Part six in a series.
City officials discussed using special events to bring more visitors to Seal Beach during the November 2025 Strategic Planning meeting. One special event that came up was the 2028 Summer Olympic games in Los Angeles. One of the city’s goals appears to be attracting visitors to Seal Beach. An Olympic Planning Committee was discussed.
It was the next to last item on the Strategic Planning agenda. Seal Beach Police Chief Michael Henderson moderated the meeting. (As of Dec. 20, there had been 72 views of the council’s Strategic Planning meeting online.)
“We’re going to be talking a little bit today about special events,” Henderson said. “We’re also going to be talking about the Olympics and our response to it.”
“We can’t control that. It goes back to one of my first slides: We’re going to talk about control. The Olympics are coming. We can’t control that. It’s good thing, but we can’t control it. But we can control how we respond to it, how we interact with it,” Henderson said.
Recreation Manager Tim Kelsey gave the staff presentation to the meeting.
Kelsey said one of the key tools, or an important tool, for attracting visitors was special events. He cited the Seal Beach Classic Car Show and the Christmas Parade as examples of city co-sponsored events.
Kelsey also gave examples of events for which the city issues permits: Block parties, the Fish Fry, and the Turkey Trot.
“Annually, the city does about 50 special event permits a year,” Kelsey said.
“Special events can take place in any part of the city.”
He said special events could take place at a shopping center, a private home, the beach, the pier, Main Street, or a park.
Kelsey said special events were reviewed by all departments to look at safety and impact to the general area.
He said staff was hoping to get consensus from the council. He asked if the council was satisfied with the current level of special events or would the council like to see more events come to the city.
“The economic development team is going to be working on driving more businesses,” Kelsey said, apparently referring to the Business First Committee. (See “City to launch Business First initiative,” part four of the Strategic Planning series, at sunnews.org.)
We have a feeling that that’s something that could be used as a tool to drive more individuals and visitors to Main Street,” Kelsey said.
“We do want to be transparent, as when there are special events, they do seem to attract impacts and some negative responses that we get from the business community or residents,” Kelsey said.
“For example, we are working on bringing a farmers market to the city, which we’ve never had before,” Kelsey said. “We’re hoping to premier that in the springtime.”
Kelsey said he thought Seal Beach would be ready to do it in the next month (December 2025) but the weather was not going to be so good. He said staff was going to wait until a more favorable time.
Kelsey suggested the city could bring in more cars for the Car Show if the city gets creative.
“I would like to see more events, but maybe away from Main Street,” said District Two Councilman Ben Wong. He said there was a lot of potential parking at both the Target center (apparently he meant the Old Ranch Town Center on Seal Beach Boulevard)and the Shops at Rossmoor center.
He argued that those locations have more of the capabilities to bring more people to Seal Beach.
“Unfortunately, that is private property,” Kelsey said. He said the city doesn’t have direct oversight over private property.
“We can’t plan a city special event on their property. We can talk to them. We work through the process with them and we can let them know that we are interested if they do want to do more,” Kelsey said.
District Five Councilman Nathan Steele said there was a farmers market in the Roger Dunn parking lot. (He was apparently referring to the parking lot of the Seal Beach Village center.)
Events discussion
The following is not a transcript but highlights from the discussion.
According to Kelsey, staff was working on a more defined plan for a farmers market.
City Manager Patrick Gallegos said one goal would be putting a farmers market in Eisenhower Park. “And to Councilman Wong’s point about opportunities at the Rossmoor center to see if we can collaborate with the owner over there to do special events,” Gallegos said.
District Four Councilwoman Patty Senecal said they needed to be sensitive to the fact that events are pretty much in the downtown area.
She suggested having homeowners on the Business First committee to help advise the city on that.
“You bring up a good point,” Chief Henderson said.
“We love our special events. We do a lot in the city,” Henderson said.
He said you could look at them one way and say, these are all positives, but there are those who look at them as negatives, too, that they have a negative impact,” Henderson said.
He said there were parking issues and people saying the events were not worth the trouble.
According to Henderson, they had to be mindful of those individuals who are less enthusiastic about special events. He said the city needed to be measured and judicious in planning events.
“Maybe trying to space them around the city,” Senecal said.
She said the pickleball center could do events on the courts.
“If the farmer’s market is a big hit, maybe rotate it to other locations,” Senecal said.
She said the concerts in the park have been very successful. (She was apparently referring to summer concerts at Eisenhower Park.)
“We might have to spread that around or make some different arrangements,” Senecal said.
“That’s a perfect example,” Henderson said.
“They are so successful that you have to think about crowd management and traffic and things like that,” Henderson said.
“We need to be more mindful of those things as we plan more events,” Henderson said.
Kelsey said the city might be at capacity at that location, apparently referring to Eisenhower Park. He said the city needed to get more creative and either spread them out to different locations or finding ways to accommodate more people at the current location.
“For instance, there’s a street right behind it. So if we were to close Ocean between Eighth or Tenth Street, we could increase the capacity of them,” Kelsey said.
“There’s a variety of different ways we can look at it,” Kelsey said.
“One of the defining characteristic of Seal Beach in my view anyway, other than Main Street, the pier, the beach, and the precious things that we have is our service clubs,” said Steele.
“We have a Lions Club that is world class. We have a Chamber of Commerce that does an absolutely marvelous job for the city,” Steele said.
Kelsey said the city’s capacity is relatively limited. “We are always looking to piggy back and leverage those relationships to help us provide that staffing,” Kelsey said.
He explained that when he said events were co-sponsored, it’s not city operated. He said the city was not putting on Run Seal Beach or the parades. “I love the World Cup viewing party and we can do similar things with the Olympics,” Steele said.
Wong said he loved the idea of a pickleball tournament.
Kelsey said Seal Beach has a premiere facility, so staff could look into those types of discussions again.
“I don’t think we have a deliverable,” Kelsey said. “We were looking at a consensus in messaging and a consensus in direction.”
“I would like to have the discussion if we can help budget more for helping the Seal Beach Chamber,” Senecal said.
She said there was an incredible amount of work that goes into their activities. “At the end of it, they made $1,000,” Senecal said.
District One Councilman Joe Kalmick asked if there are any organized sand castle contests?
“I think Santa Barbara might still have one,” Kelsey said.
“It would be something that we would have to organize,” Kalmick said.
Chamber Board Member Peter Magalhaes brought the conversation back to farmers markets. He said a farmers market would be desirable because it’s not a drain on labor. “So a craft market to me would be really intriguing because they’re going to do the work,” he said.
“Adding a new event to the Camber’s Calendar, or the live calendar, requires a lot of labor,” he said.
He recommended factoring in labor as the council decides which events are worth prioritizing.
Staff discussed summarizing the consensus.
Wong said the council was open to more events, maybe even away from Main Street, and then expending other events. He named a sand castle contest and a craft market as too possible examples.
The Olympics
Kelsey next turned the discussion to the 2028 Olympics and the 2026 Paralympic games.
The Olympics will be held from July 14 to 30 in 2028. Long Beach will be the second largest of 49 sites in Southern California.
Kelsey said Long Beach was confirmed to host 18 events.
He said Long Beach estimated 10 to 15 million ticketed fans for the events.
He compared that to putting on 17 Super Bowl games a day for 17 days.
He listed some of the locations.
According to Kelsey, Seal Beach needed to look at transportation and anything that helps the enjoyment of the games.
An example he gave was a hosting an “LA live spot,” which would be like a viewing party.
He said when you get access to it, you get access to their brand.
He said a lot of things were on hold until the Winter Games happen.
Kelsey asked how Seal Beach can market to Southern California visitors to come to Seal Beach. “We need to make sure it’s a safe area. We need to make sure there’s education at outreach,” Kelsey said.
He said the Greek Orthodox Church on PCH would host the Greek delegation for the entire Olympic Games.
“How do we pay for the whole thing?” Kelsey asked. “Unfortunately, we don’t have a ton of hotels.”
Kelsey said, as an example, that the city could fund a watch party on a screen or large scale TV.
He asked if they wanted to create a positive resident experience or attract visitors to Seal Beach.
One suggestion that came up was to create an Olympic Planning Committee.
Senecal raised a concern. “I believe I can’t remember if it’s state law or LA city where they’re going to serve alcohol till like 4 in the morning because those watch parties are going to be on the time zone live,” Senecal said. She was referring to time zones from other countries.
Chief Henderson said that was something the Olympic committee could look at.
District Three Councilwoman/Mayor Lisa Landau brought up opening the short term rentals for that two or three week period.
Steele said the short term rental business is not just opening something for a couple of weeks. “It’s actually a capital investment,” he said.
“We spent like 40 grand getting our house ready for the market,” he said.
He said he liked the idea of more STRs in Seal Beach in general, but especially during the Olympics.
Wong said that if STRs were on the table, it had to be for 90 days. He said he imagined there would be traveling teams, coaches, and everyone who comes here early before the actual competition.
According to Henderson, staff could look at research and come back with that information.
According to Steele, the Netherlands has named Mission Viejo as their official training home. (Multiple news sources have confirmed this.)
Henderson said they were looking for two council members to sit on the Olympic committee.
Landau apparently expressed an interest in being on the committee.
Henderson said staff would come back with the proposed composition of the Olympic Committee.
According to Henderson, the council members also appeared to reach a consensus that they would focus on attracting more visitors.
According to Kelsey, Seal Beach has beach fronts and things that are specific to Seal Beach that might attract visitors.
One of the ideas he brought up was renting out a large facility such as Old Ranch. (No one from Old Ranch was at the meeting.)
“From a practical perspective, the city can make money from TOT,” Steele said. “That’s not resident money.”
Steele also suggested increasing the number of short term housing rentals allowed in town.
He said Seal Beach was ground zero for all the surrounding geography.
He said Huntington Beach had a council presentation about air taxis.
Kalmick suggested reaching out to Ed Selich (who represents Old Ranch Country Club on the proposed Old Ranch Specific Plan Site project) to build cottages.
Next week: Next steps for Strategic Planning.
