I was shocked when I read the vicious attack on Sierra Club attorney Frank Angel in last week’s papers made by Forge Lodge attorney Alan Block, accusing Mr. Angel of having a personal vendetta against Mr. Barossochini and not regularly challenging projects designed by other architects, only Mr. Barossochini. This is extreme character assassination, and I find it hard to believe Mr. Block could even harbor such outrageous thoughts, let alone utter them.
Reading further, I see that our Mayor, apparently eager to throw more fuel on the fire, lamenting the fact that the Sierra Club has sued the city once again, costing the city all this money, which could have been better spent on land use acquisition, schools, etc, and how this case never should have gone to court. Of course, missing the major point-that it was this council’s enthusiastic approval of this blatantly defective on its face EIR that got them into this mess in the first place. They absolutely refused to acknowledge the glaring errors of omission in the EIR (e.g., the gas station’s soil contamination not even mentioned, let alone addressed, the 75-ft deep pylons pounded down into the ESHA to both hold up the road and the “cottages”-neither mention nor addressed), nor even address the planning director’s egregious misquoting of both the General Plan land use designation for CV as well as the IZO’s allowed uses in CV-1, despite all of the evidence and testimony presented. The bottom line is, had the City done the EIR correctly, none of this would have happened. But, they were so eager to get the bed tax, sales tax, whatever, they just glossed over all the deficiencies in this most important document. I hope the Sierra Club does take this up on appeal. The judge was flat out wrong on every issue cited, so this case demands an appeal. As for Mr. Block’s attacks on Mr. Angel, there is no excuse nor justification for such unwarranted vilification of Malibu’s most honorable land use attorney. If it weren’t for Mr. Angel, Malibu would not have Charmlee Nature Preserve, and Soka would be full of students.
Jo Ruggles