The longstanding war between developers and slow-growth activists in Redondo Beach took an ugly turn this week with the release of a series of Mayor Bill Brand’s personal emails containing racially charged language and offensive personal attacks.
While some local leaders say the exchanges were vile and reveal the nasty underbelly of Brand’s campaign to block ambitious plans to remake the city’s waterfront and high-density housing proposals, others say the emails are a politically motivated attempt by developers to vilify him.
The emails, obtained by the Southern California News Group, were sent from 2014 to 2017 as Brand and his allies strategized their efforts to halt the $400 million proposal for the Redondo Beach pier and harbor area. They were acquired as part of the legal wrangling between the city and would-be harbor/pier developer CenterCal Properties in El Segundo.
In the emails, Brand urges supporters to emphasize that the waterfront redevelopment would be expensive and exclusive, so the “Latino laden Coastal Commission” would oppose it. He also jokingly tells a supporter to become more of a “angry Black woman,” and makes a riff about shoving an editorial up the “cancerous ass” of then-Mayor Steve Aspel, who was battling colon cancer.
“This put a spotlight on the vitriol that exists in this community — it’s vitriol that’s led by leadership, sparked by leadership,” said Tonya McKenzie, a Black woman who ran unsuccessfully last month for City Council. “It’s very telling. … I’m glad the public is starting to see how many of us in this community have been living under the thumb of a leader who takes Black and Brown people for granted.”
Candace Allen Nafissi, the subject of the “angry Black woman” remark and current City Council candidate, said the emails were taken completely out of context in an effort to attack Brand. Nafissi was not offended by Brand’s remark, she said, as this is a label she and her friends jokingly use to refer to her passionate political speeches.
“Brand is a lot of things, but racist he is not,” she said Tuesday, Nov. 15. “These are developers trying to ruin the livelihoods of good people all in the name of condos and a mall.”
Brand, for his part, disputes accusations that he is anti-development and also characterized the emails as an attempt by developers to discredit him.
‘Walmart by the sea’
Developer CenterCal had been trying since 2015 to build a “harbor village” on the city’s run-down waterfront, remaking it with 524,000 square feet of retail shops, office space, a seven-screen movie theater, market hall, boutique hotel and reconfigured Seaside Lagoon. Brand and his supporters ridiculed the project as “Walmart by the sea,”
After Redondo Beach voters derailed the $400 million project in 2017, the development company filed a $14 million lawsuit and a second $15 milllion suit against the city. More litigation followed through 2021 for not allowing the development to be built.
CenterCal Properties obtained the emails during litigation against the city. Developer Leo Pustilnikov — who is currently fighting the city for a 2,290-unit development of his own — became aware of the emails, obtained them from CenterCal and shared them with the media.
Mayor: City not ‘anti-growth’
Brand, who ran for mayor on a slow-growth platform, said in a statement Monday, however, that “Redondo Beach is anything but anti-growth.”
“At 11,000 residents per square mile we are one of the most densely populated cities on the entire California coast,” Brand said, adding that Redondo Beach is one of the few, if not only, coastal communities in the state that offers Section 8 housing.
“Redondo Beach has done more than any other nearby city,” Brand said, “So, the narrative that we are some tony, exclusive coastal community is the myth that big developers and other pro over-development forces push is just that, a myth.”
Brand added that he’s been fighting developer smears for more than 20 years.
Former Mayor Steve Aspel, on the other hand, said Redondo Beach officials have not done enough to create new housing in recent years. Aspel, who was the target of Brand’s colon cancer jab, said he was not surprised by the content of the emails, adding that Brand and his “minions” have been sharing vitriolic content online for years.
While on the City Council, Aspel advocated for several developments and efforts to increase housing, including the failed Measure B — a 2015 ballot initiative to rezone the AES power plant to allow up to 600 housing units, among other uses.
Former mayor: ‘We need housing’
“We need housing for people,” Aspel said. “I have no problem with putting Section 8 housing, lower income housing and workforce housing in Redondo Beach.”
However, he acknowledged that is not the prevailing attitude in the city.
“Once you get your slice of the pie, you don’t want anyone else to share it,” Aspel said, referring to residents who are opposed to more housing development and often cite fears of more traffic on the roadways.
Aspel also said he doesn’t expect NIMBY (Not In My Backyard) attitudes or residents’ support of Brand to change in Redondo.
“Bill and his people are Teflon and they’ve been doing this for a long time,” Aspel said. “They can do whatever they want. This is their town.”
Developer doesn’t expect change
Pustilnikov said he doesn’t anticipate the slow-growth movement supported by Brand and his activist followers will lose popularity as a result of the email disclosures.
“I think Redondo will stay as is; nothing will change,” Pustilnikov said. “I think their base supporters are unwavering and they could do no wrong in their eyes, because they’ve been fighting this cause for two decades.”
Nevertheless, Pustilnikov said he believed it was important to bring the emails to light. “I think it’s important for people to know who they’re dealing with and who their elected officials are,” he said.
Pustilnikov is currently seeking approval for his own housing development, called the One Redondo project, on the AES power plant site. He anticipates facing pushback for his proposed 2,290-unit housing development, which calls for 20% of the project to be set aside for affordable units. He plans to bump up his proposal to about 2,600 units — still with 20% of the units considered affordable — when he submits final plans in January.
Efforts to develop the waterfront-adjacent area have been met with strong opposition from residents and elected officials in the past. Brand has long sought to build a park on the site, and voters in 2013 and 2015 rejected proposals to develop the power plant site largely because they included plans for new residences.
Other development fights
Several other proposed housing developments in Redondo Beach have been thwarted or scaled back by the city in recent years.
Among them was a 2014 proposal by the developer Legado to build 180 units and 37,600 square feet of commercial space at Pacific Coast Highway and Palos Verdes Boulevard that faced significant opposition. Legado sued the city in 2016 after it rejected a proposal for a scaled-down, 146-unit version of the project, but ultimately agreed to a smaller 115-unit version in a 2017 settlement agreement.
Plans to revitalize the South Bay Galleria mall also were controversial and only received approval in 2019 when the developer agreed to cut the number of proposed apartment units from 600 to 300 and add open space.
Although the state has been pushing hard for local cities to approve new housing developments, Redondo Beach has a strong track record of fighting them off. Strategies for defeating the waterfront project were discussed in depth in the email chains.
Aspel said he was alarmed by Brand’s call for more “Trump-type” slogans to convince people to vote against waterfront revitalization.
In addition, in emails discussing the campaign for Measure C, which voters approved in 2017 to limit “overdevelopment,” Brand wrote that campaign fundraisers “need to feed people’s anger and fear with clever soundbites that will motivate them to donate.”
‘Created a monster’
Councilmember Laura Emdee said she was shocked by that statement, but added that it’s “consistent with their campaigns,” in which Brand and his council allies use simple, repetitive messaging to win every time.
“I thought Bill created a monster he lost control of a long time ago,” Emdee said, citing one of Brand’s more strident supporters who mocked Emdee in a 2017 email to the mayor, saying, “Back to an all male City Council! I swear the more weight Laura Emdee loses the more she looks like a man!”
McKenzie, who pushed the unsuccessful recall campaign against Councilmember Zein Obagi in October, has said Brand and his council allies — Todd Loewenstein, Nils Nehrenheim and Obagi — vote to put all the density in North Redondo.
Lowenstein, in a recent NBC piece about the city’s land use plan, said Redondo Beach was “already full” and that affordable housing should go inland.
“Everybody deserves a place to live,” he said in the interview, “but the question is where do they deserve a place to live.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that Brand did not send an email ridiculing the weight of a female colleague. He instead received this email.
