District Five
Runoff Question 15: What are the opportunities and challenges facing Seal Beach in 2023?
Nathan Steele
Opportunities: I am excited about improving the “look and feel” of Main Street. But, I will be only 1 in 5 councilmembers, and my vision needs to fit the City’s long-term vision.
Challenges: Local control/Housing element, zoning requirements. We need to find a way through this issue without losing our sovereign local control.
Recession: The economists I pay close attention to have pretty bleak forecasts on economic activity for the foreseeable future. I’m not so sure, but I am concerned its impact on City revenues.
Inflation: At the same time we’re challenged by inflationary pressures, higher prices and the shrinking purchasing power of our dollars.
Mariann Klinger
Challenge and opportunity go hand-in-hand for the city. Probably the number one is finding new revenues that provide the opportunity to move forward with capital projects, including a marine safety building, a community pool and a parking structure.
Runoff Question 16: Does Seal Beach need more development?
Nathan Steele
I am pro-business and pro-growth. And I welcome development and “Good Growth” ideas. Especially when it comes to businesses that create jobs in Seal Beach. But, the growth needs to be in keeping with the character of Seal Beach. We’re not Laguna, Newport or Huntington Beach. We’re Seal Beach and the charm that goes with our Beach, Pier and Main Street. We are a family-friendly, small community. “Charm” should be our middle name.
Mariann Klinger
The city doesn’t necessarily need new development. Its efforts would be better placed on issues identified in the council’s springtime strategic planning, including water conservation measures, capital improvements, communication needs, fiscal sustainability, staff hiring, etc.
Runoff Question 17: Does Seal Beach need a parking commission?
Nathan Steele
No.
Mariann Klinger
At this time, I do not believe the city needs a parking commission. Such a commission may be more useful once the council determines how it will meet the city’s parking needs.
Runoff Question 18: Should the council approve budgets before agreements are reached with city employee groups?
Nathan Steele
Employee agreements should be negotiated by City management and approved by City Council. The Budgets should be worked out based on the City Council’s Strategic Plan. These 2 things are separated and should be done in cooperation with each constituent group. Compensation as a percent of City Budget should be compared to other city’s around us to be sure that we are in line with “Best Practices”.
I would expect City Management has front-line responsibility on hiring and compensation based on the parameters of the Council’s Strategic Plan process. These things don’t happen in a vacuum, separate from each other. They should be developed in concert with each other.
Mariann Klinger
This is a question best answer when faced with the situation.
District Three
Runoff Question 15: What are the opportunities and challenges facing Seal Beach in 2023?
Stephanie Wade
We have great 2023 opportunities that can help us invest in better infrastructure, improve the health of our beaches and estuaries, reduce homelessness and crime and keep our budgets balanced without raising taxes. It will require creative thinking, courage and vision to realize these opportunities but I know we can work together to achieve them!
From LA to San Diego, no other city’s resources compare to our beaches, harbors, wetlands and green space. Restoring and protecting this is one way to maintain our small town feel. Through the bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and the Inflation Reduction Act, we may be eligible for funds to support these assets. I’ll work with the City Manager to apply for grants that can support:
• New storm drainage West of PCH, in the Coves and College Park East, which already see regular flooding several times a year.
• Exploring nature-based flood mitigation strategies like living shorelines that will protect our beaches, homes and businesses, while adding beauty and wildlife habitat.
• Improving water quality by reintroducing native plants and wildlife, like oysters, to our estuaries.
• Defray the cost of building a new lifeguard headquarters.
I also propose to leverage our Police Auxiliary and Parks Department to create two new youth programs. First, I will work with the City Manager and Chief Henderson to study options for creating a mandatory e-bike traffic safety course for e-bike riders 18 or younger.
Second, I will seek collaboration with LAUSD to supervise recreation and provide equipment for after-school and weekend play. As a former PE teacher, I know that organized sports are only part of what kids need. Unstructured play time provides kids with opportunities to develop new motor skills, social skills, and have fun. Many kids stay glued to screens because they lack safe and fun places to meet other kids for pickup games and free play.
Using some of our resources to engage young adults in supervising unstructured recreation for our school aged kids is squarely in line with our small town values and will benefit both the older kids and the younger ones.
I also want to work with the OC Healthcare Agency to help with social problems, especially homelessness. Huntington Beach gets a County Outreach and Engagement Team twice a week. Over time these blue-shirted social workers build the relationships and trust needed to get skeptical, often resistant people to get off the streets into long term housing
Lisa Landau
Like every other city, Seal Beach faces opportunities and challenges. As a businesswoman, I have learned that we can engage and empower stakeholders to achieve extraordinary success when we view challenges as opportunities. That process begins with clearly identifying and prioritizing goals, identifying obstacles to those goals, and then creating winning strategies to overcome the obstacles.
At City Hall, one of the opportunities we have is to become fully prepared for challenges by robustly planning, forecasting, budgeting, and maintaining our infrastructure, services, and resources. This is the very unglamorous but crucial work of a responsible and accountable City Council, working hand in hand with City Staff. As your City Council representative, I will use my business management skills and my community leadership experience to work for you, to realize our City’s best opportunities, and meet our biggest challenges.
I think our biggest opportunity lies in leveraging our biggest resource: a caring and generous community ready to volunteer immeasurable time, ideas, and resources to improve our City. Our challenge here is to support our extraordinary community, not divide it.
Our City has many opportunities and challenges that we need to address, for example;
The housing element, which is State mandated, our City is required to develop new housing and increase the density of existing housing. This is a complex challenge that will require thoughtful leadership for us to comply. This will also give us the opportunity to provide affordable housing for our city workers and first responders.
Homelessness is a challenge that also presents opportunities to get people properly placed, off the streets, and get the help they need.
The explosion in popularity of e-bikes with our children is a challenge, but we can take this opportunity to provide them with bike safety training and educate them about safely operating their bikes when they are riding them in and around town to keep everyone safe.
Trash and pollution at the beach is a challenge, it affects all who enjoy our beach. We have an opportunity to partner with other cities and glean from their successes.
Most of us in Seal Beach live here for our quality of life. The challenges we face have an effect on that, but I will work tirelessly to overcome those challenges by working closely with the residents, fellow council members, and City staff to bring forward opportunities and solutions.
Runoff Question 16: Does Seal Beach need more development?
Stephanie Wade
No, we don’t need more development.
There are always developers eager to build recklessly in beach communities. Our infrastructure, transportation system, wetlands or small town values can’t survive large scale development. Nor do we need it. Seal Beach is special precisely because we’re small, local and neighborly.
That’s why my mantra is local control, local control, local control. I applaud the city for presenting the state with a thoughtful housing plan that will likely win approval later this spring and for moving ahead with the it’s first ever Local Coastal Plan. If approved by the Coastal Commission later this year, that plan would remove the state from local permitting decisions for the first time in nearly 50 years. Seal Beach homeowners will be able to apply for plan approval through a single city application, cutting red tape and eliminating state interference.
There is no room for failure on either of these initiatives. It is becoming harder and more expensive for small property owners to interact with the Coastal Commission.
If the state doesn’t approve our housing plan in the fall, we will have to address their concerns. Otherwise, we may face the same challenges as cities like Santa Monica, the poster child for over development. Just last year, a developer was allowed to build a 17-story high rise with 4,500 units on a 3-acre lot because the city dragged its feet on negotiations over its housing plan.
I will fight every day to make sure that Seal Beachers control our housing, not developers and not the state.
Lisa Landau
Because the world changes, every community, including Seal Beach, needs some “development” to support new technology, consumer preferences, social and lifestyle changes, etc. However, our services and resources are already stressed by the existing density of our community and the neighboring communities with whom we share those resources. Basically, Seal Beach is fully developed with the exception of Old Ranch and the Navy Base. Property owners like Old Ranch and the Federal Government have the right to develop their properties within the codes and processes that are in place. The important factor is to be sure any development is properly designed and mitigated to minimize adverse impacts.
The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) requires us to fully understand the objectives and the environmental impacts of development projects before we permit them. Our State elected officials demanded that we build more housing to create more affordable housing. In addition, our requirement to meet state guidelines with ADUs, “granny flat” housing, must be done in such a manner that our infrastructure can accept the increase in development. This may be challenging. I don’t think we fully understand how these mandates will achieve CEQA objectives or avoid significant cumulative environmental impacts on our community.
We enjoy the small-town feel and vibe of Seal Beach. To bring large-scale development into our city would not be realistic. However, with some carefully thought-out and well-managed, tasteful development, additional development can occur. I will bring experts into our city to provide sound and meaningful advice on how to proceed without major adverse impacts while maintaining the quality of life for all of our residents. I look forward to working together to create a bright future for our community.
Runoff Question 17: Does Seal Beach need a parking commission?
Stephanie Wade
No, we do not need another commission. In our city of twenty five thousand people, a separate commission for parking would be an expensive, bureaucratic use of staff time. In consultation with residents and businesses, the Council can continue to lead on parking issues. My parking priorities include:
1. Keeping and expanding free parking on Main Street. It’s a great amenity we all enjoy and gives our businesses a competitive advantage over neighboring beach cities who charge for downtown parking. Maintaining free and accessible parking will support local businesses (who contribute more than $5 million per year in city sales tax), particularly as they deal with inflation and worker shortages.
2. Opening 1st Street between PCH and Welcome Lane to parking where it is currently prohibited for no good reason.
3. Building consensus on the council to simplify the overnight guest parking system. I advocate for returning to some form of the placard system that doesn’t require residents to report their guests’ car registration information.
As with any issue, I’m open to discussion and additional ideas. Please contact me, now or after the election, at steph4oc@gmail.com or by text or voice at 213-319-8938. Our city is small enough that City Council members and residents can interact directly without layering on extra bureaucracy. I’m accessible now and will be when I’m in office too.
Lisa Landau
All beach cities struggle with parking especially here in Seal Beach, where visitors not only come to enjoy the beach but to take in our small-town charm by shopping and dining on Main Street. To address the parking issue, I would not support a parking commission. It would be one more layer of bureaucracy to weigh us down. Seal Beach must create a transparent process to illuminate parking and weigh alternative solutions to satisfy stakeholder needs. I will address and evaluate the parking challenges through a process led by Planning Staff and using an Ad Hoc committee of qualified, representative stakeholders which will reduce the need for a commission and achieve the same end. I would also utilize Town Hall meetings, public hearings, and resident participation, in changes that our residents feel are necessary, which would be what I would support. It will require hard work, creativity, and diplomacy to bring clarity and consensus to this issue. With Council support and stakeholder involvement, I believe that we really can get through this issue and put it behind us. After all, there are bigger challenges facing our community.
Runoff Question 18: Should the council approve budgets before agreements are reached with city employee groups?
Stephanie Wade
This idea sounds like an answer but is really a problem. There is no doubt that our city will have to pay more for high quality municipal workers, as we are experiencing a nationwide labor shortage and workers are facing inflation that undercuts their current salaries. We will have to spend more to attract executive level talent. In addition, city staff in the Seal Beach Police Officers and the Orange County Employees Associations will bargain for pay increases to deal with inflation and rising health care costs.
It’s the job of the City’s Finance Department and City Council to budget reasonably for these foreseeable labor cost increases. When we approach our city employees as partners and professionals, we can mutually arrive at proposals that are fair for the city and our employees. Arbitrarily dictating salaries by budgeting before engaging with employees will tie the hands of our city manager and be an act of bad faith. It may actually cost us more in terms of morale and turnover.
WIth my experience in local government, I can help the city budget reasonably well for anticipated costs of labor, without handcuffing ourselves or preempting equitable negotiations. We will get the greatest value and cost saving when we deal fairly with the workers who keep our beaches, streets and homes the envy of the county.
Lisa Landau
It is generally advisable for the council to approve budgets after agreements have been reached with city employee groups. This is because the costs associated with city employee compensation can be a significant part of the budget. When creating and approving a budget, the council must consider all city employees’ financial needs and interests. If agreements have yet to be reached with employee groups, it may be difficult to accurately determine the necessary budget allocation for employee salaries, benefits, and other expenses. Therefore, it is critical to thoroughly understand all costs prior to approving a budget, it is difficult to have an accurate budget without having a real cost for labor. We need to have transparency in our labor negotiations and have a firm but fair approach to our negotiation with our many labor groups. Herein lies a major obstacle, union contracts don’t always come due before budget time. It would be very helpful to align the contract dates and re-define how the CPI is calculated to be able to negotiate in good faith knowing we have the money needed to pay the salaries negotiated. Having the funds necessary to fulfill our contractual obligations and meet the needs of the community is a major reason I will not accept endorsements from any of our union groups. It is a conflict of interest when it comes time to decide on pay and benefit increases for that group, decisions should be based on the benefit for the community as a whole, and not based on relationships.
