Civic Center planning and mobile home rent stabilization commission revived.
By Vicky Shere / Special to the Malibu Times
Candidates for Malibu City Council touted their credentials Saturday in the first forum of the 2008 campaign.
Jefferson Wagner, Kathy Wisnicki, Pamela Conley Ulich, Susan Tellem and John Sibert told a standing room only audience of Point Dume and Paradise Cove mobile home park residents why they would be most responsive to the city’s needs as a whole and to mobile home park residents specifically.
Constituting about 10 percent of Malibu’s 13,000 population [556 households with 2.5 people per household,1,390 residents], mobile home park residents represent a significant voting bloc in the April 8 election.
Residents of the Paradise Cove Mobile Home Park have been fighting the Kissel Company for 10 years over sewage spills and what they see as unjustified rent increases.
Conley Ulich, the only incumbent in the race, announced that the City Council opposes an initiative on the June 3 ballot phasing out California’s rent control laws.
“You must read past the first paragraph and get out the vote in June,” Conley Ulich, an attorney, said of Proposition 98, “Government Acquisition, Regulation of Private Property.”
On a local level, Conley Ulich announced that the city’s Mobile Home Rent Stabilization Commission will meet March 13 in response to a letter from Paradise Cove residents protesting a 4.2 percent rent increase noticed by park owner The Kissel Company, Inc.
This is the first meeting of the commission in five years, since a settlement of a lawsuit regarding Malibu’s rent control ordinance covered rent increases through 2007.
All candidates voiced support for rent control, and in response to a request by Paradise Cove Homeowner Association president Keith Fleer, pledged to oppose any change in zoning or permitted uses of mobile home parks.
In a telephone call after the meeting, Fleer told The Malibu Times he asked for the pledge because Kissel Company president Steven Dahlberg has threatened to sell the park to someone with resources to bring about a change in the zoning.
The candidates had a variety of responses to comments by Point Dume Mobile Home Park resident Dusty Peak about lack of water pressure during last year’s fires and difficulties with traffic.
Susan Tellem, head of her public relations firm, blames overdevelopment for water and traffic problems.
Noting how the Planning Commission ignored paperwork submitted by county water officials against the La Paz project in the Civic Center and how traffic has increased in the last five years, Tellem said smart growth means planning development as a whole.
“The potential exists for one million square feet of large-scale commercial development in the Civic Center,” Tellem said. “The city has had more than 10 years to develop a specific plan and has not done so. The council approves projects higgly-piggly with no thought to increased traffic or the impossibility of evacuating school children, residents and visitors.”
Sibert, who holds a doctorate in chemistry and helped fight against the county government’s proposed sewer system in the 1980s, noted that most of the city’s water is supplied from a fragile 30-inch water main that has broken 12 times in the past 10 years.
“We encourage people with swimming pools to install extra water tanks and pumps,” the planning commissioner said. “Those should be required on any project.”
Sibert pledged to work with commercial property owners in the Civic Center to jointly build in traffic mitigation as part of their projects.
Wagner, owner of Zuma Jay’s surf shop, proposed having traffic meters on Pacific Coast Highway and working with government agencies to mitigate traffic patterns. Funds from the meters could be used to finance greater enforcement of traffic laws, Wagner said.
Conley Ulich pledged to work closely with the governor’s office and Los Angeles County to get more firefighting equipment. Responding to an audience member’s lament about the lack of a hardware store in the Civic Center area, Conley Ulich said she had requested that the city develop a plan for the area and as a result, she and Councilmember Sharon Barovsky will meet with Civic Center area landowners to establish regulations on development.
Wisnicki, a member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, cited her collaborative skills.
“I have worked collaboratively with elected officials from surrounding municipalities to craft creative and effective solutions for our schools, and I will do the same with all agencies that supply water to the city,” Wisnicki said.
Noting that she has talked to firefighters about their need for equipment, Wisnicki said, “Anything we can do with the county and other agencies in solving Malibu’s problems is crucial.
Future forums, candidate contact information
A second candidate forum, hosted by the Point Dume Community Association, is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. on March 12 at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, 6955 Fernhill Dr.
The Mobile Home Park Rent Stabilization Commission will meet March 13 at 6 p.m. in the large conference room of Malibu City Hall, 23815 Stuart Ranch Rd.
A third candidate forum, hosted by the Malibu Township Council, is scheduled for March 15 at 10 a.m. at Webster Elementary School, 3602 Winter Canyon Rd. A meet and greet will take place the same day from noon-2 p.m. at the Michael Landon Center at Bluffs Park.