Erosion of beach bill

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    Good news! Democracy still works. It will continue to work as long as local citizens are involved and vocal. Certainly in Malibu, we have been overloaded with controversy on the home front re: coastal plans, school bond elections, the development agreement, parks and court cases. When along came Assembly Bill 947, Sacramento’s simplistic solution answer as to why the sand is disappearing from the beaches. People? No! Storms? No! Urbanism? No! sea urchins? No!

    And the answer, according to Junk Science, is properties built on the beach. Properties are causing the sand to go. And the sea walls built to protect the properties are a barrier to the sand returning..And you know something, they found Junk Scientists to back up this crazy simplistic, one size fits all theory.

    And what did the Junk Science conclude was the answer to these properties built on the beach? Turn back the clock 200 years, back to the way it was. Over time, the sea would take our beach homes, and our highway, PCH. I guess we would have to build a causeway where PCH is just to get around or would that be an obstruction like a house on the beach?

    Can you imagine what would happen if we lose the ability to protect our homes and equity. Think of falling home values, trying to get home loans, refinancing, or insurance and litigation. A real nightmare! The Assembly Bill wasn’t even offering to pay the owners fair value for their homes either. Let the ocean do the job, one by one, of reclaiming the land.

    Sometimes, when everything is going to pieces, good things happen. A small group from San Diego and Laguna calling itself the Coastal Land Coalition began to organize cities up and down the coast. There are a lot of angry cities. In spite of the letters we showered on the initiating committee, they passed AB 947 to the Appropriation Committee for approval. The shower of mail had gathered strength. It was a deluge of letters from citizens, associations, mayors, scientists and engineers. And the Appropriations Committee must have smelled the smoke of financial and legal disaster. They decided to not submit the bill for this session of the legislature. It may come up again in the fall, but by that time there will be more of us in this growing Coastal Land Coalition. It feels good to win, even if only temporarily.

    We are all local people. Maybe someday we can convince the State of California that democracy in the USA depends on local citizens governing local communities. The one size fits all solutions of the state just can’t deal with the uniqueness of each local situation.

    Georgianna McBurney