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Ray Jackson Newsletter — May 31, 2026
📬 Councilmember Ray Jackson | Hermosa Beach | June 1, 2026
Dear neighbors,
This past week asked Hermosa to hold two things at once: remembrance and renewal. On Memorial Day we paused to honor the people who gave everything for this country, and a few mornings later our pier filled with a blue wave of runners and walkers reminding one another that no one has to carry the hard stuff alone. In between, your Council did some of the least glamorous and most important work there is, sitting with difficult budget math and deciding what our city can realistically take on. Here is what you need to know.
🌊 Environment & Protecting Our Coast
🔹 AB 1740, and why local voices are shifting the math. The bill that would let certain coastal cities skip individual Coastal Commission permits keeps drawing scrutiny, and last week the Santa Monica Democratic Club voted 60 to 40 to formally oppose it. I was grateful for the invitation to speak there as a Los Angeles and Orange County Coastal Commissioner, and to make the case for public access, local engagement, and the Coastal Act.
→ ⚡ Why it matters now: AB 1740 was pitched as a fix for Santa Monica, yet that city and the Coastal Commission have since signed a memorandum of understanding to get its Local Coastal Program across the finish line. When the original problem is already being solved, the case for weakening permit oversight gets a lot thinner. That is the argument I will keep making.
🔹 Hermosa is planning for the water, not just reacting to it. At last week's regular meeting, Council awarded a contract to Moffatt and Nichol, not to exceed $473,875 over three years, to prepare a vulnerability assessment and sea level rise adaptation plan for our coastline. I supported it without hesitation.
→ 🎯 My take: A beach city that waits for the ocean to make its decisions for us is a city that pays more and protects less. Studying our vulnerabilities now, while we still have real options, is exactly the kind of forward planning a coastal community owes the next generation.
👉 Read the Council meeting recap
🔹 The Commission heads to San Diego next. The California Coastal Commission meets June 10 through 12 at the Wyndham Bayside in San Diego. Coastal access, permit decisions, and enforcement questions with ripple effects up and down the state will be on the docket, and I will be there for the work.
→ 💡 One quick note: As beachgoers crowd our shoreline for the start of summer, it is worth remembering that the public's right to be here was not an accident. It was won at the ballot box and is defended one meeting at a time.
👉 View the Coastal Commission meeting schedule
💰 Budget & Finance
🔹 Another crossroad of tough choices at the CIP study session. On Thursday, May 28, Council held a special study session on our Capital Improvement Program for the coming fiscal year, and two realities came into sharp focus. Our Public Works team is stretched to capacity, and we do not have the money right now to launch major new projects.
→ 📊 What that means: For the next couple of years, expect us to make the most of limited dollars and staff with targeted, stopgap repairs rather than big new builds. First in line will be the projects that protect people, the infrastructure we cannot let fail, and the fixes that genuinely cannot wait.
→ 🎯 My stance: If a project has no funding source and no realistic path to construction, spending scarce dollars to keep studying it is hard to justify. I would rather be straight with you about what we can actually deliver than promise a wish list we cannot pay for. At the same time, we are working to grow revenue, pursue grant funding, and reprioritize so the city's finances are pointed in the right direction.
🔹 Where next year's revenue conversation is heading. At the regular meeting, Council received the FY 2026-27 budget presentations and asked staff to return with analysis on a possible transient occupancy and sales tax measure, parking revenue strategies including dynamic pricing and a holiday parking evaluation, early data from our new automated license plate reader enforcement, and a community process around expanded metering on residential streets. We also reviewed community survey results on a potential local sales tax measure.
→ 💡 Why I am flagging this early: These are the conversations that decide what gets funded next year. The time to weigh in is now, while the options are still open, not after the numbers harden into a draft budget.
🔹 Standing up against a costly state mandate. Council also directed staff to send a letter opposing AB 1383, a state bill affecting public employee retirement benefits that could carry real financial costs for cities like ours. Protecting the local budget from mandates we did not ask for and cannot easily absorb is part of this job.
👉 View the City's legislative positions
🚨 Public Safety
🔹 Safety projects move to the front of the line. When dollars are tight, priorities matter more, not less. The capital projects I am pushing hardest to protect are the ones tied directly to keeping people safe, like the pedestrian crosswalk at 25th and Ardmore and the Bard Street lighting upgrades. These are not flashy, but they are the difference between a near miss and a tragedy on a dark street.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: A crosswalk or a streetlight rarely makes the news. It just quietly does its job every night. That is exactly why these belong at the top of a constrained budget, and why I will keep advocating for them.
👉 View the Capital Improvement Program projects
🔹 A closer look at the new enforcement data. As part of the budget conversation, Council asked staff to bring back early results from our newly deployed automated license plate reader vehicles. Before we lean harder on any tool, I want to see what the data actually shows about whether it is working and how it affects residents.
→ 🎯 My take: Good public safety policy is evidence first, expansion second. I would rather ask the hard questions now than discover problems later.
💼 Economic Development & Local Business
🔹 Smarter rules for the events that make Hermosa, Hermosa. Council approved a set of updates to the city's Special Event Policy and fee structure, aimed at keeping our events high quality while managing the public costs they create. Done right, our events bring people downtown, support local businesses, and still respect the neighborhoods that host them.
👉 View the special event permit page
🔹 Three local businesses earn green honors. Congratulations to Our Lady of Guadalupe School, Mugwort Kiko Corporation, and Rosa Care, all newly recognized as Hermosa Beach Certified Green Businesses.
→ 💡 Why it matters: Sustainability and small business are not at odds here. These three are proof that doing right by the planet and running a solid operation go hand in hand, and I am glad to see them celebrated.
👉 Learn about the Green Business Program
🇺🇸 Honoring Memorial Day
🔹 A morning of remembrance at our commemoration. This Memorial Day, our community gathered to honor the men and women who gave their lives in service. Olivia Pucci opened us with the National Anthem and Gracie closed with America the Beautiful, while Vann Jackson's reading of a Paul Laurence Dunbar poem from 1896 captured the weight of the day. I was honored to share the story of my friend Captain Bartt Owens, whose service and sacrifice I will never forget.
→ 🎯 Why this matters to me: As an Army veteran, I carry these names with me. Memorial Day is not about heroes in the abstract. It is about husbands, wives, parents, friends, and neighbors who gave everything, and about a community that refuses to forget them.
💙 Around Town: Community and Getting Involved
🔹 The blue wave of the You Are Enough 5K. On Saturday, May 30, hundreds turned out at Schumacher Plaza for the fourth annual You Are Enough 5K, a run and walk for mental health awareness that swept from the Hermosa Beach Pier to the Manhattan Beach Pier. One participant, Jordan, lunged the entire course, an estimated six thousand-plus lunges, in support of suicide awareness and men's mental health.
→ ⚡ Why it stays with me: The whole morning carried one message worth repeating in a town as busy as ours. You are enough, and no one has to face the hard days alone. Watching this community show up for that idea was something to be proud of.
🔹 Want to help shape Hermosa's future? Two ways in. If you have ever thought about serving your city, our boards and commissions are where a lot of the real work and real influence happen, from parks to planning to public works. And for the students in our community, Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi's District 66 office is taking applications for its part-time summer government internship through Tuesday, June 9 at 5 PM.
→ 💡 My encouragement: I got into this work because someone made room for me to serve. Whether you are a longtime resident with time to give or a high schooler curious about how government actually runs, there is a seat for you at the table.
👉 Explore City boards and commissions
👉 View the internship details (Instagram)
📅 Upcoming
🔹 Saturday, June 6: The monthly First Saturday cleanup returns to the Hermosa Beach Veterans Memorial. Neighbors gather to swap the flags and care for the memorial, and all are welcome.
🔹 Wednesday, June 10 through Friday, June 12: California Coastal Commission meeting at the Wyndham Bayside in San Diego.
🔹 Tuesday, June 23: Public hearing on the Landscaping and Street Lighting District assessments for the coming fiscal year, set at last week's Council meeting.
👉 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 reach the right department at City Hall.
👉 Submit a service request via Go Hermosa!
For updates and conversation between editions, you can follow me on Instagram.
👉 Follow @RayForHermosa on Instagram
If there is a single idea connecting a Memorial Day commemoration, a 5K full of strangers cheering each other on, and a long council night of hard budget choices, it is this: a city is built by people who keep showing up. Some show up to remember. Some show up to run, to serve on a commission, or to sit through a study session that runs late. All of it counts.
Thank you for showing up in your own way. As always, please reach out anytime with questions, concerns, or anything you think I should know.
