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Brad Waller Newsletter — June 7, 2026
📬 Brad Waller, District 1 Newsletter, June 8, 2026
Hi neighbors,
Summer is rolling into Redondo, but City Hall doesn't get a slow season, and last week made that clear. It brought a stack of regional board meetings, a police crackdown on illegal truck traffic along Palos Verdes Boulevard, new trash rates, and a battery warning worth two minutes of your time. Add a few good reasons to get out around town, from butterfly walks on the bluffs to a North Redondo business celebration, and you have got this week's update.
🚨 Public Safety: Truck Route Enforcement on Palos Verdes Boulevard
🔹 The crackdown on illegal truck traffic is producing real numbers. Redondo Beach Police and the California Highway Patrol ran another joint enforcement operation along eastbound and westbound Palos Verdes Boulevard last week, with added stop sign enforcement at the Helberta Avenue intersection. The day's tally came to 33 citations and 17 commercial vehicle inspections, including 16 truck route violations, 11 stop sign citations, and 6 for unsafe speed. CHP inspectors also flagged 57 safety violations across the trucks they pulled in.
→ 🎯 My take: Commercial trucks that ignore their designated routes and shortcut through our neighborhoods are a safety problem and a wear-and-tear problem, and clearing them off our streets has been a priority of mine for a while now. These operations work, the numbers prove it, and they are going to keep coming. The plan is to continue enforcement, work with the new Torrance City Council, evaluate technological tools, and educate drivers to take designated routes. My thanks to the six RBPD officers and four CHP officers who put in the hours to make our streets safer.
👉 See the enforcement update (Instagram)
🔋 A Battery Warning Worth Two Minutes
🔹 One tossed battery started a fire in a city trash truck last week. It is a sharp reminder that batteries of any kind do not belong in your household trash, and the lithium-ion cells inside phones, laptops, power tools, and e-bikes are especially dangerous when they get crushed or punctured. A damaged one can ignite, and a truck packed with trash is the worst possible place for that to happen.
→ ⚡ Why this matters: A single careless toss puts sanitation crews, equipment, and neighbors at risk. The fix is easy. You can drop household batteries for free at the library, the City Clerk's office, the Alta Vista Park Community Center, or wait for a Household Hazardous Waste roundup, as we had just days before this incident.
👉 Find battery drop-off details
🏛️ The Work You Don't Always See
🔹 Last week was a quiet one online and a packed one behind the scenes. Between a City Council meeting, a Los Angeles County Sanitation District meeting, a Clean Power Alliance board meeting, and a League of California Cities Housing, Community, and Economic Development committee meeting, the calendar filled up fast with the kind of work that rarely earns a headline.
→ 💡 What this adds up to: Four meetings meant hundreds of pages of agendas and reports and more than a dozen hours in the room, reviewing budgets, asking questions, and getting ready to vote on decisions that touch our energy costs, our waste system, and our housing future. Showing up regionally is how a city our size keeps a real voice in the rooms where those calls get made.
→ 🎯 My honest take: It is not glamorous, and I will not pretend it is. I did steal an hour for the Cruisin' the Lagoon car show on Friday, which is exactly the kind of breather you need before opening the next agenda packet. The work itself, though, is the job, and I am glad to do it.
🗑️ Multifamily Trash Rates: Please Check Your Athens Service Level
🔹 If you own, manage, or serve on the board of a condo building, HOA, apartment property, or other multifamily property with five or more residences, please pay close attention to your Athens Services account before July 1. A new bundled three-stream waste program is being implemented for multifamily and commercial accounts, covering trash, recycling, and organics. The three-stream requirement comes from California’s SB 1383 organic waste law, so the service change itself is not optional.
→ 💡 What residents and property managers need to know: The issue is not just the new legal requirement. The issue is the default service level. If an account does not respond to Athens, it may be automatically moved into a default bundle, and that default may be significantly more expensive than what the property actually needs. I have heard from one HOA that its default quote would have increased its bill by 117%. But after asking for a right-sized option, Athens’ own recommended service level was actually slightly cheaper than the HOA’s current bill while still meeting the legal requirement.
→ 🎯 My honest take: Do not assume the default quote is the only option, and do not let silence make the decision for you. Ask Athens for an itemized written quote and a right-sized service option based on your actual trash, recycling, and organics needs. Respond in writing before your deadline so your property is not moved into a higher default bundle simply because no one acted in time.
Contacts:
Athens Services: (888) 336-6100
City of Redondo Beach Public Works Solid Waste: rbrecycles@redondo.org
🌿 Environment: Deep Cleaning Esplanade, Native Plants and Butterflies on the Bluffs
🔹 Look out for the Deep cleaning of Esplanade on Wednesday morning. Warning signs are up letting you know not to park on the West side of Esplanade on Wednesday morning. The city’s hard-working crew will be out there with pressure washers and the vacuum truck giving Esplanade its first deep cleaning of the year. Now that the weather is warmer, look for them out there more often.
🔹 Cal Water's Adopt-a-Plant event brought free native plants to Hopkins Wilderness Park this past Saturday. Residents who stopped by could take home a drought-tolerant California native and pick up tips on water-wise landscaping. If you missed it, the bigger idea still holds: small changes in our own yards add up to real water savings and a real boost for local habitat.
🔹 The butterfly walks on the bluffs continues this month. The South Bay Parkland Conservancy's free discovery walks return Saturday, June 13, and Saturday, June 20, with biologists guiding the route and a good chance of spotting the rare El Segundo blue butterfly. Walkers gather on the sidewalk just north of Miramar Park, near Esplanade and Vista Del Mar. Spots are limited and first-come, first-served, so the habitat right at our doorstep is worth an early Saturday.
👉 RSVP for the June 13 walk
👉 RSVP for the June 20 walk
💼 Economic Development: North Redondo Celebrates Its Own
🔹 The North Redondo Beach Business Association is throwing a morning of recognition this Thursday. Rise and Shine Redondo lands Thursday, June 11, from 7:45 to 9:00 a.m. in the Southbay Galleria Community Room, with coffee, snacks, and the reveal of the 2026 Business of the Year and Volunteer of the Year. The program also covers progress on the NRBBA's five-year plan and what is next for the Artesia Corridor.
→ 🎯 Why I am flagging it: The businesses, volunteers, and partnerships that hold North Redondo together do not get celebrated nearly enough, and a full room on a Thursday morning is a good way to fix that. If you have a stake in the Artesia Corridor, this is your crowd.
👉 RSVP for Rise and Shine Redondo
🔹 One last call for Cake Buzz. The North Redondo bakery, known for its liqueur-infused cakes, is taking its final orders before it closes for good on June 20. If the shop has been part of a birthday or a celebration of yours, the next couple of weeks are the time to say thank you in person.
👉 Order from Cake Buzz on Instagram
🙋 Serve Your City: Boards and Commissions Deadline Is June 11
🔹 Want a real say in how Redondo runs? Applications close Thursday. The City is filling a round of board and commission seats for the term that begins October 1, and the window to apply closes June 11. You need to be a registered voter in the city to serve on most of them, the Youth Commission being the exception, and a few seats carry specific qualifications.
→ 🎯 My take: I have said for years that the best way to understand local government is to get inside it, and our boards and commissions are the front door. If you have ever read one of these updates and thought you could do this, take that as your sign to apply.
👉 Read about the commissions and apply
📅 Coming Up
🔹 Cruisin' the Lagoon, every Friday through September 11, 3:00 to 6:00 p.m. The marina cruise-in rolls on all summer at the Redondo Beach Marina. All makes and models, no awards, no fuss, just good cars and good company by the water. Marina parking runs $2 per hour.
👉 Pay parking via ParkMobile
🥕 Weekly Markets
Farmers' Market by the Pier (Veterans Park), Thursdays, 8am to 1pm. 309 Esplanade.
👉 Read more
Riviera Village Farmers Market, Sundays, 8:30am to 1pm. Triangle Lot, 1801 S. Elena Ave.
👉 Read more
North Redondo Beach Farmers Market, Wednesdays, 2pm to 7pm. Green Lane at Artesia.
👉 Read more
📱 Access Redondo
Need to report a pothole, a broken streetlight, or another issue to the City? The Access Redondo app is still mid-rebuild, so for now, the quickest route is the City's website, which works just fine from your phone. The new version should be ready by late summer, and I would rather we relaunch it right than push out something half-finished.
🏖️ Redondo Roundup
A truck route crackdown with the citations to show for it, a battery warning that could save a sanitation crew a very bad day, a stack of regional meetings that kept Redondo's voice in the room, free butterfly walks on the bluffs, a Thursday morning to celebrate North Redondo's businesses, and a last call for a beloved bakery. Some weeks are loud. This one was steady, and steady is how most of the real work gets done. If serving on a board or commission has ever crossed your mind, let Thursday's deadline be the nudge.
If anything in here sparked a question or something you want to share, hit reply. I read every message. Enjoy your day and week ahead in this beautiful place we call home.
