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File #: 23-0158    Version: 1
Type: Gen. Bus. - Staff Report Status: Agenda Ready
In control: City Council Regular Meeting
On agenda: 4/4/2023 Final action:
Title: Consideration of a Resolution of Apology for the City's Role in the Racially Motivated Condemnation of Properties at Bruce's Beach (City Manager Moe). (Estimated Time: 1 Hr.) A) DISCUSS AND PROVIDE DIRECTION B) ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 23-0037
Attachments: 1. Resolution No. 23-0037, 2. Bruce’s Beach History Report, 3. Statement of Acknowledgment, Condemnation, and Empathy Regarding Bruce’s Beach
TO:
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council

THROUGH:
Bruce Moe, City Manager

FROM:
Alexandria Latragna, Policy and Management Analyst

SUBJECT:Title
Consideration of a Resolution of Apology for the City's Role in the Racially Motivated Condemnation of Properties at Bruce's Beach (City Manager Moe).
(Estimated Time: 1 Hr.)
A) DISCUSS AND PROVIDE DIRECTION
B) ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 23-0037
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Recommended Action
RECOMMENDATION:
Staff recommends that the City Council discuss and provide direction and consider adopting Resolution No. 23-0037 apologizing for the City's role in the racially motivated condemnation of the properties at Bruce's Beach in the 1920s.
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FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
There are no fiscal implications associated with the recommended action.

BACKGROUND:
The City of Manhattan Beach created the Bruce's Beach Task Force to further research and properly acknowledge the City's racially motivated eminent domain action to dispossess Willa and Charles A. Bruce, Major George and Mrs. Ethel Prioleau, Elizabeth Patterson, Mary R. Sanders, Milton and Anna Johnson, as well as others, of their property in the 1920s. The Task Force and the History Advisory Board (a subcommittee of the Task Force) drafted the attached History Report and subsequently the City Council adopted revised plaque language that was installed at Bruce's Beach Park earlier this year. On April 6, 2021, the City Council adopted the attached Statement of Acknowledgment, Condemnation, and Empathy Regarding Bruce's Beach.

DISCUSSION:
On March 21, 2023, Councilmember Lesser, seconded by Councilmember Howorth, requested that Councilmember Napolitano's previously submitted resolution of apology be placed on the agenda for future consideration.

Staff suggests two minor edits to Councilmember Napolitano's original resolution of apology which is presented as Resolution No. 23-0037 (attached):

1. The first paragraph previously ...

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