Around the State (formerly known as Around the Town)We’ve got an unofficial moratorium in Malibu.

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    From the Publisher/Arnold G. York

    A local Los Angeles Superior Court judge in West Los Angeles slammed the door shut last week and the City of Malibu is now officially blocked from issuing coastal permits to people who want to build in the city. Since the California Coastal Commission continues to insist it has no power to issue coastal permits in the city, if you need a coastal permit to do something there is no place you can get one until the Court of Appeals finally hears the case about the legality of the voter referendum on the Local Coastal Plan (LCP).

    The judge said Malibu citizens have no right to have the LCP on the ballot, and, as long as the city is appealing his decision, it can’t issue coastal permits. Unfortunately, it could take a year, or a year-and-a-half, to get a Court of Appeals decision. So, in effect, local government in Malibu has come to a halt, at least as far as most land use is concerned. Now we have a judicially imposed moratorium, which highlights the general stupidity of letting the legal system try and work out complicated, political questions on a case-by-case basis. It’s guaranteed it will almost be invariably worked out in the most narrow, parochial and typical stupid fashion, all the while those involved insisting the law ties their hands.

    The state’ turn is next

    By now, even the oblivious are beginning to notice we don’t yet have a state budget, and the prospects for getting one in the immediate future seem to grow slimmer daily. The basic problem is it takes a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to get a budget passed. The Democrats, who control the Legislature don’t have quite enough votes to do it without getting five or six Republican votes, and the Republicans are not budging.

    The Republicans can do this because, in the main, the Republican moderates are gone from the Legislature and the party leaders have threatened to purge anyone who breaks ranks, which in a highly partisan time like this is not just an idle threat. Fran Pavley, our Assemblymember, has an op-ed piece in this week’s issue that basically states the Democratic Party’s position, which is simply-it’s the Republican Party’s fault.

    The Republican’s position is simply that the Democratic Legislature will always spend whatever it has, plus 20 percent.

    There is some truth in both positions.

    Behind all the posturing is the reality that we have overspent in the last few years. No one anticipated the total and rapid collapse of the Silicon Valley/dot.com economy and the state wasn’t any smarter than the rest of us. That’s the reason you’re all still holding so much crappy high-tech stock and why the state is $38 billion in the red. Normally, in a situation like this, the governor pulls everyone together in one room, bangs heads, screams, threatens, cajoles, bribes, pleads and begs, and does anything necessary to fix the situation. That, unfortunately, can’t happen in California. We have a governor who every one seems to hate, totally distrusts, and most are not the least bit inclined to talk to him. And, by the way, that’s the Democrats I’m talking about.

    Unless they can strike a deal quickly, state bills are not going to be paid, which means state employees will be laid off, nursing homes will be shut down and little old ladies will be kicked out into the street, people will be let out of jail, and a variety of other very drastic things that make for very bad television will take place.

    This state could quickly turn into a lynch mob out for everyone’s blood.

    The legislators will ultimately make a deal in Sacramento because they all have to make a deal. The recall may slow the deal down, but it can’t stop it. And, if worse comes to worse, they will go to court and some judge will make the deal for them, which, judging from the Malibu experience, is the worst of all possible alternatives. So hopefully, once they’re all through strutting and posing, they’ll make the deal-otherwise they could seriously plunge this state into a recession, or worse.