I wish everyone could have seen the City Council meeting Monday night. In the most offensive way possible, they addressed the appeal by the environmental groups who challenged the Legacy Park EIR as woefully inadequate.
Sharon Barovsky and Andy Stern, with John Sibert in tow, presented a well orchestrated dog and pony show, calling in all their usual suspects to support their decision to go ahead with a cockamamie plan that was presented, in about 45 minutes, by so-called experts. Of course the presentation preceded the appeal so that they could sell the public first with all their contrived answers. One big problem was that the enviros had the good science but Stern gave them a short hand, allotting only 15 minutes to respond.
Barovsky, Stern and Sibert obviously didn’t care to hear a reasonable argument. They had already made up their minds. “Why would you not want the park” was the same scripted question to the surfers. You have to ask, why would the surfing community oppose the project plans now? Could they possibly be happy surfing in polluted water? Would you allow imperfections in a plan when the public’s health and safety are at risk?
It became abundantly clear that these members of the City Council don’t care about surfers and act as though the issue of cleaning up Surfrider is an inconvenience.
Their development plan for their Beverlybu Shopping Center is their main concern, not cleaning up pollution. Barovsky and Stern say they want to reduce development yet they twice promoted the Malibu Bay Co. Development Deal that we voted down. They made a deal for $25 million that once (1999) could have been had at $14 million. Then they take credit for the land acquisition as though it was their idea. The Coastal Conservancy offered $8 million to retire the lumberyard property but Barovsky and Stern turned it down for “local control.” Seems like local control means more development.
The traffic invited into a sensitive habitat area causes pollution. We must reduce development in this area. Don’t bother telling that to Barovsky and Stern, because while they tell you that they want to reduce development, it is quite clear by their voting record that they have, time and time again, voted in favor of more development.
Welcome to Beverlybu in the heart of what used to be called an environmental community.
Bob Purvey