The two remaining candidates for the District One seat on the Seal Beach council answered approximately 19 questions during the Monday, Sept. 21 Forum. The event, hosted by the Chamber of Commerce, was held in the Senior Center behind the Mary Wilson Library branch.
Kori DeLeon, a past Chamber president, moderated the event.
The candidates were (in alphabetical order by last name) Perla Mendoza, recently elected vice president of the Chamber and founder of Project Eli, and Matthew Terry, director of building information modeling at Common arts.
Space doesn’t allow a transcript of all the questions and answers. The following are some highlights from the event.
Following a coin toss, Mendoza was given the option of speaking first or second. She spoke first. She said she had lived in Seal Beach for 11 years. “I am running because I want to preserve the beauty of Old Town, the charm,” Mendoza said.
She said she had experience at the local, state, and federal level and planned to use those skills to get what Old Town needs.
Terry, an architect, said has lived in Seal Beach 37 years. He said 100 people relied on him to develop workflows, standards, documents, and content.
He said he first became interested in city government when a gas station on 13th Street tried to expand into his neighborhood. He said he realized the power of actually showing up at City Council meetings. “I feel like we’ve almost become a city of good intentions with bad power, essentially,” Terry said.
Kori DeLeon asked the candidates to answer in one sentence: “Old Town and Surfside Colony matter to me because?”
“Old Town and Surfside Colony matter to me because it’s my home. It’s where I grew up and it’s where I’m gonna hopefully live throughout the rest of my life,” Terry said.
“Old Town and Surfside matter to me because I care about my neighbors. This is a place that is home to me. I have, like I mentioned earlier, I have no plans on leaving, and I want to do my part to preserve it and keep it special,” Mendoza said.
Kori DeLeon said: “What is one thing about this district, and this is a hot question, that you would fight to keep exactly as is?”
“I love the walkability and the charm of our communities, so I am willing to do whatever I can. I also love our iconic pier, and so I want to do my own part to preserve that and have that for generations to come,” Mendoza said.
“I think the one thing that I value the most about our community is that we have everything that we, on like a daily basis for the most part, kind of have within our community,” Terry said.
Ellery Deaton, a former council member, asked the candidates: “What is your plan to address the deficit?”
(In May, the Sun reported that the five-year forecast projected the 2026-27 fiscal year would have a surplus of $17,728. At that time, possible deficits were projected to start in 2027-28. See “Budget workshop highlights” at sunnews.org. Projections are generally considered snapshots of a moment in time.)
“I do think we need to look at things more long term,” Terry said.
“I have kind of talked about this in detail as well as on my website in terms of analyzing our shopping centers and seeing if the revenue from them is actually at a level that can sustain us long term, and seeing if there are ways to revitalize them to bring in larger revenue from them from a long term,” Terry said.
“My plan would be to work with the current City Council members and work together so that we can have a performance audit,” Mendoza said.
“We have a deficit. Something in the math isn’t happening. So we need a performance that’s different from the audits that take place every year. These audits will evaluate city staff and see how they’re allocating our funds, so that we can find out where we’re falling short and making improvements,” Mendoza said.
A woman from the audience asked the candidates if they would support enforcement when a short term rental property has violations, particularly when the permit is up for renewal. She said that because of the Olympics, the city was planning on issuing more.
(Note: In September 2022, the council suspended the Seal Beach ban on short term rentals in response to court rulings that forbid cities from banning STRs.)
“Short term rentals, I feel, take housing away from families,” Terry said.
“If I was on the council, I’d make sure that we keep that number as low as possible for one, whatever the minimum that Coastal [Commission] requires, and then also make sure that we keep it in the neighborhoods that are more appropriate and not like the Hill, the Hill being like essentially closer to the beach, where you would assume somebody would want to actually use,” Terry said.
“My response would be to work with the committee that has been established,” Mendoza said.
“I’d love to hear from the residents who are experiencing these inconveniences. I’d like to work with them directly and see what type of solution, if there’s something better that we can implement as a whole,” Mendoza said.
“But I am definitely for enforcement, and I know that there’s ways to report when we have loud noises or when there’s parties, so I would definitely encourage those that are being exposed to any type of nuisance to report it and go from there,” Mendoza said.
Kori DeLeon asked the candidates to name one revenue source they would pursue or an expense they would cut in light of the city’s budget.
Terry said his specialty was basically making things more efficient. He said when he was cashing his cashier’s check at City Hall when he was filing for his candidacy, the person behind the counter didn’t know what the category code was for the check and she pulled out a giant binder and started flipping through it page by page. “There’s a lot of things that I think we could do even with efficiency to make ourselves better, especially like when I’m focused on the technology,” Terry said.
Mendoza said one area she would visit was contractors. “I’m not saying cut contractors in general. What I’m saying is that there’s work that can be done internally. If there’s someone that we’ve already hired with the city that is capable of doing and taking care of a job, I think those are expenses that we could cut,” Mendoza said.
Brian Kyle, a resident for more than 70 years, brought up parking. He said 50 years ago, the city pulled out parking meters. According to Kyle, citizens consistently opposed paid parking. Kyle called for getting rid of the parking consultant and other city consultants. “You got a lot of bright people in this town. Put them together and say, ‘Hey, what do you think?’” He said there were 9,000 retired people in Leisure World. “Put them together. They could be a consultant and say, ‘We live here. This is what we cross, and this what we’re for.’ Instead of all this underhand stuff,” Kyle said. He also called for a forensic audit of the city.
Terry said he was on the parking commission.
“There’s so many times just recently where I’ll be walking down Main Street and there’ll not be a single open spot on the entire street, but it feels like there’s more cars than people on Main Street,” Terry said.
“It’s just because they park on Main Street and then walk downtown here,” he said.
Terry proposed flipping the paid parking from the lots to Main Street. “The adjacent lots are free. So essentially we’re not taking away paid parking. We’re just moving it around and realigning it because essentially nobody uses the side lots because they’re paid,” Terry said.
He also said he would get rid of in lieu parking fees. “Essentially, they’re almost like a penalty for any business that wants to start on Main Street,” Terry said.
Terry did not address the forensic audit suggestion.
Mendoza said she heard from both sides. “As city councilwoman, my goal would be to bring everyone to the table. I think that this type of decision needs to be handled by merchants, by business owners, by our salon owners, and restaurants and the residents; most importantly, not by a group of four or five people making these big decisions for us as a whole,” Mendoza said.
“But definitely, this needs to be a community effort and not just done behind closed doors,” Mendoza said.
“The hope is that we will come up with a consensus and live happily ever after. That’s the goal,” Mendoza said.
“Meanwhile, I like to focus on awareness. There’s a lot of visitors that come to town and they drive up Main Street and then they stop. They don’t realize that we have two big parking lots on the side of the Pier that are available to them,” Mendoza said.
She said she didn’t know what a forensic audit entails. She said a performance audit would be a good start.