH and Pier, thus bringing more traffic to their streets.

No question about it, traffic in the South Bay has become a nightmare. During rush hours, a driver can be backed up long enough to miss green light after green light. Little is more frustrating than being in one of those jams. However, so long as we try to live within our present infrastructure while adding more people in to use it, traffic will get nothing but worse.

No easy answer or, for that matter, not even a difficult solution is on the horizon. Public transportation in this area will never reach the point that people will leave their cars in large enough numbers to make a significant difference. In addition, secondary highways, the official title of streets such as PCH, can only be widened so much, especially in areas where merchants are reliant on street parking for the success of their businesses. But still the people come.

Many of the highways and local roads in our area carry more than twice the traffic they were designed for, especially during peak-use hours. It is expected to get worse, causing more driver frustration. That brings us back to our stoplight on PCH. The primary rationale for installing one must be safety, particularly since adding one more light to PCH will do little to help, or hinder, traffic flow.

The problem is not exclusively ours. In another South Bay city, residents on two sides of a major street are fighting over a traffic light that CalTrans has said is necessary to reduce traffic accidents. The two sides of the street are in different cities. One says the light is needed. The other is concerned that, by introducing a traffic light, more “cut-through” traffic will occur in their neighborhood. In the meantime, while this impasse is going on, people are being injured and property is being damaged.

We are stuck in a problem without a good solution. In those cases, we need to do what we can until someone … anyone … comes up with something new.

Hermosa Beach News

Teen was fun-loving, precocious, adventurous

by Robb Fulcher

A 15-year-old Hermosan who was struck and killed in an intersection last week was a sweet-natured, precocious, adventurous young man who loved surfing and rock climbing, family members said.

Ian Wright “was walking at nine months, and rock climbing at nine months and one day,” his mother Ellen Wright said.

The teenager also was a “voracious reader” who loved history and mythology, and fantasy offerings such as “The Lord of the Rings.”

Wright had been attending ninth grade at Village Glen School for autistic students in Culver City and was on track for advanced placement courses that would help him get into college.

He had Asperger Syndrome or AS, which the National Institutes of Health describes as an “autism spectrum disorder” often causing some impairment of communication skills.

Wright’s mother said AS is sometimes called “high-functioning autism.” Her son was good at taking in information but sometimes found it difficult to grasp “subtlety and nuance,” and faced challenges in communicating what he knew.

His AS sometimes appeared in social interactions as well.

“He would walk up to a perfect stranger in a grocery store and ask if he knew about [the Egyptian god] Osiris,” Wright’s mother said.

Wright was an organ donor, and after his death organs were removed for donation, his mother said.

Fatal accident

Wright died Friday night, one day after he was struck about 5 p.m. as he crossed Pacific Coast Highway at 16th Street, one of Hermosa’s most dangerous intersections, on a “Razr” scooter, police said.

Wright was crossing the six-lane highway going from east to west, within the painted crosswalk, and had cleared all but the final lane when he was struck by a southbound 2002 Mitsubishi Lancer driven by a 25-year-old West Covina woman, police said.

City police officers and Fire Department paramedics treated Wright at the scene and rushed him to Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office listed head injuries as the cause of death. Police said Wright was not wearing a helmet and tried to cross PCH when it was unsafe to do so.

New stoplights

Workers had begun installing traffic lights at the intersection this week, paid for by the developer of the refurbished Hermosa Pavilion mall that stands at the intersection. City Manager Steve Burrell said developer Gene Shook offered to pay for the traffic signal in 2003, and worked with Caltrans to get it installed.

As the installation neared, a number of people living east of the intersection told the City Council that the signal might contribute to traffic problems in their neighborhood. The council continued to back the installation, but promised that city officials would take steps to fix any unintended problems if they occur.

Hermosa Beach Police Sgt. Tom Thompson said he expects the traffic light to ease the safety issues at the busy PCH intersection. He pointed to a another troublesome intersection at PCH and Fifth Street where left-turn signals were added to the traffic lights about six months ago, making it safer to cross the street.

“We engineered the problem away and the same thing will happen at 16th Street, we believe,” Thompson said.

He said the 16th Street intersection had become more troublesome after a 24 Hour Fitness facility opened in the Hermosa Pavilion, and people began parking along the east side of PCH and crossing to and from the mall, sometimes at the crosswalk and sometimes not.

Most years pass in Hermosa without a traffic death. The last time a pedestrian was killed was several years ago at PCH and Pier Avenue, in an accident caused by the pedestrian, Thompson said.

In addition to Wright’s mother, who works as director of aviation technology at LAX, he is survived by his father Bill Wright, owner of Wright Productions independent film and video production company and part-time master at Dive N’ Surf, and his sister Katie, a senior at Mira Costa High School.

A funeral service was scheduled for 11 a.m. Saturday at American Martyrs Church in Manhattan Beach. Wright’s remains were to be cremated and scattered at sea. ER