The more things change, the more they stay the same...

From The Hermosa Beach Review.
Page 1, July 1, 1971
Notes from the Editor's Desk

Most of a newspaper's budget consists of payroll. The same goes for any city's budget. Unfortunately, if you want to cut expenses on a newspaper, or in any city, it must be done by firing people. There is simply no other way. Now one of the tricks is to avoid this unhappy procedure. And this is where the skill comes in.

Hermosa Beach has a proposed budget of $2,075,723 and the Police budget is $679,857, or 32.7 per cent. El Segundo, for example, has a proposed budget of $6,524,455, the Police budget is $1,084,065. Police budget in this case is 16.6 per cent. Now in Manhattan Beach, the proposed budget is $6,159,853 (however, in this case, almost half of it in capital improvements and special funds). The police budget is $928,320, or 15.1 per cent.

Now what does all this mean? El Segundo has several thousand less people than Hermosa Beach, yet their police department has a budget half again as high. At the same time, Hermosa Beach Police Department has a more difficult policing problem, due to thousands of outsiders who come to the beach. On the other hand, Manhattan Beach has twice the population of Hermosa Beach, coupled with a much larger area.

Hermosa Beach is the second-most densely populated city in California, and third in the United States. It has absolutely no industry (in fact, the newspaper here is the largest employer in the city (except the city itself.)

The differential between the police budgets of the beach cities, coupled with their percentage of the total budget really defies analogy. Each reader must make his own judgment.

Hermosa Beach recently has had to borrow $200,000. This is not too extraordinary, but there are sidelights to this loan. At the present time the Council is wrestling with the budget and trying to trim around $125,000. Citizens of Hermosa Beach must also keep this in mind: The city's administrative staff is very thin. Hermosa no longer has a full time city engineer; a full time assistant city manager; we have no director of finance; and no director of public works. No other city in the area operates with such a skeleton administrative crew. (For example, the public works director in Manhattan Beach makes more money than the city manager of Hermosa Beach.)

And yet, over the more than 25 years this reporter has operated in Hermosa Beach, the general public has never accepted the fact that it is living in a poor city which badly needs rebuilding. At any mention of high rise, off-shore drilling, card clubs, urban redevelopment, etc., there are loud screams in the Council chambers, scaring the local politicians half to death.

Consequently the Council folds and nothing is done. After all, the men on the Council are politicians who want to be re-elected, so one can hardly blame them for not bucking their constituents.

In a few years it will cost the city half again as much to operate. This is as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow morning. What will the taxpayer have to say when this time comes?

The only answer lies in raising more revenue from new sources. Every single avenue should be explored and acted upon, and quickly. Time is running out for the property owner in Hermosa Beach.