Strange ending in Hawthorne vote

We had an election in Hawthorne and only 14 percent of voters even bothered to show up at the polls. The candidates who raised the most money from trade unions, developers and used car lot owners were all elected.

The three candidates who repeatedly warned voters to beware of negative campaigning all went negative in the last week while their competitors ran clean campaigns.

The day after the election, in a city where the incumbent mayor has supposedly reduced crime by almost 50 percent, the city's contracted towing and impound vendor had its offices raided by 60 law enforcement officers as part of wide-ranging fraud investigation. Next, the mayor and his newly elected school district work buddy are caught up in a shooting in the middle of the afternoon. Wow, I'm glad crime has been reduced by so much; I can't imagine what it would be like otherwise.

Furthermore, according to the Daily Breeze story of this incident, this occurred at 3:30 p.m. after Larry Guidi and Louis Velez had been taking down hundreds of their campaign signs. If we assume that it must have taken them at least a few hours to remove these "hundreds" of signs, that means they were engaged in this post-election activity since 12:30 p.m. Shouldn't these guys have been at their taxpayer-supported jobs and not engaged in personal business on school district time? Well, I guess they're entitled, or maybe they took a vacation day.

Given all this, I'm supposed to feel good about where I live? Yeah, just another day in paradise I suppose.

-- Robert Schubert, Hawthorne

Publish Date:November 11, 2003 Daily Breeze

Council vote killed family business

This letter to the editor is in regard to the recent decision made by Hawthorne's mayor to appeal the approval of the Planning Department's conditional use permit to my business, NYC Sound at 13335 Hawthorne Blvd.

Mayor Larry Guidi, who lives nearby, made the appeal. Following the appeal, four out of the five council members (including the mayor) voted to overturn our permit.  My family is very disappointed since we have invested all our effort and savings in trying to become a part of your community, but as you can see the system has failed us. The outcome of the decision has ultimately forced us out of business, without having been given the opportunity to prove ourselves to the community.

We came to California from New York after Sept. 11 thinking that the worst was over, but little did we know the worst was yet to come.  I would like to end this letter by thanking the mayor, City Council and Planning Department for showing me and my family what this city is all about.

-- ANA QUIROZ

Publish Date: March 7, 2004 Daily Breeze

Credit Hocker with lowering density

A fair number of people supported former Hawthorne Mayor Guy Hocker because they had faith in his knowledge of the real estate market. The indicators were in the newspapers for several months, so Hocker's request to lower the density of the housing project on former Los Angeles Air Force Base land was not unreasonable.

Even the two city councils and their staffs (El Segundo and Hawthorne) could not budge the developer to lower his density. Nor could Hawthorne Councilman Gary Parsons, who spent an inordinate amount of time convincing all of Holly Glen that 750 homes on Area A was the best the developer could do. Every time he spoke, he took the developer's position and said this was not high-density.

I'm glad Hocker was not persuaded by the councilman.

It was interesting to me that the day after the Daily Breeze headline, the local Hawthorne paper came out with a page titled "Best of the Best in 2003." There were many businesses being evaluated by perhaps thousands of people in the South Bay: banks, restaurants, pizza houses, seafood and steak houses, bakeries and even real estate. Guess who ranked at the very highest in real estate -- none other than Hawthorne's Guy Hocker.

What does that mean to the residents of Holly Glen? Maybe nothing. But to me -- being associated with building in my business -- I felt certain Hocker was absolutely correct. His argument was: The land was worth more than we were being told; the plan was too dense; and third, he would prove it even if he had to file a lawsuit to lower the density. He did, and now we are the benefactors of Hocker's persistence. Thanks to his skillful negotiations with the developer, the suit was canceled, and we now have 125 fewer homes and lowered height in Area A.

The bottom line is that when you deal with engineering problems, hire an engineer, but when you're dealing with assessed land values, appraisals and real estate, get the best of the best, a professional -- Guy Hocker, who is the real hero in this settlement agreement.

We all hope the federal Base Realignment and Closure Commission will not close us down. For two years, many citizens and city staff worked hard. Then Hocker had to spend a lot of his own money to hire attorneys to get his point across. He, too, gave his best for all of us. No one is at fault if we lose the Air Force base. All parties did their best. Washington, D.C., makes the final decision.

-- OLIVER KUNITAKE

Hawthorne

Publish Date: December 18, 2003 Daily Breeze

Support Hawthorne food grades

In regard to the March 25 article "Council backs off grades for food," I fully support Hawthorne City Councilman Gary Parsons in his lonesome effort to continue to require food service establishments to publicly post their letter grades from the Los Angeles County Health Services Department.

It seems utterly foolish for the other four council members to support an ordinance that will in essence provide less information to the consumer, and ultimately less consumer protection for the citizenry in general.

I was a hotel and restaurant management major in college, and I am fully aware of the many challenges that face food service operators in their daily battle to run a clean shop. But opting out of the county Health Services Department grading system, a stunt unsuccessfully attempted by only one other city in L.A. County, is an overreaction to a problem that is isolated at best.

Mayor Larry Guidi made the statement at the council meeting where this ordinance change was debated that he could tell safe food by "how it looks on the plate." Guidi must have supernatural powers. According to my college sanitation textbook, microorganisms are responsible for more than 90 percent of diseases transmitted by food. They are called "micro" organisms because you cannot see them!

If the Hawthorne City Council follows through with this plan, it will be catering to the whims of a few disgruntled food service operators at expense of thousands of consumers, whether they are from Hawthorne or elsewhere.

Perhaps these food service operators should spend less time lobbying the mayor for reduced posting requirements and more time training their employees in proper food-handling procedures. I would recommend the ServSafe program. You can find information about it on the Web site of the National Restaurant Association Education Foundation (www.nraef.org).

-- ROBERT SCHUBERT

Hawthorne