The City Council met hurriedly at 8 a.m. last Thursday morning to discuss a proposed $15 million bond issue for the June 5, 2001 ballot. The meeting had been called on short notice because the council was up against a deadline. Although the council has not made a final decision on the bond issue, if it was ultimately decided that it wanted to go ahead and get the measure onto the June ballot, the bond had to be introduced first as an ordinance, no later than Feb. 17, or, legally, the council couldn’t put it onto the ballot.
Equally touchy is the law requiring a two-thirds voter approval of the bond issue, which led some insiders to speculate that, if the various factions were split and couldn’t get together on the issue, the bond had little chance of passage. In a poll conducted for the city some time ago, only 58 percent to 59 percent of the electorate polled said they would vote for a $15 million bond issue. This meant the bond campaign would, under the best of circumstances, probably be very tight to get the two-thirds approval.
At the regular Monday night council meeting on Feb. 12, it appeared there was a split as to whether or not an early election date in June was a good or bad idea. More fundamentally, the concern was, if it passed, what was the bond money going to be used for — ballfields, wetlands or something else. It was apparent there were two or even three separate factions with different agendas that wanted the bond issue, but weren’t clear what they wanted the money for. Playing fields, land for a community center, open space and wetlands all had been suggested in earlier discussions.
But, apparently, between the first council meeting and the emergency meeting, the group, or rather, several groups that want the bond issue, had met again. They told the council that, after discussing it, they had come to a consensus that the better plan would be to wait until November. This way they could take their time, meet with all interested groups and see if they can build a community consensus on how much money people would be willing to vote for and how it would be used.
Several on the council looked visibly relieved that they weren’t going to have to make a quick decision, one in which a number of their supporters might have been on different sides of the question.
The two most apparent factions were the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) group, which includes Gil Segal, Steve Uhring, Tami Clark, Patt Healy, and the other group, which includes Laureen Sills, Deirdre Roney, Mona Loo, Georgianna McBurney, Carl and Carol Randall, and a number of others. In the last election, many had backed different candidates, but there didn’t seem to be any rancor in front of the council on Feb. 15, which, for an issue as potentially explosive as this, was highly unusual.
The message that several of the speakers, including Loo, Sills, and Roney, delivered to the council was decidedly upbeat. They said the group had a very frank and fruitful meeting the night before, talked openly about some of their differences and found some common ground. They felt they needed more facts and more time to work together.
The council suggested they remain as an independent group, but that they should also keep their process as open and public as possible and announce their meetings in the newspapers. And then, ultimately, they should come before the council and tell what the group or groups want in the bond issue.
In the interim, which is between now and November, several members of the council indicated there could be no development deal approved because anything that the council agreed on would still have to go through an Environmental Impact Review process. This process couldn’t be completed before November, because, as Interim City Manager Christi Hogin indicated, any EIR has to include summer traffic counts.
Mayor Pro Tem Joan House cautioned that we’re only going to get one shot at this bond issue so we had better get it right.
The new citizens ad hoc bond group, which has not yet chosen a name for itself, has set the next meeting for March 1, 6 p.m. at Serra Retreat, which is the large religious facility at the top of Serra Road.