District Three
Runoff Question 19: Does Seal Beach need more bike lanes?
Lisa Landau
Bike safety is a priority for me and there is much that we can and should do to improve bike safety in Seal Beach. Our children and our residents ride bikes and e-bikes all over town. They are on Ocean Avenue, the River Bed Trail, PCH and Seal Beach Blvd. More bike lanes are not necessary; safe bike lanes are a priority. Traffic laws are for autos, bicycles, and pedestrians. Our bike lanes should be as wide as our narrow streets will allow. Cars need to recognize the vulnerability of bicyclists and pedestrians; Bicyclists and pedestrians need to make eye contact and ride and walk realizing that cars don’t always see them. That being said, one place I’d really like to add a bike lane is adjacent to the bridge on PCH over the Naval Weapons Station.
More than 20 years ago we had a Councilmember who tried to get a bike lane adjacent to the PCH Bridge in and out of Surfside. Cal Trans was not interested at the time. I’d like to investigate the feasibility once again of safe bike travel over the Naval Weapons station in and out of Surfside and Huntington Beach, especially for our students who ride bikes over the bridge.
All bike lanes should be safely constructed, and our police should enforce the laws for autos, bikes, e-bikes and pedestrians alike.
Stephanie Wade
The bike lanes on our major thoroughfares, like PCH and Seal Beach Boulevard and few of our secondary roads would benefit from bike lanes. However, there are pressing bike safety issues. For example, many bike riders exhibit poor and sometimes dangerous bike-riding habits, such as excessive speed, riding on sidewalks and impeding other traffic. Part of the solution to these issues is to create off-road recreational options for skateboards, scooters and bikes.
Biking is extremely popular in our city. I like to ride my bike to surf everywhere from the river to Surfside. Many of our other Seal Beach friends ride to town on beach cruisers or mountain bikes. Families shuttle around on e-bikes and individual riders – who look like Italian road racers in logo-covered spandex! – zip around town. It’s great exercise, adds to the charm of our city, generates business activity and helps reduce parking and climate woes. I’m for safety and encouraging bike ridership both among our residents and visitors.
I would like to work with LAUSD on free, supervised recreation hours at McGaugh that would include skating and biking features. I also hope to appoint a commissioner to the Recreation and Parks Committee and work with them on these ideas. The two most important things we can do to promote safe biking are (1) an expansion of recreational/off-road biking opportunities and (2) a new bike safety program, including a mandatory class for those under the age of 18 who wish to ride e-bikes. This combination of expanded recreation space, education and reasonable enforcement is the best way to make our city even more bike friendly.
Runoff Question 20: The state is in a drought. Should Seal Beach begin rationing water?
Lisa Landau
I am personally not in favor of rationing water at this time. Seal Beach has made huge progress in water conservation and I believe that we can still realize many more conservation opportunities through enhanced voluntary efforts and education.
For many years our residents have worked very hard to comply with all the State regulations limiting water usage. Many of us have used xeriscaping in order to practically eliminate water usage in our gardens. We take short showers, don’t run water while brushing our teeth and use water efficient appliances.
The City of Seal Beach has established the hours and the days we are allowed to water and established a no run-off policy. To ration water would place an undue hardship on those of us who have already done all we can to reduce water use. District 3 would be especially hard hit with its larger lots. As a community we have cooperated with conserving water and we should continue to do so without rationing.
Stephanie Wade
No, we do not need to impose water rationing at this time. In June, our city adopted level 2 water supply restrictions, after the Governor’s declaration. This restriction prohibits certain water uses like daytime landscape watering, ornamental water fountains and washing cars at home. This water conservation level does not require us to ration. As the recent heavy rains prompted NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) to roll our drought condition back from Severe to Moderate, it seems likely that we will escape the need to ration water for the foreseeable future.
Nevertheless, it is smart for us to become a more water-wise city, starting with an education-based enforcement effort. Many Seal Beach businesses and property owners, perhaps unknowingly, violate current restrictions and best practices by watering sidewalks, running sprinklers during midday instead of between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM and washing cars by hand. Our current level 2 water regulations include simple, common sense guidelines. (Find them here: http://bit.ly/3Czr8iC.)
Part of the challenge is making our friends and neighbors aware of these policies. If Seal Beach Water Department staff could issue and explain warning citations to water violators, just once or twice a year, we could help violators to learn the rules and raise the water consciousness of the entire city.
Additionally, we should consider municipal projects and encourage private projects that can reduce water use, decrease stormwater runoff and help recharge and protect our groundwater supply. For instance, we could amend our building codes to allow homeowners to use greywater (e.g. treating and diverting waste water from showers and sinks into water that can be used for landscaping), encourage replacing water-hogging lawns with native succulents or build rain gardens that capture storm water and restore it to the local aquifer. These water uses also prevent water run-off from becoming polluted and running into our streets and beaches, harbors and estuaries. We can make these simple changes in the next four years to improve our water situation quickly.
Seal Beach is blessed to have access to imported water from the Metropolitan Water District and to three local groundwater wells. However, climate change and pollution present threats to both sources, including salt water intrusion and chemical contamination. These threats necessitate a long-term, concerted effort to better protect our water.
Runoff Question 21: Should bait be sold on the Seal Beach Pier?
Lisa Landau
Before talking about what to sell on the pier we need to repair the pier and decide on a plan for the pier. The community needs to decide about a restaurant, food trucks and any other amenities or nothing…just a walking pier for all to enjoy open vistas.
As Councilmember I would seek my residents’ opinions through local coffee chats, town hall meetings and surveys. This is a community pier and the community needs to decide how best to use this beautiful old wooden pier that gives Seal Beach so much of its quaint charm.
Stephanie Wade
My initial reaction is a mild no. However, I would defer to the opinions of Mayor Kalmick and residents of that district.
In general, I favor ventures that would generate revenue from city assets and provide economic activity. As with all issues, I’m interested in hearing all sides. Mayor Kalmick and residents of the first district might oppose a bait concession on the pier because even small baits like worms and squid bring unpleasant odors and unsightly, unhealthy mess for other pier users. Moreover, they may feel that bait sales would obstruct the ocean views of a non-commercial pier. It might also negatively affect the prospects of rebuilding a restaurant on the pier.
But before taking a position on an issue like this, I want to hear from Mayor Kalmick and his D1 residents. If someone makes a credible proposal for bait sales–especially if it is supported by D1 residents, businesses and the Councilmember elected to represent them – I’m interested in listening!
Runoff Question 22: Should the council have a pothole subcommittee?
Lisa Landau
No. That would be another layer of bureaucracy we do not need. I would support a hot line for residents, visitors and businesses to call which would alert our city engineers of a pothole or cracked or raised sidewalk and ask that the public work professionals be given an agreed upon short timeframe to fix the issue to avoid injuries and avert lawsuits.
Stephanie Wade
With one possible exception, I don’t favor additional city council subcommittees.
The council and staff should review all nine existing committees to make certain that each is providing timely, relevant and sound recommendations.
I would like greater input from some committees while others could be reorganized, given new direction or merged together. Some committees, like the Planning Commission, are clearly working well. On the other hand, the Environmental Quality Control Board hasn’t met since the start of the pandemic; it should be involved in finding answers to our ongoing and worsening flood problems.
The role of the Ad Hoc Coyote Committee could be amended to provide recommendations related to the city’s new Animal Control program. I am also interested in how the Recreation and Parks Commission can help us improve bike safety and recreational opportunities for our teen and tween-age youth.
One area where I will seek a new ad hoc committee is traffic safety. I want it to conduct a city-wide review. As I recently pointed out on social media, 375 pedestrians have been killed in Orange County in the past five years. One of those accidents took the life of a Seal Beach resident at the corner of PCH and 12th Street in 2017. And at Marina and 5th, recent accidents nearly took the lives of two of my neighbors, who were hit in the crosswalk by driver’s who ran the stop light. The city-wide review should be thorough and include coordination with CalTrans on PCH and I-405 related issues.
My answer to a recent, similar Sun question can also provide some insights.
• We are a small city where city residents have direct access to city staff and councilmembers.
• The creation of new committees would further tax our small city staff who should be focusing their energies on priorities like grant writing, winning state approval for our Local Coastal Plan and Housing Element and ensuring the safety of residents.
Got a problem with city government? Let’s figure it out together! Reach out to me by email, voice or text. wade4oc@gmail.com M-213-319-8938.
District Five
Runoff Question 19: Does Seal Beach need more bike lanes?
Mariann Klinger
I think more bike lanes might be good for the city, since they tend to slow traffic and help motorists to remember to look out for bikers. I wouldn’t, however, like to see the green pillars as are used in Long Beach — they end up laying all over the street.
Nathan Steele
Yes, more bike lanes.
But more importantly, we need to take a hard look at eBikes in and around traffic. They’re capable of 30 miles an hour and weave in and out of traffic, sidewalks, and even oncoming lanes of traffic.
I would like to see options for safety, driver’s training programs, licensing, additional bike lanes and other ways of creating a zone of safety around eBikes. I don’t have the final answer to this problem, but we should take a deep dive into this, see what other cities are doing and fix the problem.
Runoff Question 20: The state is in a drought. Should Seal Beach begin rationing water?
Mariann Klinger
I know the city is concerned, as is everyone in the state, about the water situation, but I don’t believe it’s time yet to ration water.
Nathan Steele
There is a water usage limit already in place. It is 55 gallons per day per person. So, “rationing” is current policy in California. I don’t believe there is current enforcement of the policy. I would encourage everyone to do their part in meeting their responsibilities.
Seal Beach’s water system is one of those “Bright Line” issues for me. It is a fail-safe tenet that the water system in Seal Beach never fails and always has ample supply. It will be one of the most serious parts of my job. After all, cities make national news when their water systems fail. Not the kind of publicity I want for our town.
Seal Beach needs a diversified portfolio of water sources. We are fortunate in Northern OC to have OCWD and a lake under our feet. OCWD is a world-class, pioneering conservator of the Santa Ana River the Orange County Groundwater Basin and the Groundwater Replenishment System. They have been treating and purifying ground water and replenishing our groundwater supply since the 1970’s.
Runoff Question 21: Should bait be sold on the Seal Beach Pier?
Mariann Klinger
If a vender comes forward to sell bait on the pier, it would have to go through the usual processes for council consideration.
Nathan Steele
Why not? If some entrepreneur wants to open business, license space on the pier and sell bait, I hope they do well. We should do what we can to help them.
Runoff Question 22: Should the council have a pothole subcommittee?
Mariann Klinger
Most of us have found the potholes. I don’t believe we need a subcommittee for potholes. Best to think on the ways to repair the streets.
Nathan Steele
No
