My father told me when I was very young that a camel is a horse designed by a committee. I was quite a bit older when I learned that this wisdom did not originate with Dad. Proposition M was designed by a series of committees, a process that in the 1950s brought us the Edsel.
Proposition M came about by negotiation between one of the world’s most successful businesspersons, Jerrold Perenchio of the Malibu Bay Company, represented by the type of legal, public relations and lobbying talent that wealth can employ. We, the citizens of Malibu, were represented by Joan House and Tom Hasse. Ms. House is a nice lady. She served in the Peace Corps. Mr. Hasse was unable or unwilling to pay his parking tickets. This negotiating team, on our behalf, produced the first version of the development deal with the Malibu Bay Company.
Our Planning Commission unanimously rejected the deal with at least one of the commissioners suggesting that the city retain the same type of high powered professional help that assisted Mr. Perenchio.
My father also told me that haste makes waste – also not original, I have learned. The entire City Council, rejecting the considered suggestions of their own Planning Commission, quickly re-wrote the deal, again to the detriment of the citizens of Malibu. For reasons that make no sense unless you believe that the council members facing election next spring wish to avoid running at the same time that the proposition is on the ballot, the council rushed (at the last minute) Measure M to the November ballot.
The planning commissioners are appointed by the council. Each commissioner serves at the pleasure of the councilperson appointing her or him. The Planning Commission rejected the “new and improved” deal as being inadequate for Malibu.
Our council, having hastily designed a camel, or worse, an Edsel, is now lobbying us on behalf of a deal that benefits not us, but a company represented by the finest negotiators money can buy. The outcome is predictable. Malibu will not win. Malibu can win, if we send our representatives back to the negotiating table assisted by professionals with our best interests at heart. Until that happens we must vote “no” on M or be faced with riding a camel in the Kentucky Derby.
Bill Sampson