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Manhattan Beach now has two community groups. The new group is called the Manhattan Beach Civic Group, which will be headed by the Vice Chairman of Community Board 15, Dr. Alan Ditchek. The existing group is the Manhattan Beach Community Group, which is headed by Ira Zalcman.
When we last heard from Manhattan Beach, the Manhattan Beach Community Group stopped accepting renters and only counted a single house as one member. Before that, this group voted out Dr. Ron Biondo, the former president of the Manhattan Beach Community Group. Following his loss Dr. Biondo sued to challenge the election, which may or may not have been dropped.
Since the election there has been rumblings of starting a new group, but never anything official until now.  The Manhattan Beach Civic group has sent out mailers and there are flyers circulating announcing their first official meeting for April 7th in the P.S. 195 auditorium.
Communities that have more than one group usually work together but these groups will obviously not be working together on all issues. They will most likely have completely conflicting agendas. The Civic Group will be focusing on starting new developments and changing zoning to allow larger homes and developments. The existing Community Group has always been focused on maintaining the existing zoning and keeping development in check.
The Manhattan Beach Civic Group having an “open membership,” allowing anyone to join, could be bad for the Manhattan Beach Community Group, which might find that their rival group has more members sooner than later.
The Manhattan Beach Community Group will be having a meeting Wednesday March 19th at Kingsborough, if you’re from Manhattan Beach or want to check it out, come down.
