Blog: Leave a Legacy You Can Be Proud of: Vote Yes on A

Ten years from now would you rather be walking with your kid in our run down harbor under the shadow of an 80 foot tall power plant with three 130 foot high smokestacks explaining you fell for fearmongering and voted for the belching behemoth blighting the harbor?

Or would you rather be walking through a breathtaking waterfront recreational space next to a thriving commercial center bragging that you had the courage to stand up to the big corporate bully and voted to tear down the old plant and revitalize our harbor to be the envy of the South Bay?

The choice is in your hands. 

AES knows if Measure A passes, their application to build a new plant has a greater than a 90 percent chance of being denied. That is why they are spending over $300,000 to scare you into voting against Measure A. Under Measure A the old plant must be torn down by the end of 2022.

We don't need the power. State report after state report shows we no longer need the Redondo plant for grid reliability. AES runtime in 2012 without the San Onofre Nuclear Plant and with the bigges heatwaves in years was a measly 4.82 percent.

Measure A increases jobs. The new plant reduces jobs from about 50 jobs today to about 20 jobs in the new plant. The commercial portion of Measure A will employ hundreds more.

Measure A will increase city revenues. The City gets just $365,000 in revenues from AES' 50 waterfront acres each year—less than 1 percent of the city budget. The new 45-room Shade Hotel across the street on a much smaller piece of land is expected to produce $550,000 in city revenue each year. The pier parking lot generates $1.8 million each year. We'd do better with a parking lot on the AES site. Measure A's commercial component promises much more in city revenues.

Measure A will improve harbor area property values and business revenues.  Measure A removes what city studies call "the major blighting influence in the harbor area." The study show property values impacted up to 40 percent and harbor area business revenue growth was 1/10th that of businesses elsewhere in the city. What other beach city has a dirt farm and mini-storage just two blocks from the beach?

Measure A means cleaner air. Eliminating the power plant removes 3.3 tons of particulate pollution emitted by the current plant each year on average. And it prevents the new plant from producing 17 to 49 tons of particulate pollution each year. Cleaner air means improved health.

Measure A is on firm legal ground. Measure A follows a 2004 city staff recommendation and was vetted by two land use legal firms. It also has a growing number of resident attorneys supporting it. In fact if the state denies AES' application, Measure A provides AES more value than current zoning. No big legal fees.

Measure A phases out the power plant by the end of 2020 and replaces it with commercial and open space/recreational uses. The commercial portion has strict development caps, set height limits, and has strong view protections. It has a sliding scale of development cap. The more traffic the proposed development produces, the lower the cap.

Measure A is a zoning change only and does not require anyone to buy or sell the land. It allows AES the sames density of developmentallowed across the street in the harbor. The commercial development is designed to pay for the maintenance of the recreational/open space. No new taxes required.

Measure A provides us the opportunity to transform our harbor into the Crown Jewel of the South Bay and the envy of the Beach Cities. 

This is our time Redondo!

Time is fleeting. This is a once in a lifetime opporunity. 

Vote for a legacy we all can be proud of. 

Vote Yes on Measure A.

Questions: http://aesredondomustgo.blog.com/power-plant-faqs/