You wake up to the odor of smoke and, after 40 years in Malibu, you definitely know what that means. But without the sound of fire engines racing by, you know that it’s not close—at least not yet. I immediately turned on the TV and saw that this time, it was Ventura County and the City of Ventura that were being hit by the Thomas Fire. With 45,500 acres already burning and 27,000 people being evacuated, this is clearly going to be a big one and—if the commentators were correct—this is going to be a several-day event. It isn’t often that you can see the larger world immediately impact the local world but this was one of those times. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a preeminent institution near Berkeley, Calif., just issued a study, which appeared to confirm that the melting polar ice cap was changing the West Coast’s climate; we can expect droughts and also some wetter years—we’ve had both recently. Bottom line is that our fire risks are increasing. This is not short term, but a long-term trend. Global warming is hitting home with a vengeance.
I stepped outside and the wind was gusting in central Malibu, which means it is probably far worse in the canyons. The Sylmar area was also ablaze in what was called the Creek Fire. If we’re in for a few days of these winds, it’s hard to know who’s next. TV news indicated that the fixed wing aircraft had to be pulled back for a while because of the wind; later, even the helicopters had to be pulled back. All ominous signs.
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The Water Works 29 improvement project for Topanga and Malibu, which has been in the works for years, was supposed to bring additional, larger water pipelines and storage areas. It was being cut back because of cost and also some people’s fears that it might be growth inducing, so the county has stopped pushing hard to fix the water problem. Ironically, this translates to the project taking infinitely longer than first planned.
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Under the heading of “things are not always as simple as they might first appear,” there is a case the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is currently hearing that revolves around the question of whether or not a baker can refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple, if it’s against his religious principals. The critical swing vote appears—as always on these types of cases—to be Justice Kennedy who, in the past, has been very protective of gay rights. But the facts in this case don’t look good for gay rights because Colorado may have overreached on this one. It’s pretty clear you can’t decide not to sell a premade cake to a gay couple or perhaps not rent them a hall because you’re against gay marriage. But to require that someone personally create something like a wedding cake for a gay couple, when it’s against someone’s religious beliefs and when there are other bakers who would only be too happy to make that cake, may be a step too far. This sounds like bad facts to me and I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose Justice Kennedy on this one.
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As some of the more prescient of you might have surmised, I am not a great fan of our current president, Donald Trump. I’m also not a great fan of his former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, who always struck me as a bit of a sleaze, up-for-sale to the highest bidder. Manafort spent many years carrying the water for the then-Ukraine president (who apparently was a Russian puppet), for which work Manafort was paid handsomely. Currently, Manafort is under indictment for a number of crimes and it’s clear that Mueller and company are leaning on him hard to try and turn him. I assume he’s pled not guilty and now has the right to a fair and impartial trial. At least, that’s what the books say. However, that’s not always the way it operates. First, they try to dry up your real estate—they ask for a very high bail, insisting you’re a flight risk. This ties up an asset that might be refinanced to help pay your legal and trial expenses, which could run into the millions. Then, they try and tie up money you might have by claiming it’s ill gotten gains from illegal activity and therefore should be frozen. Once, I had a client who was an alleged drug dealer; he was busted after selling a couple of dime bags, which in those days was a couple of $10 sales (I’m sure the prices have gone up in the intervening 40 plus years or so). A guy from the Treasury Department showed up in the jail and presented a tax bill for $550,000. Even though selling heroin was illegal, the department could tax you on the sale. But they didn’t just calculate the tax on that sale; they calculated that you were making sales every hour of every day over some long period of time and then leveled what was called a jeopardy assessment at the time.
I’m not saying that Manafort is clean, because I have no idea, but understand that the government is trying to block his ability to mount a defense. So when they went in to ask the judge to pull his bail because he was writing an op-ed for the Russians or whomever, my guess is he was trying to make some money to try and pay his mortgage because I’m sure they’ve tied up every dollar he has. These kinds of trials are tough, nasty games and no one comes out that clean. So be a little skeptical of what you hear from either side.
P.S. Apparently, I messed up last week. Gladstones restaurant, which I thought was closed, is actually open for business and is feeding customers as ever. My apologies to Gladstones.