Testosterone Replacement Therapy in Five Points, CA

By Elizabeth Jonasson, Westlands Water District

Today, the Westlands Water District Board of Directors appointed Jeff Fortune as president of the District. Mr. Fortune succeeds Ryan Ferguson. Mr. Fortune is a third generation California farmer and second generation Westlands farmer. He is a “boots on the ground” farmer with more than four decades of farming experience. Mr. Fortune works alongside his father and two brothers at their family farm growing tomatoes, almonds, and pistachios.

At the Special Board Meeting today, Mr. Fortune was joined by four new Board members who were elected to the Board in November: Ernie B. Costamagna, Justin Diener, Donald Ross Franson III, and Jeremy Hughes. Each new Board member will serve a four-year term.

Ernie Costamagna is a third generation family farmer in California. He began farming in Westland’s in the 1980’s. His farming operation is comprised of nuts, wine grapes, cherries, garlic, onions, cotton and processing tomatoes. He is a resident of Hanford CA with his wife and has 7 children.

Justin Diener continues to work in the same area his family began farming in the 1930s. Mr. Diener, with his family, grows processing tomatoes, garlic, almonds, and lemons and raises lambs. Mr. Diener is responsible for the financial management of his family’s farming operation. He is a graduate of Stanford University with a degree in Economics with Honors. Before returning to the farming operation, Mr. Diener spent more than a decade of his career working for JP Morgan Securities, Wells Fargo Bank, and Bank of the West. Mr. Diener lives in Five Points, where he was born and raised, with his wife and daughter.

Ross Franson’s family has farmed in Westlands since the District’s formation in 1952. Mr. Franson currently serves as VP of Strategy at his family business, Woolf Farming & Processing, which grows almonds, pistachios, tomatoes, and other row crops. His family business also operates almond and tomato processing facilities within the District. Over the years Mr. Franson has served on various agricultural-related Boards, including Woolf Farming & Processing, Harris Woolf California Almonds, Cal-West Rain, and Aliso Water District. Mr. Franson currently resides in Fresno with his wife and three children.

Jeremy Hughes, a fifth-generation farmer, has farmed in the District for over 25 years with his family. Since his father started the operation in the mid-1970s with a one-quarter section of land, the farm has steadily increased. Mr. Hughes started the company that bears his name in 1997, farming various row crops including processing tomatoes, almonds, and pistachios. Mr. Hughes lives in Clovis with his wife and two children.

Head south down Vermont Avenue past Kenneth Malloy Harbor Regional Park, and you’ll soon reach a crossroads that gives you options. Lots of options.

Make a hard right onto Anaheim Street and you’ll continue through Harbor City, headed for Lomita and Torrance. Bear right more gently and Palos Verdes Drive North will take you up onto the Peninsula. Bear slightly left and you’ll find yourself on San Pedro’s main drag, Gaffey Street. Finally, a hard left sends you the other way down Anaheim toward Wilmington and Long Beach.

Welcome to Five Points, one of the South Bay/Harbor Area’s wackiest intersections.

Archaeological and historical evidence suggests that a large Native American settlement once was situated near the Five Points intersection, and that the area once was a crossing for several major trails used by coastal Shoshonean tribes.

Hopefully, they had fewer gnarly traffic crashes there than did subsequent settlers.

Because of its harbor, San Pedro was among the earliest settlements in the Harbor Area, incorporating in 1888. (It disincorporated itself and became part of the city of Los Angeles in 1909.) Other smaller settlements began cropping up north of San Pedro and south of L.A., but for several decades those areas mostly consisted of farmland.

As Los Angeles Harbor development ramped up in the early 1900s, the need for roads connecting the port and its goods to points north became obvious. Of course, it went both ways, with port workers from cities such as Torrance in need of connection to San Pedro using eastside thoroughfares, such as Western and Vermont avenues

Developing this highway infrastructure that we take for granted today took time.

The last link connecting Western Avenue from Torrance to San Pedro wasn’t finished until 1950. By contrast, the Southern Pacific freight railroad link to San Pedro came early on, in 1881. The Pacific Electric red car began bringing passengers to the port in 1904.

Anaheim Street had been established as an east-west artery between Long Beach and Wilmington in the 1880s. Vermont and Normandie were extensions of major north-south Los Angeles arteries. Palos Verdes Drive North came into the picture with the development of the Palos Verdes Peninsula during the mid-1920s.

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Anaheim St. traffic headed west passes through Five Points intersection, center, as Vermont Ave. traffic waits, left. Palos Verdes Drive North is beyond red traffic lights at right, while Gaffey St. lies beyond more distant traffic signals, center. August 2022. (Photo by Sam Gnerre)

These various planned thoroughfares didn’t start coming together in organized chaos until a series of construction projects received approval in 1929 and began in 1930. These included extending Gaffey Street from Channel Street up north to Anaheim Street and building Normandie and Vermont avenues south from 228th Street to Anaheim.

Work began on paving the Gaffey Street extension from Channel Street north to Anaheim in June 1930 and was completed that September.

North of Anaheim, the plan was for Normandie to veer east and merge into Vermont just north of Anaheim Street. But both had to be extended a considerable distance south first.

San Pedro businessman and land baron George Peck helped out on the extension northward in 1931 by deeding the right-of-way on the land he owned through which the expansion would run.

Traffic was a mess during all this construction, as one might imagine, with some sections of the roads involved, especially Anaheim, being closed for weeks at a time. But with the completion of its extension in July 1932, Vermont Avenue became the first continuous roadway connecting San Pedro to Los Angeles.

The fifth and final of the Five Points, the extension of Palos Verdes Drive North from the Peninsula eastward to link to the intersection, was approved in 1932 and completed in 1934.

It was all well and good for San Pedro to announce in 1936 the installation of a new “Welcome to San Pedro” sign at the gateway intersection. But once construction there was completed, it quickly became clear that traffic controls were what really were needed.

Crashes at the confusing intersection became commonplace.

In 1932, stop signs were installed at Gaffey and Anaheim. Improved lighting was added in 1936 to the formerly dark-at-night intersection, and there was much talk of improving safety there over the next few years.

Somehow, though, traffic signals weren’t installed until the U.S. Army demanded them in late 1943 to protect troops and defense workers trying to safely navigate the crossing. They became operational in January 1944 and seemed to help reduce crashes somewhat.

More attempts to improve the intersection came after the war.

The addition of a nearby bridge on Anaheim and new storm drains were aimed at reducing the flooding from nearby Bixby Slough that occurred at the intersection during rainy weather. Gaffey and Anaheim streets also were widened in 1946 to accommodate the heavy traffic in the area.

Improvements to the difficult traffic problems posed by the converging roadways have continued throughout the years.

The whole intersection might have been altered radically if a 1965 proposal for a coastal freeway through the South Bay had been adopted. The preferred route would have followed Anaheim Street right through the Five Points intersection. It was debated for several years, but the freeway idea was put to rest in the early 1970s.

From time to time, other proposals to improve traffic have been made. The idea of a roundabout, or traffic circle, similar to the Lakewood Boulevard roundabout in Long Beach has been tossed around for years. Detractors have said the Five Points site is too small for one and roundabouts, in general, pose unnecessarily dangerous traffic risks.

For now, Five Points remains a souped up, frequently redesigned, update of the traffic puzzle that first bedeviled traffic engineers – and drivers – in 1934.

Sources: Daily Breeze archives. Los Angeles Times archives. San Pedro: A Pictorial History, by Henry P. Silka, San Pedro Bay Historical Society, 1993. San Pedro News Pilot archives. Torrance Press Herald archives.

Note: Thanks to reader Angel Rodriguez for suggesting this topic.

In a couple of years, drivers should find it faster to get through Five Points, one of Whittier’s more congested and awkward intersections.

City officials plan to use money from two Los Angeles County sales tax measures approved by voters in the past to pay for numerous improvements to the intersection. They could save drivers as much as 30 seconds or reduce the time traversing the intersection by 30%, Kyle Cason, Whittier’s interim director of public works, said.

“The goal of the project is to reduce delays at the intersection,” Cason said. “Drivers spend a significant time waiting for the signal. It’s all about getting more cars through the intersection in each (traffic signal) phase.”

Five Points is so named because of the many streets, including Whittier and Washington boulevards, Santa Fe Springs Road, Pickering Avenue and La Cuarta Street, that come together. In addition, the Greenway Trail crosses the area.

The plan is to add more lanes through the intersection, including providing:

Construction is expected to begin in the fall of 2020 and completed a year later, Cason said.

Cost of the project is estimated at $2.4 million and will be paid for by Metro’s I-605 “Hot Spots” program that calls for spending $63.3 million on nonfreeway projects in the Southeast area of Los Angeles County. That includes funds to improve the Colima Road, Norwalk Boulevard and Painter Avenue intersections with Whittier Boulevard.

“The idea is that we’ve identified these bottlenecks that have capacity or safety issues, and we’re tackling some of those,” Metro spokesman Brian Haas said.

The Five Points project is important to finish, Whittier Mayor Joe Vinatieri said, because even more traffic on Whittier Boulevard is expected from the new Groves residential project just down the street at the site of the former Fred C. Nelles Youth Correctional Facility. It will include 561 for-sale homes and 189 apartments, 60 of which are for ages 55-plus.

The Whittier City Council last week approved an agreement with Metro to take the lead in designing the Five Points and Painter Avenue intersection improvements.

Whittier Boulevard is a major thoroughfare, Vinatieri said in a Monday telephone interview. It is often used as an alternative route to the 60 Freeway.

“Anybody who has to drive through that intersection knows how much traffic flows through it — or should we say stops there,” Vinatieri said. “We need to make this better.”

Emile Haddad, the real estate executive who spearheaded the conversion of an old airbase into housing, athletics and entertainment at Irvine’s Great Park Neighborhoods, is leaving his leadership role at the end of September.

Five Point Holdings announced late Monday, Aug. 23 that Haddad will transition Sept. 30 from day-to-day management of the company he founded to senior adviser. He will also remain on Five Point’s board of directors and serve as chairman emeritus.

Five Point’s new management team includes Stuart Miller, executive chairman of Five Point’s long-time partner and homebuilder Lennar; and Lynn Jochim, Five Point’s chief operating officer, who is being promoted to president.

In addition to its Orange County development, Five Point also has large real estate projects in Valencia and San Francisco.

Reached by phone Monday night, Haddad said he’s not leaving the company but instead is stepping back from the grind of running a publicly-traded company with more than 40,000 homes under development. He said he will now “focus on the next opportunities.”

While conceding the move is, in part, to have more time with his family, his primary goal is to work on big-picture ideas to boost stockholder value, fulfill the company’s dream for the Great Park while also working on public interest projects like promoting health care projects in Irvine and attacking the state’s housing crisis.

“Today’s announcement was for me to step back from the day-to-day operational responsibility and the management of the public market and all that and focus on the things I’ve always enjoyed focusing on, and that is what is the next opportunity within our communities,” he said.

Haddad, 63, conceded the news is a bit of a surprise, saying that even his family and some top company employees didn’t know about the changes until just before they became public.

“I’m not surprised you’re surprised,” Haddad said. “But I can assure you there’s no health (issue). I wasn’t fired. It’s just a repositioning for us to move forward and create the right value for the company. … At some point in time, you need to start realizing that there are other things you can focus on.”

Haddad said he still plans to keep his office at Five Point’s headquarters just south of the Great Park in Irvine.

Haddad said he’s not being replaced as chief executive officer. With Miller, a Wall Street pro at the helm, Jochim handling day-to-day operations and himself acting as a company adviser, “there’s no need for a CEO,” he said.

Long voyage

His real estate work has been quite a contrast to his fleeing his native Lebanon amid a civil war to come to California in 1986.

He was working as chief investment officer for Lennar Homes in 2005 when the shuttered El Toro Marine base came up for auction. It was his job to make sure Lennar was the top bidder, no matter the cost.

But in 2008, Lehman Brothers – the company financing the Great Park development – collapsed as the economy melted down into the Great recession.

“People don’t realize … how close this (project) got to the abyss, and the effort that was needed to keep it together,” Haddad said years later.

California then eliminated redevelopment agencies in late 2010, a move that eliminated another financing source for Haddad’s Great Park dream.

Haddad convinced the city to double the number of homes to be built, allowing Five Point to move forward with its housing development as well as be the Great Park’s developer.

A company statement said Haddad will “focus on enhancing our communities to stay true to the company’s vision and will maintain critical relationships at the state and local level, as well as focusing on new ventures and initiatives the Company may consider pursuing in order to enhance shareholder value.”

“Emile Haddad has been an innovator and leader in the national community development landscape,” Miller said. “He founded and grew Five Point from its inception to its current maturity. He has developed an exceptional management team that is prepared to continue to develop the extraordinary Five Point communities as a true credit to their surroundings while driving shareholder value.”

Surviving a virus

At the Great Park, Five Point — the master developer and a 37% owner of the project — has sold 6,970 home sites out of 10,500 planned. In 2021’s first seven months, builders have sold 516 homes. At the 21,500-home Valencia FivePoint project next to Magic Mountain, 110 homes have sold since sales launched in May. Builders already have bought 1,268 lots at the northern Los Angeles County development.

Five Point became a public traded company in May 2017, with Lennar its largest shareholder, controlling 39% of all shares. Haddad, who owns 3% of Five point’s shares, earned $6 million in 2020, including a $5 million bonus.

Company shares have not fared well in the pandemic era. Since February 2020, the homebuilder has earned shareholders 7% returns vs. 80% for a key homebuilder stock index.

Haddad said projects he will focus on include building Irvine into a hub for health care and life sciences, keying off the new City of Hope cancer facility being developed on land leased from Five Point. He wants to stay involved in initiatives coming out of Sacramento to boost homebuilding and address the state’s housing shortage. And he also intends to concentrate on developing the lifestyle and entertainment venues planned for the Great Park.

“I’m going to spend a lot of time working with the city of Irvine to develop that,” he said. “If you’re running a public company, you don’t have the time to do all that.”

Game Recap: Women's Volleyball | 09.01.2023

HONOLULU—The University of Hawai'i women's volleyball team (3-1) turned back Southern California's bid for a reverse-sweep to come out victorious in a five set battle, 25-19, 25-22, 24-26, 17-25, 17-15. Hawai'i won the first two sets and was serving for the match in Set 3, but USC had other ideas and rallied for force a fifth and deciding set. Things were looking a little bleak as the Trojans served for the match at 14-13, but back-to-back blocks by the Mānoa Roofing Company pumped new life into the Rainbow Wahine. USC was able to stave off one match point, but Caylen Alexander's 13^th kill ended the match on Thursday night at the SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

Senior Amber Igiede was solid, leading UH with 16 kills and eight blocks while scooping up seven digs and serving and ace. She also led UH with a .367 hitting percentage. She is now just nine kills away from reaching the 1,000 kill milestone.

Alexander tied her career-high with five service aces. She finished a digs shy of a double-double. She finished with nine digs three blocks and an assist. She is the only Rainbow Wahine to record 10+ kills in every match thus far.

Riley Wagoner posted her third double-double of the season with 12 kills and 13 digs and an ace. Libero Talia Edmonds came up with a match-high 26 digs—just two shy of her career high of 28 set last season. Kate Lang dished out 44 assists and dealt three service aces in the win.

Set 1 saw UH go on an early 5-to-0 run with Tali Hakas behind the service line to take a 6-2 lead. But the Trojans came right back to knot the score at 6-6 off a 4-0 run of their own. UH never trailed from that point. An 8-to-1 scoring run—which included back-to-back service aces by Lang followed by three-consecutive aces by Alexander—gave UH a 17-9 lead. UH would coast to a Set 1 win, 25-19 to take a 1-0 match lead.

In Set 2, UH showed their resiliency. Scoring runs by both teams swung the momentum back and forth resulting in eight ties and five lead changes in the frame. Hawai'i led by as many as five points at 11-6 and held the lead until the Trojans went on a 5-to-1 scoring run to take a 17-14 lead which UH to call timeout. Hawai'i would rally to score five of the next seven points to knot the score at 20-20 and went on to score four of the last five points to capture Set 2, 25-22 to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

A 6-to-1 scoring run early in Set 3 resulted in a 9-4 lead. UH would go on to lead by as many as six points. Later, a three-point run gave Hawai'i a 20-16 advantage, but USC charged back with a 7-to-2 run which allowed USC to leapfrog into the lead at 21-20. The Trojans would stave off match point to tie it at 24-24. USC then got an ace that tickled the tape and fell in for an ace and a UH attack sailed long as USC took Set 3, 26-24.

Set 4 was all USC. A 7-0 run put the Trojans up, 14-8 and although Hawai'i tried to rally, the 'Bows could not string points together to gain any traction. USC, who led by as many as six, cruised to take Set 4, 25-17 to force a fifth and deciding set with match tied at 2-2.

Hawai'i led early in Set 5, but the Trojans scored four-straight to take a 10-9 lead. USC then scored three-consecutive points to go up 13-11. After a UH timeout, Igiede rotated back into the front row just in the nick of time. Paula Guersching and Igiede both buried kills to tie the score at 13-13. USC went up 14-13 on a Lindsey Miller kill and served for match point. But back-to-back blocks by Igiede/Guersching and Igiede/Lang pushed UH to a 15-14 lead. USC staved off one match point, but kills by Igiede and Alexander ended the dramatic match, 17-15.

USC's Skyler Fields had a career-high 80 attempts while putting down a match-high 26 kills. She added seven blocks and four digs. Miller recorded a match-high 11 blocks in the loss.

The Trojans had more kills 61-to-53, more assists 59-to-49, and more blocks (12.0-to-11.0), but UH had 10 aces to USC's four and out dug the Trojans, 87-to-82. USC committed 19 service errors to UH's seven.

Thursday night was "Hawaiian Heritage" night and parts of the match were announced in 'Ōlelo Hawai'i for the first time ever in the SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center.

Hawai'i will face Southern California once more on Saturday night at 7:00 p.m. HT at the SimpliFi Arena at Stan Sheriff Center. Saturday is a WHITEOUT and fans are encouraged to wear white UH apparel to support the Rainbow Wahine.

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