May
The Seal Beach Animal Care Service offered discount adoptions for black cats and dogs.
Undaunted by Sunset Beach’s involuntary annexation into Huntington Beach, the Sunset Beach Firehouse hosted a gallery for the 45th Annual Sunset Beach Art Festival.
The Bay City Partners project, now called Ocean Place, came before the Planning Commission. For the first time, supporters of the project testified before a Seal Beach agency. The city received 20 letters in favor of the project. Opponents also came out in force. Bay City Partners presented the commission with a new version of the project that called for 48 house next to 6.5 acres of land to be sold to Seal Beach for $1.1 million.
A key issue was the long-standing specific plan requirement that 70 percent of the property be open space, a term that was not apparently defined well enough to satisfy either supporters or opponents of the project. Planning Commissioner Robert Goldberg argued, based on a 1982 map, that the City Council at that time intended 7.9 acres of the land to be set aside for open space. Some critics of the project complained that part of the “open space” in the Bay City Partners’ proposal included land under the San Gabriel River. However, Bay City Partners pointed out that they paid property taxes on that land.
Other land use issues came before Seal Beach officials when on Monday, May 14, the City Council extended an interim ordinance that required conditional use permits for owners of vacation rental properties. Owners of the rental properties objected to regulation of their businesses. Residents of nearby homes and local activists objected to allowing vacation rental properties at all.
That same night, the council took time to honor a local hero: in early May, Seal Beach resident Celeste Infante rescued another teenager from possibly drowning when the other girl suffered a seizure while swimming. Infante pulled the unconscious girl onto her surfboard.
Surfside Colony songwriter Robby Armstrong was tapped to perform in a remake of the movie “Gambit.”
Another success story featured former Seal Beach police officer Kevin Vilensky, who solved a 25-year-old petty theft case when he recovered the stolen wooden sign for Sandpiper Bicycle Repair.
Unfortunately, news wasn’t all good in Seal Beach. Leisure World units were moving slowly with 201 units up for “sale” as ofMay 21. (Actually, you can’t buy a Leisure World unit, just the right to occupy a unit.)
On May 22, former Seal Beach jail guard Jose Alday, who was not a sworn police officer, pled guilty to accepting an iPad and money in exchange for allowing contraband and unauthorized visitors into the city jail during the shift that he worked alone. He was given a two-year prison sentence.
But the brighter side of Seal Beach life reemerged when Marissa Puente wore the same prom dress in 2012 that her mother Elena Puente designed and wore to her own prom in 1993.
The City Council looked at potential changes to the City Charter.
A report by the city clerk recommended changing the charter to eliminate runoff elections. Currently, if no candidate receives 50 percent of the vote, plus one, then a runoff election must be held between the two candidates who received the most votes. Any changes to the City Charter would have to be approved by voters.
On May 29, a divided City Council directed staff to put the runoff issue on the November ballot.
The private sector was also looking at making changes. The owner of the Crema café on Main Street announced plans to add a bakery to the coffee shop.
Seal Beach yogi Barbara Bannerman was cast in Jane Fonda’s newest “Prime Time” exercise video.
Seal Beach’s resident cowgirl Jamie Stone, a senior at Los Alamitos High School, competed against the top 44 rodeo girls in the state.
City staff projected $428,000 in excess revenues for the 2012-2013 fiscal year.
