Hermosa Beach Schools

Gifted And Talented (GATE) Not Welcome?

Hermosa Beach does not participate in the California GATE Program.  GATE stands for Gifted and Talented Education.

Manhattan Beach and Redondo Beach, our neighboring communities where students from Hermosa Beach go to High School, both have GATE Programs.  I have heard that Hermosa Beach students who may have been advanced when they were young have a difficult time transitioning to advanced programs in High School.  They are behind because Hermosa Beach does not adequately educate them.

If you have heard similar stories, I would like to hear them.  If you have concerns, let me know.  If you would like to remain anonymous, I will keep your name out of it.

If you see me at Hermosa View or Hermosa Valley, feel free to talk to me off the record.  Or on the record.  I think this is an embarrassing state of affairs, and it needs to be fixed.

Keith Hemstreet

David Cohn - Congratulations Killer!

David Cohn, you ran an absolutely dirty campaign, and you made some impressive claims.  You did not give any details during the election that made any mathematical sense.  You criticized your opponent's rate of return without analyzing the risk exposure of the portfolio, which you as Managing Director at Diamond Capital Partners clearly understands is bullshit.  So now we will see if you were lying.  But either way, it is disgusting that your negative attacks on the incumbent John Workman clearly took their toll.

Daily Breeze - Longtime Hermosa Beach treasurer John Workman dies at 73

We will be watching to see if your election to Treasurer of Hermosa Beach was worth the cost.

David Cohn's Math Homework

A few days ago I asked David Cohn, in a blog post, to give us more information about how he would earn the  City of Hermosa Beach an extra $300,000 if we elect him to be the next Treasurer.  He fleshes this out in his latest glossy junk mail.  He plans to put the money in "Federally Insured Bank CD's [sic] and T-Bills."

Math:
$300,000 is 1.2% of the $25,000,000 Hermosa has banked.
Cohen promises to earn us that $300k over the 0.41% we currently earn.  So he plans to earn us a total of 1.61%.
The highest 1 year CD rate currently offered on www. BankRate.com = 1.15%
The current yield on 12 month T-Bills = 0.10%

So David Cohn plans to earn us 1.61% by using two investments that each earn much less than 1.61% interest.

David Cohn, please tell us your secret!

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Grandstanding City Council Right Here in Hermosa Beach

WARNING - THIS BLOG CONTAINS A GRAPHIC PHOTO OF A CRIME BEING COMMITTED!

This is my favorite picture of the week.  It was taken by me, at Hermosa Valley School, at around Noon on Saturday, October 29, 2011.

What's the big deal, you might ask?  Leaf blowers are illegal in Hermosa Beach.  Not only are they absurdly noisy and polluting, but they blow small particulate matter into the air where it poses a health risk to the user of the leaf blower (like this totally unprotected man pictured above), and to the general public.  In this particular case, I was watching my son's soccer game, so at the scene of this crime, the general public consisted of 6 soccer teams of little kids, their brothers and sisters, and probably a hundred parents and relatives.

Anybody with eyes and/or ears knows that the ban on leaf blowers is 100% ignored in Hermosa Beach.  And what that really means is that it is not enforced at all.  It is a joke law written by grandstanding Hermosa Beach City Councilmen to make it appear as if they care about your health.

I find it ironic that the Hermosa Beach School District openly flaunts this health law.  But the real reason that I bring it up now is that some of our Councilmen are trying to convince us that because they passed a law outlawing smoking outside, that they care about us.  They do not.  They care about our votes in the upcoming Hermosa Beach City Council Election.  If they actually cared about us, they might enforce the leaf blower ban.  I would bet that the one single leaf blower event pictured above negatively impacted the health of the 200+ children and parents at those soccer games more than 5 years worth of passive outdoor second hand smoke that might be absorbed by walking down Pier Avenue.

Thanks for nothing Councilmen Peter Tucker and Michael Divirgilio.

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First David Cohn - Candidate for Treasurer - Hermosa Beach

David Cohn is running for Treasurer of Hermosa Beach.
David Cohn says that he will (not will try, but will) bring in $300,000 more per year than the incumbent is currently bringing, without compromising financial safety.
David Cohn promises to "make the city's investment activities transparent."

Apparently he has no plan to make his campaign promises transparent.  I cannot find, anywhere, how David Cohn plans to improve Hermosa Beach's financial returns without increasing risk.

Remember when Orange County went bankrupt in 1994 because Robert Citron, the Treasurer-Tax Collector of Orange County, in pursuit of fantastic returns, took fantastic risks and lost the citizens of Orange County a fortune?

I have looked for David Cohn's plan in the local papers and on his Facebook page and on Twitter (he doesn't seem to have a website), and I cannot find a plan.  Here is from Twitter: "There are 9 investments we can go to to spread risk, we are only invested in one of them. We need to spread the risk." - David Cohn

What are "The 9 Investments"?  Are we supposed to Tweet you with guesses?  And of course, spreading risk is good, but it is not the same thing as increasing return.

David Cohn, please detail your plan to make us MORE MONEY, RISK FREE!  (is it the all caps that make that sound really sketchy, or did I put that in all caps because it sounds really sketchy?)  I will apologize profusely if you have already detailed your plan in writing somewhere, and I just don't have the internet skills to track it down.

And please don't be afraid you'll bore us with details.  I like being bored by the details of low-risk/high-return investments.

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Hermosa Beach City Council Elections are Coming!

I will be laying into some of the following people soon:

City Council Election:
H.S. Fangary
Peter Tucker
Michael Divirgilio
Steve Powers

City Clerk:
Elaine Doerfling

City Treasurer:
David Cohn
John Workman

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Community Gardens - on the Green Belt

This is a quick post in response to the issue of starting community gardens in Hermosa Beach. I think it is a great idea. 

To me, the most obvious place for a community garden would be the Green Belt. What is more green than a Community Garden? Not on the path in the center of course, but in place of some of the acres and acres of icicle plants that are currently there. Clearly parts of the green belt are too densely treed for an effective garden requiring sun, but other parts have no trees at all. I would not miss 10 acres of icicle plants in exchange for hundreds of garden plots. And the Green Belt stretches through the whole town. Using some of the icicle plant areas in addition to unused corners of other parks would seem like a good way to lose nothing and gain a great deal.

I hope that Jeff Duclos, Dency Nelson, Kris Lauritson and the others currently working on this project will consider this option if they haven't already.

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