Sharon Kalani has caved and has begun moving with the left-flank of the Torrance City Council.
This is pretty disconcerting stuff. Sharon Kalani campaigned as a conservative, and she showed more movement in that direction with the resolution of No Confidence in Barbara Ferrer.
But when it came time to select a new city councilman, she went along with the liberal members Mike Griffiths and Asam Sheikh and selected Bridgett Lewis. She had been a registered Democrat, registered Republican, and then went back as a registered Democrat all over again.
When does this madness stop? Why do these RINOs get onto the Torrance City Council time and again?
City residents need to wake up and realize that accommodationist Republicans are just as bad as the Democrats. All this hokum about avoiding partisanship and politicking is just the slow-road to bankruptcy and ruin. Where do people get this idea from, that avoiding conflict will solve the city’s problems down the line?
Sellout Sharon Kalani screwed over her district and the city by selecting another someone who will be another go-along to get-along on the city council. One would think that Torrance deserves better.
Things are just getting better and better in the city of Torrance.
The city residents have spoken, and they want a robust city council that will stick up for the rights and needs of the people. Unlike the previous Torrane city council, we now have a stronger majority that is ready to push back on the abusive encroachments of Los Angeles County government.
At the August 9th, 2022 Torrance City Council meeting, the city council took two extraordinary steps to push back on government overreach from the county.
First, the city council voted to issue a Resolution of No Confidence in LA County Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer:
Here’s the full text of the Resolution:
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF
TORRANCE EXPRESSING A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE IN LOS ANGELES COUNTY
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEAL TH DIRECTOR BARBARA FERRER
WHEREAS, the City of Torrance (“City”) finds that the Los Angeles County Department of
Public Health Director has overstated the health threat posed by the COVID-19 pandemic to the
City of Torrance; and
WHEREAS, the City finds that imposing the same Health Orders onto the entire Los Angeles
County is not fair to areas with significantly less COVID-19 cases; and
WHEREAS, the City maintains that the community of Torrance can determine the risks of
COVID-19 within the community without the help of county-wide mandates; and
WHEREAS, the City finds that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health shall
consider the complexity of the cities within the county when creating standardized future
mandates.
NOW, THEREFORE, the City Council of the City of Torrance does hereby resolve that:
(1) The City of Torrance expresses a vote of no confidence in Los Angeles County Department
of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer.
(2) The City of Torrance hereby directs staff to transmit the resolution to applicable and
interested offices and organizations.
(3) The City of Torrance welcomes an opportunity to engage in comprehensive discussion with
Department of Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer to develop a working relationship aimed at
promoting public health and supporting Torrance businesses.
(4) The City Clerk shall certify to the adoption of this Resolution.
INTRODUCED, APPROVED and ADOPTED this 9th day of August 2022.
From there, the city council also issued a proclamation that they would not enforce any other health mandates or lockdown orders from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors or the LA County Department of Public Health.
It was good to see the entire city council approve this measure.
This resolution should have been issued in 2020, but better late than never. No doubt that the LA County Board of Supervisors will attempt to impose yet another mandate, since they got away with so many shutdown and lockdown orders over the previous two years. This abuse of power cannot go unchecked a second time.
I am really proud of the city council, and I am so grateful that we have a new majority that is willing to stand up to the abuses from the county staff and county officials.
Here’s the full text of the proclamation of non-enforcement:
A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF TORRANCE OPPOSING POTENTIAL LOS ANGELES COUNTY HEALTH ORDER REQUIRING INDOOR MASKING OR BUSINESS CLOSURES
WHEREAS, the City of Torrance (“City”) finds that no government intervention or mandate
should impact the ability an individual has to make money by enforcing mandates that create
loss of jobs; and
WHEREAS, the City finds that all workers are essential workers; and
WHEREAS, the City will not enforce any potential Health Order requiring indoor masking and
the shutdown of any business; and
WHEREAS, the City respects the right of people to wear masks if they choose to, however no
member of the Torrance community should be mandated to wear a mask; and
WHEREAS, the City supports the voluntary use of face masks, COVI D-19 vaccines, and testing
to slow the transmission of the virus and protect vulnerable populations.
NOW, THEREFORE, the City Council of the City of Torrance does hereby resolve that:
(1) The City of Torrance asks that the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health Director
Barbara Ferrer refrain from enforcing mask mandates and shutdowns in the County of Los
Angeles.
(2) The City of Torrance will not use City staff, resources, or public funds to enforce a potential
new Health Order requiring indoor masking or the shutdown of any business.
(3) The City Clerk shall certify to the adoption of this Resolution.
INTRODUCED, APPROVED and ADOPTED this 9th day of August 2022.
I am glad to live in a city that will no longer comply with these onerous mandates. These resolutions will be sent to the LA County Board of Supervisors, as well.
It’s time for the Board to listen to the needs and concerns of the people, rather than ignoring us and doing as they please, to the great detriment of residents and businesses alike. No one entity in the county should have the authority to deem which businesses are essential or non-essential. No one authority should have the power to require individuals to wear masks or comply with other health mandates. How many lives were disrupted irrevocably because of these outrageous health mandates? How many people lost their businesses? Their homes? Their lives?!
This abuse of power can never happen again, and the city of Torrance took another step to make sure of that.
Here is one more post that I wanted to share. Many people in the city pressed me to show proof that Jean Adelsman, Councilman Aurelio Mattucci’s opponent, had lied about him and his term in office.
Well, here you go:
Here’s the deal:
Aurelio took donations from a number of business owners and other economic interests in the city.
Why?
Because Aurelio is a fiscal conservative who opposes excessive spending and tax hikes. Every business wants that.
And then there’s this post:
No, Aurelio did not vote to defund the police. He did not vote to cut funding from the police department. In fact, he followed the recommendations from the chief of police not to fill a select number of positions in order to save the city money and get the general funds back to a healthy reserve again.
So, those are two clear examples of Dishonest Jean’s last-minute attacks to take down Councilman Mattucci, and they both failed.
The county registrar certified the election on Friday, July 1. Challenger Jean Adelsman won’t request a recount, she said.
Well, that’s a relief. It’s truly official, and no one can reverse it.
Aurelio Mattucci will remain on the Torrance City Council — and will become District 5’s first elected representative.
The councilman barely edged out challenger Jean Adelsman by 16 votes, 50.11% to 49.89%.
This was the closest race that I have seen in the city of Torrance. I was initialy convinced that Aurelio would enjoy the strongest finish against his opponent. I then pegged George Chen has being able to best Cliff Numark without as much trouble. In all honest, I was more concerned about Jon Kaji as well as Lauren Cotner, since neither one of them were incumbents.
Of course, everyone now knows that Kaji had the surest victory of the four city council candidates I had supported. It’s a considerable victory, and certainly surprised me.
The Los Angeles County registrar’s office announced it had certified the June 7 statewide primary results on Friday evening, July 1, hours after providing its seventh and final post-election update.
An election should not take a month to complete and certify. This dysfunctional process invites suspicion and voter fraud.
Mattucci, reached via phone, called the District 5 race “the most epic election” in Torrance’s history.
I am sure that he went into details, but the newspaper declined to report them. So allow me to share some of the key details about this race:
1. The entire Torrance establishment, the Democratic-Republican uniparty of swamp creatures, special interests, and political dynasties threw all their time and money into defeating Aurelio.
2. Jean Adelsman, Aurelio’s unexpected opponent, had served as the Editor-In-Chief for the Daily Breeze. She had considerable influence in the city for decades as a reporter, pushing whatever news, whatever agenda she wanted the readers to take in.
3. Even though Aurelio had received the endorsements of the Torrance Police and Fire Associations, a number of former police chiefs lined up behind Jean Adelsman. Wow would retired police chiefs throw their hat into this fight? Whatever the reasons, it all goes to show contentious and momentous this city council race would be.
Mattucci said he wants to continue working on initiatives such as public safety and homelessness and on keeping the city clean. He said he’s hopeful the money raised from the recent passage of Measure SST, a half-cent sales tax, will go to the right places to enable all that to happen.
It’s really striking how most of the candidates who got elected to the city council opposed the sales tax increase. Yet here we are. This outcome just goes to show that voters are not looking at candidates and causes in a “slate-like” mode. They just make the individual decisions on each issue as they see fit.
“We have make sure we don’t go down that dark hole of running in the red,” Mattucci said of having to stave off Torrance’s budget crisis.
But, Muttucci is aware his slim margin of victory is no mandate. He said he plans to reach out to the 3600-some people who didn’t vote for him to learn more about what they want and need.
There have been some rumblings that Aurelio’s opponents will launch a recall effort to throw him out. They will have to wait six months after his installation, so at the earliest they can start the process in January 2023. By then, will most voters even care? Will anyone be paying attention? Recall efforts require a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. For local races like city council, recall proponents are almost assured that they have to door-to-door to find the voters to get rid of Mattucci. That is not going to happen.
“I want to reach out to the people who opposed me,” Mattucci said. “What are they looking for and what are the ideas that they have?”
And, he said, Adelsman was a competitor with a lot of character who really cares about the city.
I know that the newly re-elected councilman has to be politick in his comments, but really Jean was a slimeball. She lied repeatedly about the Councilman’s votes and his views on issues. She actually claimed that he was bought and owned by the
“I’d like for Jean to be part of that equation,” Mattucci said. “Put the past behind us for the sake Torrance.”
Adelsman, reached by phone, said she was disappointed in the results, but added that she’d still keep working for the betterment of the city.
She really isn’t working for the best interests of the city. If she really cared about Torrance, then there was no reason for her to run in the first place. She was another candidate selected by the political establishment because a select group of movers and shakers in the city of Torrance simply do not like Aurelio Mattucci. That is a terrible reason to run for office.
Again, they simply do not like Aurelio. What actions, what results, what decisions, what votes has he made that make him unqualified to sit on the city council?
She won’t request a recount, Adelsman said, calling it a waste of time and money.
Her whole campaign was a waste of time and money. She should have known better than to run in the first place, and the fact that she resorted to so many false, negative ads really ruined her chances. I have followed Torrance politics for about ten years, and I have heard from current and former elected officials that negative campaigning is not very effective in Torrance. Most voters want a clean, quiet, peaceful campaign. They don’t want raucous mud-slinging and relentless negativity.
In a recent Facebook post, Adelsman thanked her supporters, wished the new council well and said she would continue to “do as much as I can to make Torrance a better place.”
Mattucci will become the first representative of Torrance’s District 5 as the city completes its switch from at-large to by-district elections.
Final Reflection
This victory is the most vindicating. This victory is the biggest F-U to the political establishment in this town. This victory is the biggest win for everyone who cares about free and fair elections, who cares about honest, dignity, and hard work winning out against lies, cheating, and outright deceit.
I am not as politick as Aurelio was in his comments to the Daily Breeze (and I do not begrudge his desire for comity.) The truth is that Jean Adelsman lied and deceived the voters in the district. She claimed that Mattucci was trying to defund the police. She claimed that Aurelio Mattucci was taking large donations from developers because he planned to sell out the city and bring in massive housing projects. His voting record over the last four years proves otherwise.
Last of all, and one of the first things I shared with people, Jean advertised herself as a bipartisan pol who wanted to make nice with everyone. The truth is that the she was a rugged, partisan liberal who hated Trump supporters. What kind of city councilwoman could she have been if she had such a marked hatred for people who voted for someone she did not like? Jean Adelsman engaged in non-stop negative campaigning, and thankfully enough voters saw through all of it.
This is a big victory for the city of Torrance during the 2022 election cycle, if not the biggest. So glad that Aurelio pulled this off. The fact that it was a close vote makes the win all the more gratifying, since it means that every volunteer’s effort to help him win was crucial, essential, necessary. That kind of imput is very satisfying. It’s really gratifying for me because I backed another winning horse, along with the two other candidates elected to city council this year. It’s even better for me because so many people defamed me and tried to defame Aurelio Mattucci because I supported him, and he bravely supported me in my bid for State Assembly in 2022. I am glad to see that I can have a positive impact in local politics, along with many other concerned and engaged citizens who wanted the best for the city of Torrance.
What else can I say? This is WINNING on a massive scale! I am so glad to live in the city of Torrance!
In the last two weeks, I have received five mailers with different endorsements and scare tactics telling me that I MUST, MUST, MUST support Measure SST, which will raise the city sales tax by half a percent.
If I do not support the sales tax hike, every core and essential service will shut down!
If I do not tax myself more on every purchase I make in the city, then the whole city will go bankrupt!
If I do not add to the inflation already crippling household budgets and forcing people to cut back on essentials, then life as we know it will end and the world will self-combust in a ball of fire!
Blah, blah, blah.
Councilman George Chen rightly denounced these scare tactics.
It’s really insulting that the city staff and the city council majority forced the residents to even consider a tax hike, when so many of us are hurting because of the high costs of gas, groceries, and other goods and services.
How tone deaf, how out of touch can people be?
So, let’s take a look at the five mailers which have flooded mailboxes throughout the city begging every voter to cough up more of their dwindling financial resources to the city:
Here’s the first one I received:
“Every second counts!”
Yes, indeed, every second counts when it comes to emergency care. No one would dispute that. The argument, however, that we must raise the sales tax to ensure that the fire department and the ambulance services remain running is disingenuous at best.
Last month, I had a health emergency and called the fire department. They arrived on scene within two minutes. In fact, there are six fire stations in the city, and they are currently adequately staffed.
We do not need the sales tax increase. No, we do not have to worry about health emergencies going unanswered if the sales tax increase does not pass.
Now, here’s two more flyers pressing for the sales tax increase:
The SST committee is relying on LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn to make the pitch for this stupid sales tax? Really?
Who thought that this was a good idea?
Most people have no idea who their supervisor is, representing them in Downtown LA.
Second of all, so what if some other elected official outside of the city wants a sales tax increase?
This kind of advertisement is a bigger turn-off than a turn-on to support this tax move.
Let’s cut through the crap here: Supervisor Hahn simply wanted to put her face on a mailer so that she could promote herself, and she wants to keep in good graces with the public sector unions in the city. She is a union whore, after all, giving the public sector union lobbies everything they want and then some, no matter how much it costs the taxpayers, and no matter whether the citizens get their money’s worth for all the spending.
These two flyers were just an insulting waste of time, to put it mildly. Pure political opportunism and sex promotion, nothing more.
Here are two more flyers. The first one tries to appeal to everyone’s sense of Torrance as a nice, home-town place where everyone belongs and everyone shares the long-standing history of the city:
Hey, it’s a great map! It’s a nice, glossy mailer that gets the reader’s attention.
But guess what? I still don’t want to pay more in sales tax!
Here’s another flyer:
Yes, there is that headline “Every penny stays right here to keep in Torrance.”
Actually, such a blunt, obvious headline does not inspire confidence. I guess a focus group or another poll indicated that people are more worried now than before about how the money will actually be spent, and whether it will actually stay in the city of Torrance.
The SST committee is not being completely honest here. There is no certainty that the money will be used for police, fire, or paramedics. There are no specific strings attached to the monies to ensure that they go to essential services. In fact, much of the money will likely go to pensions and benefits for retired workers, which means that the money will NOT stay in the city at all!
But regarding the fact that the money will not be earmarked to specific costs, the city will indeed have the full discretion to spend the new tax revenues on anything they want in the city. That does not inspire confidence to support this measure, even if all the money stays in the city.
When the city council was debating this matter, Councilman Mattucci offered to consider this tax measure if the ballot initiative made it absolutely clear that the monies would only be spent on police or fire. For that kind of initiative to pass, however, would have required a two-thirds vote of the residents.
There is no way that two-thirds of the city would support a tax increase, even if the money would be directly tied to specific essential services in the city only.
In fact, when the city council and staff were investigating how to raise revenue via a sales tax increase, they had initially consider a .075 percent sales tax! After polling on that issue, however, they realized that it would not pass. When they considered a .5 percent sales tax, their polling sample resulted in a bare 52% supporting the tax increase. Of course, all of that was before the price of gas doubled and budget-crippling inflation had set in!
This Stupid Sales Tax Committee has tried so many arguments to make their case. They have threatened residents that core services will suffer if they do not vote to tax themselves more. They have asked Supervisor Hahn to endorse the proposal, and they sent two tacky flyers promoting the self-promoting county politician to everyone in the city.
And now they are trying to assure everyone that the money will stay in the city.
Last of all, they have listed a whole bunch of politicians and city staff, retired and current, who endorse this proposal.
Check out the latest flyer that I received, with a whole bunch of endorsements!
I really have to question this kind of logic.
So what if a bunch of former and current city councilmembers, administrative staff, fire chiefs, police chiefs, etc. endorse a sales tax hike? It’s not their money.
It’s our money they are asking for more of!
And, the current city councilmembers who endorse this SST measure are the same people who approved spending down the general fund reserves over the last SEVEN YEARS! They were fiscally irresponsible. Why should we pick up the tab on their lack of restraint?
But what really caught my attention with this latest flyer is that they repeat names on the list! Did anyone bother to edit this flyer?
Look at these close-up shots of the listed endorsements:
“Street Racing Kills” is listed twice. What does the fight to curb street racing (which is a dangerous practice, to be sure) have to do with raising the sales tax? And why list it twice? Granted, the second list includes the director for the movement, but shouldn’t the organization’s endorsement alone suffice?
Oh, and the flyer lists Jimmy Gow, the abused President of the Torrance Democratic Club, as an endorser. This is the shameless, self-promotional politics that we got with the two previous flyers propping up Supervisor Hahn. Give me a break!
Oh, and Jimmy Gow is listed twice, too:
So, because a partisan activist who trespassed on a veterans hall, and went with minions who spit at veterans and stole their property — he is listed twice on a flyer to endorse a sales tax increase?
What was the SST Committee thinking?!
This is desperation, nothing more.
Torrance voters need to reject this Stupid Sales Tax. One flyer after another indicates clear desperation. Frankly, the committee pushing this measure should be ashamed of themselves, considering all the economic challenges that Torrance residents are facing as it is.
The United States is facing a recession. The S and P Index just touched into Bear Market territory this past week.
The price of gas has skyrocketed, and it’s only going higher. The price of groceries is going up by 20%, 30%, 40%. Business is slowing for many small business owners, too.
And with this perfect storm of econmic troubles, the city council and staff want to push a sales tax increase? And this increase is not even necessary, and it will only discourage commerce in the city.
The State of the Union 