Malibu Creek begins its 30-mile journey behind Boney Mountain at the headwaters of Triunfo Creek in Ventura County. How many dams does it pass through? Keep reading to find out.
• Malibu’s very first newspaper was the wartime Malibu Bugle, circa 1942, based in Malibu but serving the West Valley and Conejo, in competition with the Santa Monica Outlook.
• We had a city council election in November, the 16th since Malibu voted for cityhood in 1990 and elected its first city council, taking seat on March 28, 1991, at the Malibu Park Junior High Assembly Room (where I went to school). Here is some trivia from our elections:
• 92 different people have run for city council over the years; 25 different people have been seated.
• The vast majority of the 30 years, there have been exactly three men and two women on the council. Currently, it’s different.
• 14 different candidates have gotten the most votes in 16 elections. Joan House (1996, 2000) and Laura Rosenthal (2010, 2014) were tops twice each.
• Jay Wagner and Paul Grisanti both lost in the 1992 election but won much later, Wagner in 2008 and Grisanti last year.
• Larry Wan, Jeff Kramer, John Harlow, Harry Barovsky, Sharon Barovsky, Ken Kearsley, Andy Stern, John Sibert, Laura Rosenthal, Lou La Monte and Skylar Peak never lost an election, as well as all the current members (we’ve had all first-time winners since 2018, except Grisanti).
• Carolyn Van Horn and Rick Mullen are the only ones to be top vote getters and then lose next time around.
• Paula Login, John Mazza and Andy Lyon have the record of running three times and losing each time, though Lyon wasn’t far off in November.
• There are term limits now, but earlier candidates could run early and often. Walt Keller, Carolyn Van Horn and Jeff Jennings were in five elections. Joan House was in six. (Jennings and House each served a record 12 years on the council).
• Seven times, 70 votes or less determined the final winning spot from an also-ran.
• There used to be gas stations along the PCH at the old Roadhouse restaurant location by the old brick courthouse; adjacent to McDonalds, essentially on both sides; at the Malibu Inn; on the triangle at the Malibu Colony entrance; and directly across the street at Legacy Park; as well as the old Beaurivage/Solstice Ranch restaurant; and at the Trancas shopping area where Wells Fargo is now. There was another, three miles up Latigo Canyon, and one on Malibu Road behind current-day Ralphs.
• Malibu Creek runs through five dams: Lake Sherwood, Westlake, Malibou Lake, Century Lake in Malibu Creek State Park and the Adamson Dam in Malibu Canyon. Many other tributaries join the creek along the way.
• The mobile home park at Point Dume was originally planned to have a nine-hole golf course running through the nearby ravines.
• It’s ridiculous that the parks people don’t build a parking lot at the Point Dume Headlands so more than 11 cars can park, when there is demand for easily 30 spots more, allowing more people to enjoy the area. The weeds they are preserving are not that special. The area is good enough for a construction yard; it should be good enough for a parking lot.
• What was the most popular hang-out spot in Malibu during the ‘60s? It was the Malibu Beach Sports Club at the base of the pier where Alice’s Restaurant had a long and popular run later.
• Anyone else walked every bit of Malibu’s 27 miles of beaches—and all 66 miles of the Backbone Trail? (Besides me?)
• There used to be houses along Zuma Beach. There used to be houses along the beach from Coastline to Topanga (and the Ted’s Rancho Restaurant at the Coastline light).
• I still think it was a crime that the city council gave away the bluffs park area, denying local citizens more parks, more sports fields, a public swimming pool and many other amenities. Sheer stupidity.
• What is the longest-running place to eat, with the same name in the same location, in Malibu? Moonshadows, since 1972, an L.A icon. Well, Jack in the Box, also, a little before that.
• Many presidents have traveled through Malibu or visited privately, but only one held a public event here. It was Gerald Ford in September 1975, speaking outdoors at Pepperdine in front of 20, 000, the largest audience in Malibu history. I attended, two weeks into my college career. Mr. Ford had been shot at by a woman two weeks before in San Francisco and would be shot at again two days later in San Francisco by a different woman. Security was tight that day.
Rick Wallace’s Along the PCH columns appeared previously in the Malibu Times intermittently from 1995-2013.