By Kelcie Pegher, The Beach Reporter
City manager Tom Bakaly, who arrived in Hermosa Beach in 2012 from Park City, Utah to a small beach town in the midst of an giant oil crisis, talked about his resignation at Tuesday night’s council meeting.
“I’ve accepted the chief executive officer position with the Beach Cities Health District, so I’ll be starting there on (November) 1st,” said Bakaly. “I’m very excited about that and excited about having an opportunity to continue to help people and make an impact in the community, in Hermosa as well as in Redondo and Manhattan Beach, helping the Beach Cities Health District create a healthy beach area.”
He said that he plans to continue living in Hermosa Beach.
“We love it here,” said Bakaly. “I want to thank the council and the community and staff for the last four years of welcoming my wife and my son and helping raise our son. Many of you have been actively involved with that, so thank you, thank you for that, and I look forward to working with Hermosa in a different capacity and helping any way I can.”
Since he started to spread the news and the press release went out Tuesday morning, Bakaly said he’d heard from many people who thanked him for his service.
“People have wished me well, and it kind of reminds me of the Monty Python skit where they’re bringing out their dad and a guy on the pile jumps up and says, ‘I’m not dead yet,’” Bakaly joked in his best faux British accent.
Mayor Hany Fangary spoke for the council.
“On behalf of my colleagues, I want to express thanks to you and Pam and Henry for the years that you spent working with us and with our staff accomplishing a lot of things Hermosa Beach,” said Fangary. “We really appreciate everything that you’ve done and I know the city staff really appreciates everything that you’ve done for them. You’re not going too far, so we’ll continue to work on things that are mutually beneficial to Hermosa Beach and the Beach Cities Health District—smoking, smart streets, other health-related issues.”
Fangary confirmed that council started discussions during closed session about next steps.
“The city of Hermosa Beach has to go through finding somebody to fill in Tom’s shoes, so we had the discussion starting today and we’ll continue to have the discussion for the next few weeks,” he said.
The city council postponed a public hearing to consider an appeal by residents calling for additional conditions at Hotel Hermosa. The planning commission recently approved a parking plan which would allow food delivery trucks to the hotel in order to serve complimentary food to hotel guests. However, residents complain the patio noise is a nuisance and are asking the city council to take that noise into consideration.
A Hotel Hermosa attorney challenged the neighbors’ legal rights for the appeal based on a lack of procedure in the zoning ordinance. City Attorney Mike Jenkins recommended postponing the hearing until the Hotel Hermosa attorney’s argument has been reviewed.
The matter has tentatively been continued to Sept. 13.
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