A planning commissioner fired last year over allegedly violating the Brown
Act hired attorneys who have come up with a different legal opinion than the
city attorney.
By Jonathan Friedman/Assistant Editor
Malibu’s city attorney said her opinion was not changed by a document that clears two former planning
commissioners of violating the state’s open meeting law last year.
Fired Commissioner Robert Adler had hired Amrit S. Kulkarni and Sky Woodruff of the municipal law
firm Meyers Nave to look into the matter that led to Adler and former Commissioner Deirdre Roney’s
dismissal from the Planning Commission. Kulkarni and Woodruff wrote a legal opinion stating that Adler
and Roney did not violate the Brown Act.
City Attorney Christi Hogin said the document does not contain correct information about the Brown
Act, the law that addresses open meeting laws for government bodies in California. Adler said he did not
trust Hogin’s opinion on that law.
In December 2003, during the public comment portion of the planning meeting, music producer Lou
Adler (no relation to Robert Adler) asked the commission to hear an appeal at a future meeting of the
building permit for the property next to his, owned by Bill Chadwick. The public comment period allows a
person to speak on any matter not on the agenda for three minutes. The commission discussed the item for
about 20 minutes and eventually voted to hear the appeal on a future agenda. Several days later, Hogin
publicly accused the commission of having violated the Brown Act by discussing an item not on the
agenda. Later that month, Mayor Sharon Barovsky (at the time the mayor pro tem) and Mayor Pro Tem
Andy Stern (at the time a councilmember) fired their respective appointed commissioners, Roney and Adler.
Commissioner Richard Carrigan (who did not attend the original meeting) resigned in protest.
Robert Adler’s attorney, Kulkarni, stated in a document that was written in April and recently surfaced
in the local media that with the commissioners limiting discussion of the item to clarification questions to
city staff and by requesting for it to be placed on a future agenda, the commission did not violate the Brown
Act. He wrote that had the commission done something such as revoking the permit at that time, then it
would have been a violation.
Hogin said Kulkarni misinterpreted the law. She said the commission’s discussion was extensive and
outside the scope of just clarification questions for city staff. This, Hogin said, was significant because
community activists would probably want to have a say in whether a meeting to hear the appeal was even
allowed, since the permit was more than two years old. Therefore, Hogin said, a discussion on whether an
appeal could be heard should be agendized, so that people who might be interested in the issue would have
the opportunity to find out about the meeting.
In response to Hogin’s comments, Adler said in a telephone interview, “I would not accept Christi
Hogin’s interpretation of the Brown Act … She disagrees with anybody who doesn’t hold her opinion,
which has resulted in millions of dollars of litigation in this city over the years.”
When Barovsky and Stern fired the commissioners, they said their reasoning also dealt with Adler and
Roney allegedly speaking to the parties involved in the matter prior to the meeting and not disclosing that.
Kulkarni wrote that even if that did occur, it was not a violation of the Brown Act and therefore not relevant
to his memo. Hogin said it was true that any pre-meeting communication was not a violation of the Brown
Act, but did violate Chadwick’s constitutional rights for due process.
Barovsky accused Roney last year of discussing the issue with Lou Adler and recommending his
hiring of former Malibu Planning Director Drew Purvis as a consultant. Barovsky said she was further
disturbed that Roney did not disclose this. Barovsky restated her opinion in an e-mail to The Malibu
Times, discussing how the Lou Adler/Chadwick dispute eventually became a lawsuit and later an item
before the City Council.
“Many people feel friends of friends got a special hearing because communication between
participants was never disclosed, and the resulting litigation costs to the city have been substantial,”
Barovsky wrote
In response, Robert Adler said that Barovsky should be disturbed that Stern did not mention at the
meeting when the Adler/Chadwick item came before the council on Nov. 22 that Chadwick’s architect,
Lester Tobias, was also once his architect and that they are friends. Furthermore, Adler said Stern also
should have mentioned that he is a Realtor, and may have an interest in seeing Chadwick’s permit not being
revoked.
“If Barovsky wants to talk about adhering to the law, why doesn’t she look at Andy Stern, who didn’t
disclose that he is good friends with architect Lester Tobias, who was also his architect,” Adler said.
Stern said Tobias had contacted him prior to the meeting, but he declined to discuss the matter with
him, because he does not communicate about items outside of the council meeting. Stern added that he does
not socialize with Tobias, nor had Tobias been to his home since it was built several years ago.