These photos are from the Torrance 2014 State of the City luncheon presented by the Torrance Area Chamber of Commerce and held at the Doubletree by Hilton Torrance – South Bay. This was the inaugural State of the City address given by our newly elected Mayor, Pat Furey. In addition to the State of the City address, the Chamber of Commerce also awarded Bob and Laurie Brandt, owners of the Red Car Brewery & Restaurant, the Citizens of the Year Award for 2014.
Mayor Furey used his time to give attendees a brief view of his background then proceeded to introduce the individual members of the Torrance City Council and discussed what each brought to the table; from Councilman Rizzo’s 31 years with the Torrance Police Department to Councilman Tim Goodrich’s involvement with the Sierra Club and his championing of environmental issues. Together, all seven members brought something to make this new city council valuable to the City of Torrance.
After introducing council members as well as various staff and department heads, Mayor Furey went on to deliver a pretty upbeat speech concentrating on various accomplishments Torrance has achieved such as the low unemployment rate and the general safety of the city; then declaring the room for improvement and how Torrance was working towards improving the streets and infrastructure as well as bringing in new International business. You can find the transcript of the State of the City Address on the City of Torrance website. The video can be found on YouTube.
The event ended with the presentation of the Torrance Citizen of the Year Award which was awarded to Bob and Laurie Brandt, the owners of Red Car Brewery and Restaurant located in Old Torrance. Red Car Brewery was the original craft brewery in the City of Torrance; and helped Torrance become the craft beer destination that it has become in the last few years. Laurie Brandt used the time to reflect on Red Car’s time in Torrance and the people they had the opportunity to interact with over the past 17 years. Bob Brandt used his time to encourage local officials to lend a helping hand to the new distilling industry stating that it is essentially in the same place as craft beer was 25 years ago.
