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Rolf Strutzenberg (Redondo Beach City Council District 1, California, candidate 2025)

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Rolf Strutzenberg
Image of Rolf Strutzenberg

Candidate, Redondo Beach City Council District 1

Elections and appointments
Last election

March 4, 2025

Education

Bachelor's

University of Texas at Arlington, 1991

Personal
Birthplace
Rochester, Minn.
Profession
Retired
Contact

Rolf Strutzenberg ran for election to the Redondo Beach City Council District 1 in California. He was on the ballot in the general election on March 4, 2025.[source]

Strutzenberg completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. Click here to read the survey answers.

[1]

Biography

Rolf Strutzenberg provided the following biographical information via Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey on February 5, 2025:

  • Birth date: July 4, 1962
  • Birth place: Rochester, Minnesota
  • High school: Ft Dodge Senior High, Iowa
  • Bachelor's: University of Texas at Arlington, 1991
  • Graduate: von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics, 1995
  • Gender: Male
  • Profession: Retired
  • Prior offices held:
    • Redondo Beach Unified School District Board of Education (2021-Prsnt)
  • Incumbent officeholder: No
  • Campaign website
  • Campaign endorsements
  • Campaign Facebook

Elections

General election

General election for Redondo Beach City Council District 1

Darin King, Rolf Strutzenberg, and Brad Waller ran in the general election for Redondo Beach City Council District 1 on March 4, 2025.

Candidate
Image of Darin King
Darin King (Nonpartisan)
Image of Rolf Strutzenberg
Rolf Strutzenberg (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection
Image of Brad Waller
Brad Waller (Nonpartisan) Candidate Connection

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Election results

Endorsements

To view Strutzenberg's endorsements as published by their campaign, click here. Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Strutzenberg in this election.

Campaign themes

Ballotpedia survey responses

See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection

Candidate Connection

Rolf Strutzenberg completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2025. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Strutzenberg's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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A teacher’s husband, proud parent of two young boys, and a long-time homeowner, I have a personal stake in the quality and success of our community.

 Retired aerospace engineer  SoCalROC Board member (President 2 of 4 years)

City of Redondo Beach Service:  Recreation and Parks Commissioner  Planning Commissioner  RBUSD School Board member  Ballot Measure documentation author  Charter Review Advisory Committee, Chair

City experience is critical in this type of city leadership, the breadth and depth I bring is unparalleled in this election.
  • Preserving our unique and cherished beach community environment

     Overcome ongoing state mandates and money driven developers that seek to overcrowd our beach city  Keeping the AES powerplant site for park open space  Increasing tree coverage for beauty & heat reduction

     Reinvigorating recently closed storefronts on PCH
  • Mitigating our increasing traffic issues  Working with our police for ongoing enforcement to calm the ever-increasing traffic in our community  Especially focused on quieting our residential streets  Education, regulation and enforcement of the exponentially growing impact of e-bikes
  • Building Trust with Active Transparency  Keeping you informed with active outreach  Clear, concise/easily understood budget reporting  Supporting residents to be involved in our community
Leveraging the power of being a Charter City

Zoning to limit overbuilding and crowding

Maintaining and increasing open green space

Public Safety that is responsive and effective

Budget and spending transparency

Capturing unique funding opportunities
Local control is paramount, a City Council under a City Charter (rather than general law) preserves as much local authority as is possible. Local needs and decisions are not the purview of state or federal lawmakers, our people have the right and responsibility to decide what is best for our local community.
Former Redondo Mayor Bill Brand. Bill had a unique ability to take complex issues and simplify them so that everyone could understand. I have always called this "The Bill Brand boil down" and it is extremely powerful in good leadership to be able to present things in a way that anyone can get, without spin, just objective truth.
Read 'The Smartest Guys in the Room" to understand the overwhelming dangers of how spin can be used to fool the public.
Present the facts, not the spin, to achieve success. Open communication with the public, clear and concise position declaration, knowing when to fight and when to accept the will of the majority.
I always look at things from the perspective of the average resident, what is important to them and how things can best be communicated to them so that they get it. The campaign process is a huge part of this, going door to door talking to people gives me that perspective directly. You find that there are common themes (traffic) and individual unique issues (garbage cans, local crosswalks, city permit process), all from the unique viewpoint of each individual resident.
Fighting to keep our community from being overrun by state mandates that do not align with our local community. Preserving a well kept, safe and vibrant city.
I am not looking for legacy or to be remembered personally, just to leave our city a better place for all when I step down. The best legacy is for people to be as happy as possible where they live, no matter what changes I helped make that achieve that goal.
Field Engineer in commercial construction, 6 years.
"What Should I Do with My Life" by Po Bronson
A compilation of real life stories of people that made the transition from success to significance.
Dave (in the Movie Dave), he took the perspective of the everyday guy and made it work in governance.
Finding how to best use the natural abilities I have been given, in balance with the skills gained through experience.
As mentioned above the power of being a Charter City is huge, yet very few people even know what a Charter City is or what it means. Critical to this is the fact that nothing in our City Charter (think of it as a local Constitution) can be changed without a vote of the people, this is democracy at its best. As Chair of our recent Charter Review Advisory Committee (2 years) I learned much, led critically needed changes to the voters, and recognized the work that still needs to be done.
Absolutely. Especially direct involvement with city matters such as I have had with the many positions in which I have served directly for the city. While there is nothing that mandates such experience, direct experience is critical to be able to efficiently determine context, history, and relative importance of the huge range of subject matter that is decided upon by members of the City Council. Without relevant experience you spend far too much time just trying to stay caught up rather then putting all efforts into effective evaluation and decision making.
Ability to dig deep into details to be able to effectively form positions in the big picture. Understanding how the city operates in all its various functions. A natural ability to recognize when something is just not right, and how to effectuate changes to correct and move on.
City Council is THE decision making body on our local issues. The only higher local authority is the direct will of the people through petition, however this is rarely invoked. All other positions within the city are either functional or advisory. City Council is simply the only policy making entity within our Council/Manager form of government, it is the most important part of our local government.
The "Midvale School for the Gifted" cartoon from Far Side by Gary Larson
Current and former Councilmembers of my district, City Treasurer, fellow Board members from SoCalROC. All people that I have worked directly with in meaningful ways.
Already noted above, transparency has to go beyond the limits of "the information is available", it has to be presented in a way that anyone can understand. Accountability is very similar, there can be no accountability if people can not actually understand what is going on or if things are presented with spin to just make it look good. Lipstick on a pig to avoid public criticism is not good governance.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

See also


External links

Footnotes