The Watch, vol. 2

Seapoint

Geography

In keeping with the DC tradition of squeezing fictional cities in between two cities that border each other in our world, Seapoint is located in Southern California between the cities of Long Beach and Seal Beach. Most of the city lies on a small peninsula jutting out into the Alamitos Bay.

History

The first Europeans to live in what is now Seapoint were Spanish ranchers. Almost all of present-day Seapoint was part of Rancho Los Hermanos, owned by the de la Cruz family. In the early 1800s, the de la Cruzes fell on hard times and sold off the ranch piecemeal. After the Gold Rush, wealthy mine owners Jabez Whitlock and Meredith Rees[e] came south, bought up the land and opened Seapoint as a resort town.

By the Turn of the Century, Seapoint society was neatly split into two very different worlds: the beaches on the southern tip of the peninsula (and the new man-made island dubbed Capri) with their hotels, resorts and fine restaurants; and the Heights, the rocky northern end of the peninsula and the surrounding mainland neighborhoods, the working class neighborhoods of those who worked in the resorts and the small port on the western shore of the peninsula. The City of Seapoint was incorporated in 1905.

In the 1920s, Seapoint was second only to neighboring Long Beach as the center of the new motion picture industry, and many famous stars had "litte bungalows" on Capri. At the same time, north Seapoint was becoming more industrialized, with the Gage Brothers, Cathcart and Sons, and the Trudell Company all building manufacturing and warehouse facilities in town. During Prohibition, Seapoint was notorious for being a center of bootlegging, and many contend that organized crime still exerts an influence on the city government to this day.

During World War II, Seapoint's docks saw their first and last period of heavy use. After the war, Gage Brothers and Cathcart and sons merged to form Gage-Cathcart, a leading aerospace firm. By the 1960s, the Trudell Company, pioneers in automation, became Trudell Industries, a prominent defense, manufacturing and data processing corporation.

The recession of the 1980s hit Seapoint particularly hard. Gage-Cathcart cut their workforce by a third and several smaller firms packed up and left altogether. Trudell Industries remained healthy, and was instrumental in Seapoint's much-publicized late-1990s rejuvenation, funding the construction of Delmar Square, a new downtown arts and shopping complex, as well as successful renovations of several of the old resort hotels.

Neighborhoods and Demographics

The wealthiest Seapoint citizens live on Capri, a man-made island just a few hundred feet south of the tip of the peninsula. The southern end of the peninsula, a neighborhood variously referred to as Old Seapoint, Seapoint Beach, or The Shore, is an upper-middle class neighborhood of tiny, expensive houses crammed way too close together. Old Seapoint features a marina and an outdoor shopping mall. This is where the original resorts, hotels, and spas of Old Seapoint were. The Point, an oceanside amusement park, is still mostly standing, although it closed in 1981.

Northeast of Old Seapoint, on the eastern shore of the peninsula, is the area known as Rees Bluff. This is a middle-class neighborhood with lots of single-family houses and "cracker-box" style apartment buildings. Opposite Ress Bluff is the area officially designated Midtown but usually referred to as Bricktown or (sarcastically) the Abandoned Warehouse District. This is the site of the old Seapoint docks, and there are an awful lot of abandoned and derelict warehouses in the area.

Where the peninsula meets the mainland is the Heights (officially Whitlock Heights; old-time gangsters called it The Shoulders, a name you still hear occassionally), Seapoint's inner city. This is a poor neighborhood, peopled mostly by ethnic minorities and recent immigrants.

West of the Heights is downtown, a recently revitalized shopping, entertainment and dining district with some very upscale housing as well. Just north of downtown is the new industrial center, where Trudell Industries and Gage-Cathcart are located.

East of the Heights is Whitlock Square, a working-class neighborhood that's becoming more popular with downtown workers. There's some concern among the locals about gentrification. North of Whitlock Square is North Seapoint, a solidly middle-class suburb annexed in the 1960s.

Business and Industry

As has been true throughout the century, Seapoint's local economy is dominated by tourism and manufacturing. Trudell Industries is the city's largest employer, followed closely by Gage-Cathcart.

Education and Entertainment

Seapoint's public education system is fairly average for a city of its size in California. (So it's pretty bad.) Seapoint is home to a campus of California State College ("Cal State Seapoint") as well as Seapoint City College.

The new Delmar Square facility houses both a live theater and a 32-screen cinema complex.

Seapoint has its own public library system. There is one local newspaper, The Seapoint Breeze. Seapoint has no local TV or radio stations, being a part of the Greater Los Angeles/Orange County market.

Crime

Crime is down throughout the nation and California in the 1990s, but Seapoint continues to buck the trend. Violent crime dipped only slightly, although it's confined mostly to Midtown, the Heights, and Downtown. There's been a startling increase of gang activity in "respectable" areas like North Seapoint and Rees Bluff. Organized crime continues to be a huge problem.

Politics and Government

Seapoint is an incorporated city in the County of Los Angeles. The nine-member city council is made up of six members elected by district and three at-large members. The entire council stands for election every four years. The city council elects a mayor and vice-mayor, but other than chairing council meetings, these officials have no more power or influence than any other councilman. The districts correspond roughly to the following neighborhoods: 1st District: downtown and the industrial area; 2nd: Old Seapoint and Capri; 3rd: Rees Bluff and Midtown; 4th: The Heights; 5th: Whitlock Square; 6th: North Seapoint. The curent Mayor is 6th District Councilman Julius Robinson.

There are no term limits, and many members have had their seats for decades. The current record holder is Henry Daugherty, now 85, who has represented the 2nd District since 1962. (Although some would say you have to consider Gina Hernandez-Calderon, who represents the 4th District. Even though she's only held the seat since 1990, her father Albert Hernandez held it from 1950-1958 and from 1962-1966, her father-in-law Jesse Calderon held it from 1958-1962 and 1966-1982 and her late husband Jesse Calderon, Jr., held it from 1982-1990.)

This system has been in place since the early 1970s, when it replaced the original "strong mayor" form of government. Most observers of local politics agree that the city fathers got rid of the directly-elected office of mayor in order to get rid of controversial Mayor Jack Hamilton, the former police chief whose 1966-1974 tenure was distinguished by numerous anti-corruption reforms.

Law Enforcement

After the Jack Hamilton scare, the powers that be in Seapoint took a hard look at the police department to make sure that no one would ever use the office of police chief as a stepping stone to City Hall. Previously, the Chief of Police was appointed by the mayor. A two-thirds majority of the city council was required to veto the mayor's appointment.

In the name of "reform" the 1974 charter places the authority for hiring the Police Chief into the hands of a Police Commission whose members are appointed by City Council. In effect, this means that the council picks the police chief. Since they're terrified of another Jack Hamilton, they consistently pick someone they feel they can control, or someone who they're sure is no threat politically.

Naturally, this creates an atmosphere of both incompetence and corruption within the Seapoint PD, from the top down. Now those crime statistics start to make sense.