Rest in Peace John McTaggart

Over the past six months I got the privilege to get to know my fellow candidate for city council, John McTaggart, a little better. Sadly, he passed away today. The Daily Breeze has more here.

Looking Ahead to 2011

The election is over. RPV will have two new council members on December 1. I wish them luck tackling the challenges ahead. Stay tuned to this website for future posts regarding RPV affairs.

Jeff Lewis
Former Candidate, RPV City Council

Dear Readers,

I am suspending this blog for now in order to devote more attention to my campaign for Rancho Palos Verdes City Council.

You can learn more about my campaign at the following links:

E-Mail: JeffLewis@PalosVerdes.com
Web: http://www.PalosVerdes.com/JeffLewis
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=98861241302&ref=ts
Twitter: http://twitter.com/JeffLewis4RPV

RPV Neighbors Sue City Over Church Modernization

The Daily Breeze reports:

A coalition of homeowners who oppose the planned expansion of a Catholic church in Rancho Palos Verdes has sued the city for approving the project earlier this year.

The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is also a target of the lawsuit, which alleges the city failed to comply with state environmental law by approving the expansion of St. John Fisher Catholic Church without conducting a thorough review of the project.

"We think our City Council made a very serious mistake that has a negative impact on us with respect to this project, but also on this entire community. We think (the approval) was contrary to California law and a very bad precedent," said Mark Easton, a member of the group suing the city.

I for one am disappointed that litigation has been resorted to as a tool to overturn the legitimate and well-supported planning decisions of our city.

Ponte Vista to hold public forum on March 12

Today the City of RPV Listserve distributed the following information:

You are cordially invited to share your thoughts at the upcoming Ponte Vista Informational Open House scheduled for Thursday, March 12, 2009 at the Peck Park Auditorium. Drop by anytime between 4 PM – 8 PM and spend time reviewing graphics and informational presentation boards. You will have the opportunity to make comments at a series of information “stations” set up around the auditorium.

The Peck Park auditorium is located at 560 N. Western Avenue in San Pedro and there is plenty of parking available. Refreshments and light snacks will be provided.

Following a change in management, DLJ Real Estate Capital Partners has combined information learned through the public process over the last several years with the most recent round of community interviews and small group meetings conducted in February to rethink the overall scale, makeup and density of the project.

The purpose of the open house is two fold: 1) provide project history and background and 2) receive additional community feedback regarding new, emerging directions that the development team is proposing.

We hope you can join us on March 12 and tell us what you think about the emerging directions for the Ponte Vista Residential Community.

Please contact the Community Outreach team should you have any further questions at (310) 241 – 0699. See you on March 12th!

Ponte Vista prepares to re-tool development

The Contra Costa Times reports:

With Bob Bisno out of the picture, developers of the proposed Ponte Vista housing project in San Pedro say they are ready to launch a new push to find community consensus on a revised plan.

The 1,950-home development has been in limbo since late last year when Bisno, the head of the development team, was asked to step down.

Ted Fentin of Credit Suisse, Bisno's largest investor, is taking the lead in a move to find a compromise the community will accept.

"(He) is committed to working with you in developing a revised plan," development spokeswoman Elise Swanson told members of the Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council on Monday night. "There is a spirit of cooperation. We are moving forward with community outreach."

The project, likely in a revised form, is tentatively scheduled to go before the Los Angeles Planning Commission on April 9.

Trump omitted some facts

From Wednesday's Letters to the Editor, a letter from RPV Councilman Doug Stern:

Trump omitted some facts

The Daily Breeze reported that Donald Trump had sued the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, claiming that it had required too much geological review of portions of the Trump National Golf Course after the infamous 18th-hole landslide. Trump was apparently not happy with the Dec. 19 Daily Breeze article written by staff writer Nick Green, titled "Trump sues RPV for $100M." So he sent his response as a letter to the editor, chastising Green for "omitting" facts that Trump thought important. According to Trump, "As usual, your reporter, Nick Green, who is absolutely terrible, misstated the facts."

But Trump also forgot to mention a rather important fact himself.

Trump agreed (first in 2003, restated in 2004) to resolve all geologic disputes through a three-person panel of geologic experts, and to be bound by those decisions. The agreement states: "The Panel shall resolve disagreements between city's geological and geotechnical experts and the experts that are performing work on behalf of developer.

"City and developer agree not to restrict the areas that the panel may explore to make such determination and to defer to the judgment of the panel with respect to what additional geologic studies and tests, if any, should be conducted in order to permit such residential development.

"The parties hereby acknowledge that the panel is being retained to resolve differences between the respective geological/geotechnical experts retained by the parties in order to allow developer to complete the development of the project.

"City and developer hereby covenant and agree that any decisions and recommendations rendered by the panel shall be binding on both city and developer." Rancho Palos Verdes has complied with the agreement and accepted the determinations of the panel.

Yet Trump is now suing Rancho Palos Verdes and some of the geologic panel members as a result of the determinations of that agreed-upon panel of experts. He is claiming that the panel of experts that evaluated the geology, determined the necessary geologic analysis and directed that those tests be conducted required too much of him. So much for agreeing to be bound by the determinations of the panel.

- DOUGLAS W. STERN

Anonymous Client Abandons Massive Document Request Directed to RPV

The Daily Breeze reports:

When a Sacramento attorney made a broad public records request to the city of Rancho Palos Verdes on behalf of anonymous residents last year, municipal staff members were thrown into a tizzy seeking to respond.

Eventually, more than 10,000 pages of documents were produced, and boxes of printed e-mails and records sat stacked and waiting to be picked up at City Hall.

But no one ever came for most of the documents, which had to do with the city's information technology provider, crime, city budgets and other matters.

"It was an arduous, arduous task for the city. To put everybody through this exercise for no reason, that really galled me," City Attorney Carol Lynch said.