Cold high ground

Dear ER:

The burgeoning of Vanessa Poster’s “United Against Hate” signs is such a relief, in contrast to those yard signs supporting “Hate.”Oh wait. There are no “Hate” signs (“Sandbox,” ER September 26, 2024). Excuse my faux surprise, but the “United…” signs should come with their own Klieg lights and amplifiers to trumpet at all hours of the day and night the sign owner’s virtue. Poster inadvertently admits the irony of her blind spot: the signs have been posted in yards for nearly four years, but “hate” crimes and all those phobias continue to rise.

How is that possible? We have signs! We must need bigger signs? Maybe if the virtue signalers could tear themselves away from their latest vanity project/ad campaign and actually do the work — practice color blindness, getting kids off social media, foster resiliency, stop SEL, promote curriculum based learning, reduce psych therapies, read Abigail Shrier, stop confusing children with gender questions, and get rid of their ridiculous yard signs, hate might reduce. But, then folks like Vanessa Poster would have no drum to bang. There is a question from the Dowager character of “Downton Abbey” Maggie Smith, who just passed, I think is appropriate for Vanessa Poster and her cadres of feckless crusaders: “Do you need a coat? Because, it must be awfully chilly up there on that moral high ground?”

CWU

Manhattan Beach

Stop this

Dear ER:

Letter writer Marie Puterbaugh, long term volunteer for BCHD, wants to know what Stop BCHD is stopping. So here’s the Top 10 list of BCHD activities to stop:

1. Stop BCHD’s 80% to 95% non-resident services’ Wealthy Living Campus. Force BCHD to focus on district taxpayers.

2. Stop BCHD’s planned 793,000 square foot facility that will nearly triple the mostly commercial campus size in a residential neighborhood.

3. Stop BCHD’s from leasing 3 public acres for 95 years to a 100% private, for-profit developer.

4. Stop BCHD’s from allowing private developers to use our public land and then charge residents high, private rates for services.

5. Stop BCHD’s planned 110-foot above Beryl and Flagler, out of scale and character development.

6. Stop BCHD’s plan for an 100% privately owned, 80% District non-resident assisted living facility on public land.

7. Stop BCHD’s development of a PACE facility (Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly) for 400 enrollees, with only 17 predicted to be District residents according to the National PACE Association’s statistics.

8. Stop BCHD’s $175M, 30-year obligation for allcove operations in return for a meager $6.3M construction grant.

9. Stop BCHD’s 74% wealthy, White city use of allcove when BCHD is obligated to service a 91% non-resident service area by contract.

10. Stop BCHD’s $2.4M per year annual spending on executive pay using public funding. Put that 15 cents of every BCHD dollar spent to resident services.

    
    

Mark Nelson

Redondo Beach 

Show me the raw data

Dear ER:

Update on BCHD’s consultant Gallup’s press release that claims that there are massive reduced medical costs in the three Beach Cities. When the Gallup email came out, it was very thin on basic facts, such as research citations and methodologies. Gallup used a variety of fluffy phrases like “credible and published secondary sources,” and that the findings were “likely, in part, the result of efforts of ”BCHD.”  We promptly sent data requests to BCHD asking for the details that Gallup and BCHD withheld from the taxpayers who paid the $400,000 Gallup price tag. BCHD responded that it didn’t require Gallup to provide study details to the District. Apparently, BCHD only received the advertising materials from Gallup. If that happened in the real world, heads would have rolled, up to and including the Director or CEO who signed the contract. Tom Bakaly, BCHD’s CEO, has long maligned the private sector’s rigorous methods and attention to detail. Yes, taxpayers would like to know that every penny BCHD spends is cost-effective and yields more benefits than costs for the health of the residents of the District. That’s a taxpayer mentality. Without the ability get the published research sources or statistical methods that we paid $400,000 for in taxpayer funding, we are going to recreate and publish a fully documented study using the expert skills of community members of our taxpayer groups in the Beach Cities and Torrance. More to follow before early voting starts on October 7. Both StopBCHD and TRAO (Torrance Redondo Against Overdevelopment) are still diligently working to protect the surrounding neighborhoods and District taxpayers from BCHD’s proposed, nearly 800,000 square foot tripling of the current campus buildings.

Mark Nelson

Redondo Beach