by Mark McDermott Manhattan Beach’s great philosopher, former City Comptroller Henry Mitzner, had two sayings that are still oft repeated in City Hall…
by Mark McDermott
Perhaps no event rang truer to recently retired City Controller Henry Mitzner’s most famed City Hall axiom than the adopted 2021-22 fiscal year budget, which projects the City of Manhattan Beach emerging from an economically devastating time with its economic health somehow better than ever.
“When it’s bad out there, it’s good here,” Mitzner always said. “And when it’s good out there, it’s great here.”
The City Council unanimously adopted a budget at its last meeting in June that is theoretically projected to have a $335,000 surplus, but in reality, after $8.4 million in American Rescue Plan revenues and $1.5 million in other pandemic relief funds filter in over the next year, will more likely show a much larger surplus. Along the way, City Manager Bruce Moe initiated both an early retirement program and a staff reorganization that will result in five fewer positions and over a half million dollars in savings, while a Pension Obligation Bond
The Book of Henry
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March 1973 was a time of disarray. The Watergate scandal was engulfing the Nixon Administration and the last American troops were about to leave Vietnam. Pink Floyd’s
Dark Side of the Moon had just been released, speaking to the sense of desolation taking hold of society. Meanwhile, the Russian lunar rover Lunokhod 2 began its third round of exploration around the actual moon’s surface, just as NASA ended its own manned missions, which had once seemed to signify the endless possibilities of America, itself.
Meanwhile, on March 12, a tall, dapper young man arrived at Manhattan Beach City Hall. The city was in the midst of pulling itself out of the rubble of the 1971 earthquake, so City Hall was housed in a collection of trailers. Henry Mitzner had just left a short career as an engineer in the aerospace industry, which was in a tailspin. He had worked odd jobs, gone to night school to become an accountant, and come to Manhattan Beach to begin a