Former Seal Beach mayor Sandra Massa-Lavitt has died

OBITUARY

by Ruth Osborn

Communications Director

Former Seal Beach Mayor and lifelong public servant Sandra Massa-Lavitt, 83, of Mutual 5 died of organ failure on May 1, 2026. She and Shefron, her husband of 65 years, moved to Leisure World in 1991 after she retired from a career as a city planner. In Leisure World, she served on her Mutual board before being appointed to the Seal Beach Planning Commission and then elected to the Seal Beach City Council.

She was a natural born leader with a can-do spirit that pervaded her entire life. The fruit of her well-lived life is tangible—decades of public service that made life better in the communities around her and a long and happy marriage that provided a warm nest for her own children plus a parade of foster children.

Married at 17, she and Shef had two children under 3 when the couple decided to foster the most vulnerable among them. From 1964-1984, the Massa-Lavitts serially fostered a total of 11 kids aged 7 to the teen years.

Meanwhile, she earned a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s in public administration from California State University, Long Beach.

Massa-Lavitt then started working for the City of Lakewood Planning Department. She ultimately branched out into consulting as project manager in other cities or as interim director to help run a city until a permanent person was hired.

The couple moved to LW in 1991, and Sandra retired in 2008, when she began a new career as an appointee to the Seal Beach Planning Commission, which she chaired for four years of her seven-year tenure. In 2014, Leisure World voters sent her to the Seal Beach City Council, where she served for eight years representing District 5.

She served two terms as Seal Beach mayor and in every other capacity as a council member. Over the years, she and her fellow council members wrestled with city budgets, district boundaries, the 405 Freeway project, vector control,