Page 32 - Mark Mcdermott News Today

By Mark McDermott BeachLife will arrive back with a bang. The festival, which takes place September 10 to 12 in Redondo Beach’s King Harbor…

By Mark McDermott Chief Duane Yellow Feather Shepard was in Manhattan Beach last Tuesday, visiting Bruce’s Beach, the property owned by his family nearly a…

by Mark McDermott  A lot happened in 1961. John F. Kennedy was inaugurated as the 35th president of the United States, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly in space, the civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders took buses into the South to challenge segregation, and East Germany began construction of the Berlin Wall. Something historic also happened in Manhattan Beach, although its significance wouldn’t be apparent until much later. Jan Dennis moved to town. ...

BeachLife Festival to bring music back to Seaside Lagoon, Redondo Beach SHARE The festival hopes to be the communal party at pandemic’s end Willie Nelson performs at the first BeachLife Festival in 2019. Photo by J.P. Cordero by Mark McDermott Seven hundred and thirty eight days ago, Willie Nelson stood on the main stage at the BeachLife Festival in Redondo Beach. The sun had just gone down over King Harbor, forming a spectacular, multi-hued backdrop behind the legendary singer that, like t...

by Mark McDermott  The Manhattan Beach City Council on Tuesday night unanimously approved a proposed four-story, 161-room, 81,771 square foot hotel and an accompanying 14,500 square foot  office and retail building on the former El Torito site along Sepulveda Boulevard.  The hotel takes advantage of “Sepulveda overlay”  zoning, enacted in 2019, that allows a height of 40 feet and will thus become the tallest building in the city’s Sepulveda corridor. The size and height of the project...

From the Historian: The park on Main Street Anita Mance © ANITA MANCE Spring in Edmund Lyon Park. Edmund Lyon Park is an open expanse planned as a park for families in a planned community. It is 7 acres of land in the middle of our town/village, land donated by mechanical engineer/philanthropist Kate Gleason. When the village of Despatch (renamed East Rochester in 1906) was founded in 1897, it was created as a planned community for families and workers of the Despatch Transpo...

by Mark McDermott  After a year contending with COVID-19 surges, the City Council last week was faced with reports of a potentially nettlesome but altogether different kind of surge. Of beekeeping.  At the behest of Council, city staff launched an investigation into animal-related nuisances and specifically examined existing regulations governing bees, pigs, and chickens in residential areas. At the April 20 council meeting, staff reported that there had been a “beekeeping activity surge,�...

by Mark McDermott The return of Bruce’s Beach to the Bruce family came one step closer to fruition Tuesday when Senate Bill 796, introduced by Senator Steven Bradford and intended to resolve deed restrictions, quickly passed out of the Senate’s Water and Natural Resources Committee with unanimous bipartisan support.  Bradford, a Democrat from Gardena, is a member of the state’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans.  The Task Force was created last y...

Since this is the fourth time I have seen my name printed in Shelburne News since July 2020, I thought I would take the time to fill in some gaps. This is what I am currently comfortable sharing and I do not want to be reached for further questions. I was initially offered a teacher’s contract and after some negotiation, I was offered a hybrid position —neither a teacher nor an administrator contract.  On June 23, I was informed that the position would be on an administrator contra...

Manhattan Beach City Council rejects apology regarding Bruce’s Beach SHARE by Mark McDermott  Nearly three hours of public testimony had already occurred at Tuesday night’s Manhattan Beach City Council meeting before councilmembers took up the question of whether or not to issue an apology to the Bruce family and other Black families displaced by the City from their beachfront homes a century ago.  Several more hours of testimony had been taken at the March 23 council meeting. For month...