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Manhattan Beach to Remain 'An Island of Sepulveda-Ness'

Dec 13, 2018 07:41PM ● By Jeanne Fratello

Image via City of Manhattan Beach

Editor's note: The Manhattan Beach City Council last week tabled a proposal to change the name of the major thoroughfare through the city from Sepulveda Boulevard to Pacific Coast Highway. Manhattan Beach remains the lone holdout with the name Sepulveda, as the road is called Pacific Coast Highway in neighboring cities. Real estate broker Dave Fratello, the author of Manhattan Beach Confidential and DigMB publisher, shared with us his take:

Manhattan Beach's flirtation with changing Sepulveda Blvd. to PCH has ended, for now.

After the issue was initiated by City Council, Manhattan Beach Confidential hosted an online survey 3 months ago that quickly garnered more than 300 votes, with 60% supporting the change. (See our results here, and this post explaining the background to the proposal.)

The city's own online survey of residents, run for longer and by an actual city, got 537 responses, with 65% favoring the change.

So, of course, the City Council said "no, we're not doing it."

OK, it's not obvious why that would be the outcome. There's more to the story.

The city also surveyed businesses located on Sepulveda.

A whopping 13% of businesses surveyed replied. (Apparently, most of the businesses were too busy.)

Of that microcosm of potentially affected businesses, slightly more than half disagreed with the change (54%).

So, that slim majority of the mini-minority won the day.

(Disclosure: Dave's business, Confidential Realty, is located on Sepulveda, and we submitted a survey in favor of the change.)

City Council actually agreed just to table the issue for now at a meeting last week. The survey results were "inconclusive" and, as is always the case, the opponents of change were the louder voices. Neutral members of the council weren't propelled to action.

The issue fizzles till another day.

Meantime, Manhattan Beach retains a little island of Sepulveda-ness along this stretch of road, which is now PCH in El Segundo, Hermosa and Redondo Beach.

Other than Manhattan Beach, Sepulveda mainly exists for west L.A. and for a stretch heading due east toward Long Beach in Torrance.

Unless, that is, something changes.


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