I’ve just finished Jimy Tallal’s article describing our anger over the weekly “car-pocalyspe.” And talk about anger, I’m completely incensed to read LASD Lt. Jim Braden being quoted as saying, “first of all, a driver has to violate the law in order to be ticketed.” Of course that’s true and I wouldn’t want it any other way. But all Braden has to do is sit near my house near the west end of La Costa Beach on any Sunday morning and he can spot dozens if not hundreds of noise violations, let alone speeders, on the PCH “drag strip” that seems to start (to my ears) at Los Flores coming west. And if that’s not enough, lieutenant, please feel free to drop by before the afternoon parking lot heading east in the afternoon—there, you won’t even have to chase them, just wave them to the side and cite away. His comment, besides being condescending, implies they can’t hear these violations, but I assure you we can! I’m screaming here, can you hear me? Of course it’s entirely plausible that the noise has caused a loss of hearing.
Many of our city officials cite elements of both the city’s mission and vision statements involving the preservation of Malibu’s “rural characteristics” and “maintaining the Malibu lifestyle” in campaign slogans and as a basis for various policy decisions. But do our city officials recognize that Sunday morning noise pollution is the number one thing damaging our quality of life? I have several neighbors who say“we just don’t like Malibu in the summer” and mention noise as the first reason, and those who can afford an alternative get out of town entirely. The noise is worse in the summer, of course, but any sunny Sunday will do. I know that safety is important too, and while that subject seems to draw more headline ink, there are a lot more residents affected (albeit not dangerously) by noise than from accidents.
I have mentioned all of this to a sympathetic council member and I’m more than a little pleased that our city manager, presumably the council support is funding extra sheriff’s patrols to address this ‘car-pocalypse’ issue.
Don’t forget the Motorcycles either because they are as bad or worse. I think a bit of accountability is in order. Lt. Braden is quoted as saying “we write dozens of tickets every weekend day”. Is he actually talking about in Malibu? Because I primarily see the auxiliary staffed sheriffs’ white SUV’s doing all the ‘writing’ – of parking citations that is. To this end the city should request, review and publish the citation statistics so we can all see how many actually address noise. We seem to think that’s a good idea as regards the DUI checkpoint statistics, seems like a good fit here as well.
Michael Klein