City has apparently closed its $3.2 million budget gap for next year without cutting jobs, but the path the city took to get there is still challenged by looming fire and lifeguard contract negotiations
Greenbelt is back on the table as a possible site for Hermosa Beach's first off-leash dog park, six weeks after the community group driving the project had walked away from it, following a Council vote Tuesday that revived the option and put a potential November ballot measure into play.
A $3.2 million structural deficit has been sitting under Hermosa Beach's budget for five years, masked by pandemic relief, vacancy savings, and unspent carryforward. With all three now exhausted, the council inherits a problem its predecessors chose to defer.
Council meeting opened by recognizing two pillars of the community — a gold-medal winning hockey coach and a century-old civic club — before working through a heavy agenda that included a contested fee study, Little League field improvements and police vehicle contracting.
The first comprehensive update to Hermosa Beach's master fee schedule since 2016 would shift increased costs from taxpayers to applicants, with large hikes landing on developers, businesses and dispute filers.
Hermosa Beach has quietly commissioned a voter survey on city funding and services — a move that typically signals a ballot tax measure is in the works.
Inside Hermosa Beach's Capital Improvement Program, where the fault lines between what we might want for city infrastructure and what we can afford are really starting to show
Two residents have forced Hermosa Beach to restart its pickleball fee process, filing open-meetings complaints that the city council voted on fee increases buried inside an unrelated agenda item.
