The City Council candidate says the current council is set in its ways and not open to new ideas.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
Despite being a newcomer to the Malibu political scene, Chamber of Commerce Board member Ed Gillespie says he is confident he will be elected to the City Council in April. In a recent interview with The Malibu Times, the nearly four-year resident spoke positively about what will happen when he is elected rather than if he were elected. And when that happens, Gillespie said, he will bring fresh ideas to the city government.
Gillespie, 58, said he was inspired to run for council because of his desire for a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Station to be built in Malibu. Currently, the city is under the jurisdiction of the Malibu/Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station in Agoura Hills. Sheriff Lee Baca and Lost Hills Capt. Tom Martin have said they favor the construction of a Malibu station, but they say the money for one is currently not available.
“Everybody wants a station here that I’ve talked to,” said Gillespie, who pointed to a faster emergency response team and an increased Sheriff’s presence as reasons for a local station. “It’s just a matter of where the money’s going to come from. I’ll find that money.”
Gillespie said he has talked to several council members about getting county money to build a Sheriff’s station and increased funding for the local school district, but he said his comments were not well received.
“They say we can’t get the money,” Gillespie said. “But that’s not an answer. We need to find the money.”
Although Gillespie specified he respected Mayor Andy Stern and Councilmember Sharon Barovsky, his incumbent opponents in this year’s council race, he said the current council, which is unanimously in agreement on most issues, has become stale and set in its ways. Because of this, Gillespie said, the members are not open to fresh ideas and looking at issues from a different perspective.
“They [the council members] pretty much have an idea of how things work and how they will continue to work, and there is going to be no change,” Gillespie said. “When I get in there, at least there will be one vote for when a new idea comes up.”
Some of the ideas Gillespie has are to underground all the utility wires in the city and to create a height ordinance limiting the size of trees in Malibu that he said are blocking people’s views. Also, Gillespie said he wants to work closely with the state on solving the problem of speeding on Pacific Coast Highway.
Gillespie calls himself a “middle of the road” candidate and said he supports a slow-growth approach toward development. He was not a registered voter in Malibu during the 2003 Malibu Bay Co. Development Agreement election, but said he would have voted against the failed measure.
“I think it was going to create too much development,” Gillespie said. “I don’t want to see Malibu lose its charm.”
As for the current plan for the city to purchase the Chili Cook-Off site for $25 million, Gillespie said the council members had their hearts in the right place, but they could have done a better job with the situation. The city acquired several grants for the purchase, but lost nearly all of them, $8 million worth, due to a conflict with the state over the appraisal of the property. The city will instead accumulate the money for the property acquisition mostly through a debt-financing plan in which the city will have to pay $18 million over a multiyear period in which it will use the rent money it receives from the tenants using the three structures on the site. Originally, Malibu was only going to acquire $8.5 million in debt through the selling of certificates of participation, which are similar to bonds.
“The city should have been on top of that and jumped through whatever hoops the state was asking for to get the grant money,” Gillespie said. “Putting the city in debt in the tune of another $10 million more than it was going to be might come back to haunt the city.”
Although Gillespie has not been involved in politics in Malibu, he has served on the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors since 2002. That year, he and his wife, Laura, bought a home in Malibu, where he operates his yacht sales business, Malibu Yachts.
From 2002 to 2003, the Gillespies lived in their Malibu home and at one in Beverly Hills. They became full-time Malibu residents in 2003, but Ed Gillespie did not register to vote in the city until this year.
Gillespie, who was born in Iowa and raised in England and Arizona, has been involved in business since he graduated from Arizona State University. After college, he got a job with a restaurant chain called Straw Hat Pizza in California, and helped to expand the chain throughout the country. He later lived several years on a boat in Hawaii and Marina del Rey, and eventually started his yacht business in 1989.
Gillespie met his wife in 1990 and the two were married in 2002. Laura Gillespie is an accountant.
The couple enjoys snow skiing, ballroom dancing and supporting various charities. Ed Gillespie said he is taking piano lessons, while his wife is a music enthusiast who was a founding member of the California Philharmonic Orchestra.
Gillespie added that he loves boats too, although he doesn’t currently own one.