Tentative ruling favors city in Forge Lodge case
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has issued a tentative ruling in favor of the city in the Sierra Club’s lawsuit challenging the City Council’s approval of the Forge Lodge project. The tentative ruling was issued prior to oral arguments being made, which occurred last week. More arguments are expected to be made later this week. A tentative ruling does not necessarily mean the judge will come to that decision for the final ruling.
The Forge Lodge project includes the construction of a 27-unit bed and breakfast complex along the northeast corner of Pacific Coast Highway and Corral Canyon Road. The City Council approved the project in April 2003, but the Sierra Club sued shortly thereafter, citing a variety of environmental concerns.
Silna to appeal election suit ruling
Malibu CAN activist Ozzie Silna is appealing a Los Angeles Superior Court judge’s decision to deny Silna’s motion to collect attorney fees from property rights advocate Wade Major. Major unsuccessfully attempted to get a temporary restraining order that would have prevented Silna from spending more than $100 per candidate during the 2004 City Council election campaign. Silna’s attorney, Abraham M. Rudy, said his client’s reason for continuing with litigation is not about the actual collection of money, but rather to challenge the city’s “mysterious, hidden, subversive ways of dealing with issues.”
“I believe that Ozzie’s and everybody’s civil rights in Malibu have been violated by the manner in which the city has conducted itself during the election, and the manner in which the city has used the election consultant, Xandra Kayden,” said Rudy, who declined to make specifics, but said, “Our challenge of the city and of its agents is far from over.”
During the election campaign, Kayden had several conflicts with Silna, who said she was attempting to defame his character through false accusations that he had acted improperly during the campaign.
Following the judge’s ruling against Silna’s motion for attorney fees, Rudy said he believed the city might be working in collaboration with Major in the litigation, noting that Major had hired a law firm where City Attorney Christi Hogin had once worked. The following week, community activist Lloyd Ahern said he had advised Major to hire the firm, and that the city was not involved. Rudy said Tuesday that whether Ahern did that is irrelevant.
“Lloyd Ahern is not an impartially concerned citizen,” Rudy said. “He is a political foe of ours, standing for everything that Ozzie does not. I personally do not believe that Lloyd Ahern was doing it [advising Major] out of the goodness of his heart and that he had no discussion at all with the city. And that is our fundamental problem here.”
In response to Rudy’s comments, Ahern said, “Rudy is terrified of losing his cash cow, Ozzie Silna, because he knows he has lost this appeal. His Nixonian outburst to the newspaper a couple weeks ago is an example of this. Ozzie’s making a fundamental political mistake. Instead of letting things calm down, his name will be in the newspaper for the next two years because of this appeal. And all of the negative stereotypes will be reinforced of his questionable participation in an election process.”
Judge denies request to throw out suit against city
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge David P. Yaffe has denied Malibu resident Bill Chadwick’s request for the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by music mogul Lou Adler to revoke the building permit for Chadwick’s home. The suit was filed against the city by Adler earlier this year after he unsuccessfully tried to get the Planning Commission to take up the matter, a request that led to a series of events that concluded with the firing of two commissioners and the resignation of another. The trial for the suit will take place in September, meanwhile construction on Chadwick’s home is continuing.
Adler, who lives next to the lot where Chadwick’s home is being built on Carbon Beach, says the plans for Chadwick’s home do not follow the old string line requirement, which prevents the building-out of beachfront homes beyond the line of adjacent homes. That law has since been altered, but would still apply to Chadwick’s home because the permit was granted in August 2001, when the old rule was still in effect. Chadwick’s attorney, Alan Block, and the city say the plans for the home meet the standards of the law.
Block had argued in his client’s request to get Adler’s suit against the city dismissed that if Adler felt Chadwick’s project violated the string line rule, he should have sued the Coastal Commission in 2002, when the government agency approved the home. But Judge Yaffe wrote in his ruling that Block’s argument had no merit because “the issuance of the Coastal Development Permit does not preempt the city’s duty to enforce the more stringent requirements of its building code.”
In December, Adler’s attorney, Edward Burg, had approached the Planning Commission about hearing an appeal of the Chadwick home. Despite the request not having been placed on the agenda, the commission granted it, and voted to hear the appeal at a future meeting. Because the vote took place without the item being on the agenda, then-Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Barovsky and then-Councilmember Andy Stern said the commissioners had violated the Brown Act. Barovsky and Stern further alleged that their appointed planning commissioners, Deirdre Roney and Robert Adler (no relation to Lou Adler), had further violated the Brown Act by discussing the item prior to the meeting, which Roney and Adler denied having occurred.
Later that month, Barovsky and Stern fired Roney and Adler. In response, Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan resigned, accusing Barovsky and Stern of having fired their commissioners because of their public neutrality during last November’s Malibu Bay Co. election. Barovsky and Stern said the accusation was false.
Olympic medallist to speak in Malibu
Anita DeFrantz, 1976 Olympic medallist and current International Olympic Committee vice president, will be the featured speaker for the Malibu Rotary Club at Pepperdine University on July 14. DeFrantz, who received a doctorate in philanthropy from Pepperdine, is the first woman to be elected vice president in the 103-year history of the IOC.
DeFrantz won the bronze medal for rowing in the 1976 Montreal Olympics. She won the silver medal at the World Championships in 1978. Also, DeFrantz was a finalist in the World Championships four times and won six national titles. The IOC awarded her the Bronze Medal of the Olympic Order for her leadership role in fighting the U.S. government-led boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. As a vice president for the Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, DeFrantz organized and managed the Olympic Village at the University of Southern California.
In addition to her role with the IOC, DeFrantz is the president of the Amateur Athletic Foundation, which manages Southern California’s endowment created by the surplus from the 1984 Olympic Games. Since 1993, she has served as a vice president of the Federation Internationale des Societes d’Avirnon, the international rowing federation. DeFrantz was named “One of the 100 Most Powerful People in Sports” nine times by Sporting News and one of “The 100 Most Powerful Women in the World” by The Australian Magazine. DeFrantz is the 16th recipient of the Olympic Torch Award, the highest recognition the United States Olympic Committee bestows.
DeFrantz grew up in Indianapolis, Ind., as did rotary president Bill Wishard, who worked with her Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee, and who invited her to be the featured speaker for The Malibu Rotary Club.
More information can be obtained about the breakfast meeting by contacting Wishard at 457.6848 or email at wnwishard@aol.com
Senior Center event to entertain
Students from the Santa Monica College Emeritus Extension Programs will present a program to the community on July 1. The students are from the art, creative writing, drama and literature and poetry classes.
The event begins with lunch at 12 p.m., followed by the program at 1:30 p.m. If you are unable to go to the lunch, you can still catch the program. Call 456.2489 ext. 357 for further information.
Horse Fair and Swap Meet
Trancas Riders and Ropers’ annual Horse Fair and Swap Meet will take place on July 10 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Malibu Civic Center.
This will mark the 34th year that the event has taken place in Malibu. Proceeds from the event will be used to support the local Malibu equestrian youth.
Individuals coming from as far away as Arizona will be bringing items for sale or trade, ranging from old western to contemporary art, furniture, jewelry, horse gear, clothing and animal paintings. There will also be a raffle, for which Malibu’s top merchants and businesses donated some of their goods and services.
For more information, call Riders and Ropers President Rod Bergen at 456.1037 or 818.591.7963.
U.S. Senate committee approves bill to help Santa Monica Bay
A U.S. Congress bill that would address Santa Monica Bay beach erosion is one step closer to approval. The Water Resources Development Act was recently approved by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and now will go before the full senate for a vote. The bill was already approved by the House of Representatives in a 412 to 8 vote.
Included in the bill is the authorization for the Santa Monica Bay Beach Renourishment Project, which authorizes a study of beach renourishment to address Santa Monica Bay’s beach erosion and periodic storm damage.
PBS looking for California coastal footage
The San Francisco PBS affiliate, KQED, has just begun production of an hour-long documentary that looks at the issues facing California’s coastline, such as development, beach erosion, beach access, seawalls and the history of the coastline. The documentary is tentatively scheduled to air on PBS in October or November.
The documentary makers are looking for home movies from the early 1900s through 1980, shot anywhere along California’s coast, but especially in Pacifica, Solana Beach, Malibu, the Gaviota area, and Fort Bragg/Mendocino. The movies can show people enjoying the beach, surfing or playing in the water, homes along the coast or even scenic shots. The filmmakers are also looking for footage of any protests of coastal development, support of the passage of the Coastal Act or the oil spills that occurred in the late 1960s and early 1970s. If the home movies are on film, they can be transferred. Those wishing to help should contact associate producer Sheraz Sadiq at 415.553.2856 or ssadiq@kqed.org.
In memoriam donation
The family of Malibu resident Edmund DiGiulio, who died June 4, has requested those wishing to make donations in his memory send them to the Institute for Myeloma and Bone Cancer Research. The address is 1875 Century Park East, Suite 300, Los Angeles, 90067.