📬 Councilmember Ray Jackson | Hermosa Beach | April 27, 2026

Dear Hermosa Beach,

What would it take to make our downtown feel a little more alive on event nights without losing what makes Hermosa, Hermosa? That question came up over a frozen Irish coffee at Patrick Molloy's a few months back with Fiona Fleming, and last week it landed at the City Council dais. With Council support, City staff is now exploring what an "Entertainment Zone" could look like in our city.

This edition covers that initiative, the California Coastal Commission's unanimous vote to oppose AB1740, an Earth Day shaped by our Green Streets program, the reopening of the Kelly Courts, a recap of Surfers Walk of Fame Weekend, a few Public Works wins, and what's on the calendar including tomorrow night's Council meeting. Here is what you need to know.

💼 Economic Development

🔹 Entertainment Zone exploration: green light from Council. California law allows cities to designate "Entertainment Zones" with strict boundaries, set hours, and tight public safety guardrails. Inside the zone, approved businesses can sell drinks for outdoor consumption only, often paired with live entertainment and community programming. The framework has been used in cities across the state for events ranging from festivals to championship celebrations.

→ 🎯 My take: This is not about reinventing Hermosa. It is about looking honestly at what we already do well, like St. Patrick's Day and Surfers Walk of Fame, and asking whether a carefully scoped framework could make those events better for businesses and safer for residents. The point of doing the staff analysis first is exactly so we get a clear picture before any decisions get made.

→ 💡 What happens next: Staff will study the legal framework, public safety implications, candidate locations and events, and any operational or quality-of-life impacts on residents, then bring it back to Council for public discussion. Worth exploring, not a fit, or maybe with the right details: all of those are legitimate places to land. I want to hear from you before this returns to the dais.

👉 View the Entertainment Zone discussion (Instagram)

🌊 Environment & Protecting Our Coast

🔹 AB1740: Coastal Commission opposes unanimously. Last week, the California Coastal Commission voted unanimously to oppose AB1740, a bill that would allow certain coastal cities to bypass individual Coastal Commission permits for a wide range of activities and projects. Bills like this risk reopening the door to a time when coastal land use was decided in small backroom votes, before Proposition 20 put the public's interest at the center of every shoreline decision.

→ 🎯 My take: This is unfolding as we mark fifty years of the California Coastal Act. The whole point of the Act, born from voters in 1972, was to make sure decisions about California's coast did not turn on the preferences of whoever happened to be in the room on a Tuesday. AB1740 risks taking us backward. I will keep using my seat on the Commission to push the other direction.

👉 Read the AB1740 bill text

🔹 Earth Day, Hermosa Beach style. Wednesday was Earth Day, and our Public Works team marked it the way it should be marked: with the work itself. Through the Beach Cities Green Streets program, the city continues to add shade, cooling, and street-level beauty to neighborhoods one block at a time. It is one of the most tangible climate-resilience investments a small coastal city can make, and it does not stop on April 23.

→ ⚡ Why it matters: Earth Day works best when it is not a single-day photo op, but a reminder of the year-round work. Green Streets is exactly that kind of work, and it is happening here.

👉 Learn about the Hermosa Avenue Green Street Project

🚨 Public Safety

🔹 Kelly Courts reopen for drop-in basketball. Beginning Monday, April 20, the basketball courts at Kelly Park reopened for daily drop-in public use from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM. After the work that went into refurbishing the surface and the surrounding facilities, it is good to see the courts back in service for residents and families.

→ ⚡ Why this matters: Public courts are one of those quiet pieces of city infrastructure that make a real difference for kids and adults who just want a place to play. Keeping them open and well-kept is the baseline our residents deserve.

🔹 Reminder: youth e-motorcycle and e-bike safety is a parental responsibility. A recent Southern California case in which a 14-year-old illegally riding an e-motorcycle critically injured a substitute teacher is a hard but necessary conversation for any beach community. Los Angeles County prosecutors have charged the rider's mother, and the District Attorney emphasized that under California law, parents bear responsibility for what their kids do on the road.

→ 💡 What this means for us: The popularity of high-speed e-bikes and e-motorcycles among teens has outpaced rules, infrastructure, and in too many cases, common sense. As a parent myself, I take this seriously. Knowing what your kids are riding, what is legal for their age, and what the consequences look like when something goes wrong is part of the job. Our streets, sidewalks, and Strand depend on it.

👉 HBPD programs and safety tips

💰 Budget & Public Works

🔹 Two recent Public Works wins worth highlighting. The renovated 14th Street Bathroom is back in service, and improvements at the city parking garage keep moving forward. Our Public Works crews have been delivering project after project across town, on the beach, on the streets, and on the buildings residents use every day.

→ 💡 The takeaway: These are not glamorous projects, but they are exactly the kind of investments that quietly raise the quality of our public spaces. Every dollar spent on durable, well-maintained facilities pays back in fewer service requests, fewer headaches, and a city that simply works better day to day. From my seat on the dais, the steady drumbeat of small project completions is one of the better signs of a city that is actually executing.

🔹 Athens Services bulky-item pickup is free for residents. A reminder for anyone clearing out a couch, a broken dresser, or other oversize items: please do not leave them at the curb on their own. Hermosa Beach residents are entitled to free bulky-item pickups through Athens Services. Scheduling one keeps our streets clean, our alleys clear, and our coastline free of stuff that has no business there.

👉 Schedule an Athens bulky-item pickup

🏘️ Housing

🔹 South Bay Regional Housing Trust: inaugural meeting in the books. The South Bay Regional Housing Trust convened for its first meeting on Thursday, April 23. Hermosa Beach joined this regional joint powers authority on March 10, and the Trust is now positioned to begin pursuing pooled financing tools, revolving loans, and bridge funding for affordable housing projects across our region.

→ 🎯 My take: Affordability along the coast is not solvable city by city. The Trust is the kind of regional infrastructure that gives smaller cities like ours real leverage at a scale we cannot reach alone. I will keep tracking what comes out of it and report back as the work develops.

👉 South Bay Cities Council of Governments

🏄 Around Town: Surfers Walk of Fame Weekend

🔹 Surfers Walk of Fame Weekend kicked off Friday. From the Hermosa Beach Museum's Thursday-evening discussion featuring 2026 inductee John Van Hamersveld, the artist behind the Endless Summer poster and Hermosa's Great Wave mural, through the weekend's induction events on Pier Plaza, this year's celebration brought legends, surf culture, and community together the way only Hermosa can.

→ ⚡ Why this matters: With Council recently directing the Parks and Recreation Commission to find a new home for the original pier deck plaques, this year's weekend felt especially worth showing up for. The history of surfing in Hermosa is a community asset, and protecting how we honor it is its own form of stewardship. Big credit to the South Bay Boardriders Club, the Hermosa Beach Historical Society, and every volunteer who made the weekend happen.

👉 Hermosa Beach Historical Society events

📅 Upcoming

🔹 Tuesday, April 28, 6:00 PM: Regular City Council meeting at City Hall (1315 Valley Drive). Agendas are posted at least 72 hours in advance.

🔹 Wednesday, May 13 to Friday, May 15: California Coastal Commission meets in San Pedro.

👉 View City Council agendas and meeting information

📱 Stay Connected

If you have a service issue to report, the Go Hermosa! app is the most direct way to get it to the right department at City Hall.

👉 Submit a service request via Go Hermosa!

For community updates and commentary between editions, you can follow me on Instagram.

👉 Follow @RayForHermosa on Instagram

If there is a pattern this week, it is the quiet work that adds up: a basketball court reopened, a bathroom rebuilt, a bill challenged at the Commission, a regional housing trust starting up, and a downtown framework that began as a casual conversation and is now a real project on staff's desk. None of it makes a viral post. All of it makes a city.

Thank you for the time you take to stay engaged with the work. As always, please reach out anytime with questions, concerns, or anything you think I should know.

Working together to build an ever better Hermosa Beach.

Ray Jackson
Councilmember, City of Hermosa Beach
rjackson@hermosabeach.gov