Torrance Mayor Still Limiting Public Comment in City Council Meetings

 

Mayor George Chen of Torrance, CA, is STILL limiting public comment in the city council meetings.

I have spoken against this limitation for the last two years, and I have written in to the city council to do something about it.

It's time for more residents to speak out against this unjust limitation

I know that I am not alone on this. And THIS is the time to push on this. Every day that the city council does not respect and restore our full public comment is an appropriate time to speak out against this.

I am stunned at the arrogance of this mayor. Where is this coming from?

Contact the city council and demand the full restoration of public comment:

1. Three minutes for oral communications

2. Three minutes per agenda item.

2. Oral Communications #2 should allow everyone who wants to speak to be heard, since they stayed for the entire city council meeting to be heard.

Bridgett Lewis: blewis@torranceca.gov

George Chen: gchen@torranceca.gov

Sharon Kalani: skalani@torranceca.gov

Jeremy Gerson: jgerson@torranceca.gov

Jon Kaji: jkaji@torranceca.gov

Asam Sheikh: asheikh@torranceca.gov

Aurelio Mattucci: amattucci@torranceca.gov

Phone Call: (310) 618-2801

Homeless Apartments Coming to Torrance (Have You Had Enough Yet, People?)

The LA County Board  of Supervisors announced that they were opening up a homeless apartment right here in the city of Torrance.

And all of this after the city council called a special meeting on May 23, 2025, to discuss the proposal and then vote against it unanimously.

Torrance residents took free Torrance Transit rides up to the LA County Board of Supervisors meeting hall to speak out against the proposal. Mayor George Chen and Councilman Aurelio Mattucci

Here's the report on the arrogant Board of Supervisors' final decision:

LA County Approves Torrance Homeless Housing Plan Despite 90% Opposition

Brian Choi

By

Brian Choi

Jun 3, 2025 11:27 AM PDT

Last Updated: Jun 3, 2025 11:27 AM PDT

Los Angeles County is moving forward with plans to convert a Torrance motel into permanent housing for the homeless, despite strong objections from local officials and residents.

The conflict began when the LA County Board of Supervisors proposed turning the Extended Stay America motel—located one block west of Torrance City Hall—into a housing facility for the unhoused. The project would transform the site into a 120-unit permanent supportive housing complex.

In response, the Torrance City Council unanimously passed a resolution opposing the plan. However, the Board of Supervisors confirmed last week that it would proceed, prompting a wave of local backlash.

The motel, situated at the intersection of Torrance Boulevard and Madrona Avenue, lies in a busy area surrounded by the Del Amo Fashion Center, city offices, public swimming pools, educational centers, and medical facilities. The location’s high pedestrian traffic has raised concerns about public safety and community impact.

Concerns Over Safety and Neighborhood Suitability

Local business owner Casey Yang, who runs a shop near the site, voiced concern about the decision. “I need to look into the details, but this should absolutely not happen. If a majority of citizens feel unsafe or concerned about public health, the County must reconsider,” he said.

Every citizen should be opposed to this. The city has already established tiny homes right next to the police station. What more does the city need to do?!

Seo-Yeon Kim, whose child attends a tutoring center next to the motel, echoed those concerns. “This area is frequented by children and is close to a senior apartment complex. I don’t know if this is a wise decision. I hope they reconsider after listening to public opinion,” she said.

Torrance Mayor George Chen criticized the County’s decision, stating that the proposed site sits in the heart of the city and lacks sufficient distance from sensitive community zones. “Over 90% of our residents oppose this,” Chen said on June 2, adding that the city is currently exploring legal action.

LA County Supervisor Janice Hahn, however, pushed back on the mayor’s statement. “We’ve received a much wider range of feedback than that,” Hahn said. She added that the site is actually located near churches and commercial zones, making it a suitable place to connect unhoused residents with job opportunities and rehabilitation programs.

No one really believes this.

State Funding and Security Measures Planned

The housing conversion is being funded through Project Homekey, a state initiative aimed at expanding permanent homeless housing. According to the County, the site will include on-site staff and operate under a 24-hour security system once complete.

Lots of businesses and other entities have 24-hour security, but that has not stopped the crime wave. What's the point in documenting all the crimes taking place when there is no enforcement of the law? District Attorney Nathan Hochman is bringing much needed change, but he cannot fight the crime wave on his own. Police and sheriff's departments are facing staffing problems and budget issues, and woke judges are filling up LA County courts!

The debate underscores the ongoing challenges of balancing urgent housing needs with community concerns in densely populated urban areas like Torrance.

The key decision-makers and team leaders are missing the bigger issue. Los Angeles County has a larger homeless population for a number of reasons:

1. The weather is great here, so deadbeats, derelicts, and drug addicts travel from all over the United States to come here and loaf out in public without fear of inclement weather.

2. California has some of the most generous welfare programs and payments in the country. This problem has plagued the state of California since Governor Pat Brown.

3. California voters have all but legalized drugs in this state, and some legislators wanted to go further and allow "safe" injection sites.

4. Law enforcement faces numerous obstacles to involuntary commitment of the mentally ill and unstable in our communities. Every since the early 1960s, when President John F. Kennedy began shutting down the mental institutions and allowing those sufferers to roam on the streets rather than receive much-needed care in involuntary confinement, the homeless problem has only worsened.

The lax laws, the progressive insistence on throwing more money at the problem rather than enforcing quality of life and care metrics, have caused the homelessness problem to spiral out of control.

The notion that providing more housing will somehow fix this program is just naive, delusional, and even dangerous.

This decision has received so much pushback, and has raised considerable alarm not just in the South Bay, but throughout Los Angeles County. I was surprised by the number of calls I received from friends throughout the county when the Board of Supervisors forced this decision on the city.

Mayor Chen has captured the heart of the matter: 90% of the residents do now want apartments for the homeless. It's not just a density issue, but a safety issue. Worse yet, all of this government-funded "charity" is just further subsidy for bad behavior and more homelessness.

Supervisor Janice Hahn claimed that homeless veterans would be the first to qualify for the housing. Someone needs to remind her that Los Angeles County already has the Brentwood VA, which was designed and designated precisely to serve LA County's veterans. And that problem has not been solved after decades. In fact, Rob Rosebrock has been exposing the misuse of the Brentwood facilities for years, exposing how private interests are exploiting the property at the expense of the veterans! Worse yet, Los Angeles County still has the largest homeless veteran population in the country, and the problem has barely abated, in spite of much pontificating from federal officials in Congress.

Big Question

Dear Torrance residents:

Have you had enough of this progressive propaganda and pandering? Have you tired of county and statewide officials who put illegal aliens, homeless vagrants, and repeat criminals ahead of the law-abiding citizens and their families?

If you don't like what's happening in your community, then you need to start with the person you see in the mirror. Whom are you voting for in every election? The region has been drifting to the left for the last twenty years, and the consequences are catching up with all of you. Assemblyman Al Muratsuchi and State Senator Ben Allen are all in on the homelessness push. They want more money, more housing, lax enforcement of our criminal laws, and a full commitment to the Democratic Party's broad vision of "marginalized ahead of the law-abiding."

You are all voting for these outcomes. Supervisor Janice Hahn won an outright majority to hold her seat for a third (And thankfully final) term on the LA County Board of Supervisors. You had the chance to elect someone else to represent you in Downtown Los Angeles, but you chose more of the same.

So, there's no point in complaining right now until you resolve to start electing NEW PEOPLE!

Open Letter to Torrance City Council re: Pride Month Resolution (2024)

 Torrance City Council:

It is very disappointing, and in fact quite disturbing, that Councilwoman Sharon Kalani insists on bringing in all of this woke drama to the city of Torrance.

The Torrance City Council should reject her so-called pride resolution.

Mayor Chen did the right thing--and one must acknowledge, the brave thing--by rejecting such a resolution last year as well as this year. He is correct, to the extent that homosexual and transgender behaviors are that ... behaviors. They are not innate nor are they genetic. They should not be celebrated on that basis alone. Should we have a Resolution celebrating Smokers and Heroin Addicts, too?

Frankly, I would like to see all the hyphenated-American Month resolutions discarded, but that's another discussion for another day.

These behaviors: homosexuality, transgenderism, etc., are inherently disordered and harmful. They involve a clear misuse of organs, all too much like shoving a straw up one's nose to drink or using one's elbows to scratch one's ears. The high rates of disease, dysfunction, and death (promiscuity, drug use, other high-risk behaviors) associated with homosexuality and transgenderism are too great to ignore, and they should not be celebrated. Critics will counter-argue: "Well, LGBT people have had to cope with all this discrimination and persecution. That's why they engaged in all those destructive habits." The truth is that these dsyfunctional behaviors are all too prevalent among homosexual populations in even the most LGBT affirming countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, etc. The average lifespan of homosexuals declines by 20% compared to the general population. That is not healthy, and that has nothing to do with external social pressures.

These behaviors are borne out of abuse, neglect, confusion, molestation, or shame. No one's natural rights should be violated because they struggle with these issues, but the solution  is not to celebrate and enable these behaviors. Shame on you, Sharon, for stirring up trouble in this community and celebrating behaviors that harm people, and promote an ideology that harms rather than helps or heals.

In fact, this whole LGBT movement has gotten so perverse, that now activists are demanding the sex mutilation of minors, all under the guise of "gender-affirming care." There is a better phrase for such acts: child abuse. And now women are being erased in the name of "Transgender Tolerance." Enough already! The whole LGBT movement is riddled with child abuse. A large majority of homosexuals and transgenders SUFFERED child abuse, and the trauma has not been resolved. How dare anyone enable the ongoing abuse of these poor people!

The destruction of marriage, family, and public order has also come in the wake of this whole LGBT movement, and there is no right or reason for the city council to celebrate any of this. This garbage has gone from the bedroom, to the boardroom, to the classroom, to the courtroom, and now the rest of us don't have any room. Again: when is enough going to be enough?

And there are specific problems with the resolution, too:

The resolution offered to the city council provides all of this glowing praise surrounding the Stonewall Riots of 1969. That whole narrative is just one more example of the false hagiography that has inflated the whole LGBT movement.

The reason that police officers stormed the Stonewall Inn was due to the fact that it was a mob bar, and the bar was not paying its liquor license. The whole raid had nothing to do with homosexuals and transgenders, but the LGBT movement has turned it into a cause celebre to justify its abusive, agressive, militant agenda.

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/stonewall-why-did-mafia-own-bar/

The resolution also suggests that supporting LGBT "rights" is supporting human rights. That is a lie. There is no civil or natural right to engage in sodomy or cross-dressing. People are born black, white, Hispanic, etc. People are not born homosexual nor are they born in the wrong body.

You can check out these testimonies for proof that LGBT is not forever, either:

Formerly Gay Man Could Go to Jail After Sharing Testimony of Finding God, Embracing Bible

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zRtjHOoPAY

Former Gay Man Exposes the Truth about the LGQTB Agenda

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzsbO4Zyj3U

Jeffrey's Story: Ex-Transgender with Regret

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r09cDPsQ1wI

Ex-‘Drag Queen’ shares his story – what that lifestyle is really like

https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen3/19c/MR-Dallas-Kevin/index.html

Reject this resolution immediately, and never bring it back.

Sharon Kalani should save face and just withdraw this item once for all.

Final Campaign Flyer Review for Election 2022: Numark v. Chen for Torrance Mayor

It has been two months since the Torrance City Council elections, and already the governance on the dias has improved tremendously. A sense of peace is already becoming more pervasive on the council.

The new and incumbent members of the council are treating one another with respect, an element of peace and and calm which has been missing for far too long in Torrance City Council meetings.

Now I have the time to take a longer look at one last flyer that went out to voters just before June 7, 2022.

Cliff Numark, the El Camino College Board Trustee who was leaving one political office to seek yet another, when he had abandoned his second term on the city council ten years ago, sent out multiple flyers. Clearly, he had the money and the connections to blanket the entire city to support him. Even residents in the Harbor Gateway received mailers from Cliff Numark's campaign, even though they could not vote for him!

In the last flyer that Cliff Numark sent out to prospective voters, he went on the attack against Councilman George Chen.

Check out the cover of the flyer here:

Right away, Numark relied on the word of retired lieutenant and former city councilman Geoff Rizzo. What was significant about Rizzo's comments? Mayor Chen had defeated Rizzo in 2020 in his bid for re-election. This was no small feat, considering that Rizzo, as retired law enforcement, had the support for the police officers association, plus the fact that he had already been elected twice before at large in the city.

George Chen put up a diligent fight and did not relent in getting the word out to the voters in District 2, since by 2020, the city had moved to district elections. One can imagine that Rizzo felt pretty bitter about losing his race to a relative outside who had only been elected the first time in 2018. Then again, the fact that Rizzo fared so poorly suggests that a) he was not a good campaigner b) he was not well-received as a good councilman c) he was too confident in his position as a twice-elected incumbent and did not put in the requisite effort needed.

Numark went on the attack, and judging by the list of criticisms below, Numark had to scrape the bottom of the barrel, and even then there was not much to fault then-Councilman Chen:

Let's take a look at some of the things that Numark posted:

Numark claimed outright that George Chen was all talk and no walk when it came to fiscal discipline and public safety. The first charge challenging this assertion? The fact that the city was in the 4th Worst financial condition in the state. However, that report was issued by January, and by June, the city council had taken drastic steps to shrink government and cut spending. The budget was on track to havea $36 million budget by June 30th, important facts which Numark's campaign conveniently left out.

Numark then selectively quoted Chen froma 2021 budget meeting. By then, Mayor Chen had been serving for three years on the city council. Just because he sahred that he was getting an "open public tutorial" does not mean that he was incompetent. Frankly, I found this level of criticism rather petty and meaningless, almost in a "Mean Girls" sort of fashion.

What's worse, Numark makes it seem as thought Chen had said "The lightbulb came on to me around the middle of last year" and then "Using reerves to balance our budget since 2015 was not the right approach" at the same time. That is not true, and let's not forget that at the time, Chen had voted against the excessive spending conducted by the council.

If Chen voted for a budget that took in $1.5 million more one time, that does not make him a profligate councilman by any stretch. One has to wonder how many times former councilman Cliff Numark voted for Torrance city budgets which spent more than the city had taken in ...

Then consider this latest slight on the same page:

The last box on the list above claims that Chen cut staff from the public safety budget. Nothing could be further from the truth. What happened was that the city council voted not to fill a number of positions. No one was fired, and no one was cut loose. Jean Adelsman used the same deceptive attack ad against Councilman Aurelio Mattucci, and she also failed in her bid to replace him on the city council.

Of course, Rizzo's complaint that Mayor Chen offered no strategic changes to fix the city's budget and fiscal problems was a lie, too. Earlier this year, Chen discussed potential revenue sources with the city manager, and he concurred that some of Chen's ideas would be very good for the city.

Just two pages into Numark's flyer, and there is nothing but distortions, errors, misquotes, and lies. To call this flyer a desperate attack ad would be an understatement.

Then look at the other pages from this expensive glossy:

Numark's headshot at the top is not very inspiring. One gets the feeling that he had the photo taken last minute.

Numark's list of accomplishments have some good points about him:

In the first item listed above, Numark takes credit for setting up $50 million in the city reserves. He was just one of seven city councilmembers. Mayor Frank Scotto was leading the fight to keep the city fiscally sound at the time,too. He didn't accomplish any of that on his own.

Numark pushed for an energy audit that saved the city $300,000 a year. That is something that write about. He deserves credit for that kind of reform, but remember that $300,000 a year is a drop in the bucket compared to the massive deficit spending which the Torrance City Council had approved through 2015.

Then he lists (yet again) the fact that he has been endorsed by public safety officers. Yes, he received the endorsement of the Torrance Police Officers and Firefighters Associations, but I have found that those endorsements don't speak for every officer, and Torrance voters are not swayed by them as much as they used to.

Sure, he scored the endorsement of retired police chief John Neu, too. Frankly, I find that endorsement rather suspect, if not unethical. Isn't the chief of police of any city supposed to serve and protect all residents? Why would he get involved in the political fray over a mayor's race?

As for Councilwoman Ashcraft, I must say that I have lost all respect for her. She's supposed to be a conservative, but she went all in for the liberal candidate for mayor. She also went along with raising the city's sales tax and voting for one budget after another which drew extensively from the city general fund, until the reserves were down to less than $1 million. Ashcraft was a big part of the fiscal mismanagement of the city, and she has no business sticking her finger into local politics at this point. I had even supported her two years ago to replace Tim Goodrich, and she turned into quite the disappointment.

Here is the backside of Numark's flyer:

The only thing worth commenting on here is that despite the massive number of endorsements scooped up by the Numark campaign, he still fell short in his bid for mayor. That is pretty astonishing.

One reason, I believe, that Numark failed in his bid for mayor is that he did not connect with voters on a routine, rigorous basis. While I was walking precincts in District Five, knocking on every door, I noticed one of Numark's canvassers a few doors behind him. Clearly, he was not very motivated, since he was not moving very fast. Furthermore, he was not hitting every door as I was. Last of all, I could tell that he was only canvassing for Numark, while I was dropping literature for George Chen and Aurelio Mattucci.

Numark thought he could win the race because he was the machine candidate with all the money and the right connections. Other volunteers along with myself went to every length to connect and convince voters to support our candidates. I wouldn't be surprised if the bad memories people had about former mayor Pat Furey also motivated people to vote a different candidate.

Final Reflection

I can't write enough how significant this Torrance mayoral election was. The Scotto-Furey-Geissert political hegemony in this town was crushed once and for all. Every political machine operative saw his efforts crushed in this election, as well. Mayor George Chen was outspent and out-endorsed, and yet he still won!

The voters saw through all the thick, slick ads that Numark and company foisted on the voters. The retiring El Camino College trustee sent out at least three of these large flyers, and apparently he sent them out to a wide array of voters, regardless of their political affiliation. Despite this political bombardment, he still lost. The people of Torrance want real change, real leadership, and they do not want the same-old politicians who talk big, back themselves up with lots of political endorsements and establishment connections, only to disappoint the voters yet again. 

Real change has come to the city of Torrance, and I am so grateful that I could be part of the transition.