Although those at a recent emergency council meeting on Feb. 15 said they thought they could work together on a bond issue, the process of trying to mold together a group with sometimes conflicting agendas almost immediately ran into a serious hurdle. A couple of members of the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) went to a meeting in Long Beach and asked for grant money for a wetland in the Civic Center, causing some friction.
“I’m flabbergasted, ” said Mayor Tom Hasse, referring to two seemingly contradictory positions taken by the MCLC on the same day.
In Malibu, Gil Segal, Steve Uhring and others from the MCLC went before the council on Thursday morning indicating they could work with the ball parks/community center people on the proposed $15 million bond issue. They also said that delaying the bond ballot initiative until November was alright with them because they agreed they need time to build public support and to come to a consensus and fine tune the bond issue. Most everyone left the council meeting happy, thinking maybe both sides, the open space/wetlands people and the ball parks/community center people, could get together about what the bond money would be used for — meaning that there was probably some consensus on the use of the Civic Center area.
However, at about the same time as the council meeting, Ozzie Silna and Dan Gottlieb, both major movers and shakers in the MCLC, were down in Long Beach before the Southern California Wetlands Recovery Project. They were putting in an application asking for money to purchase two parcels of land for a potential wetland in the Civic Center area. One 16.2 acre parcel is owned by Wave Property Inc., of Pepperdine University, and the other 16.8 acre parcel is known as the Tosh Yamaguchi properties.
When interviewed, Silna said he didn’t see it at all the way the mayor saw it. He told The Malibu Times there was no conflict because it was pretty much understood by all the Civic Center was not the appropriate place for ball fields. He added that the MCLC had been applying for wetland grants for a couple of years now, and the big hang up had always been that there were apparently no willing sellers, which is a typical grant requirement. Once the mayor had announced there might be some willing sellers, said Silna, the Southern California Wetland Restoration Project called and suggested they get down to the meeting and get in an application for grant money so they could hold a place in line, if the money became available. Silna said: “I see no conflict. If we get more outside money it frees other money for ball fields.”
The problem is, in applying for the dollars, they must put a lead agency onto the application. The MCLC listed the City of Malibu (potentially) as that lead agency and also listed as among the supporting agencies and groups the California State Parks and others. To date, neither the city nor the state have specifically endorsed either the Pepperdine property or the Yamaguchi property for a wetlands.
” If they (MCLC) want to work together they have to get the permission of the city if they’re going to speak for the city,” said Hasse
The documents the MCLC submitted to the Wetlands Recovery Project said:
” … if we don’t act now this restoration, recreation, and water cleansing site will be covered by impending commercial development, and we will have lost these critical options forever…” To some observers it would appear to indicate that their goal is still just a wetland in the central Malibu Civic Center area.
However, in a fax we received from Gottlieb, he described their application as nothing more than a placeholder suggestion to the Southern California Wetland Recovery Project. In his fax, Gottleib said, “A placeholder suggestion is only a suggestion to start looking into a project (pending appraisals, agency and municipality buy-in and ‘gazillions’ of other items and clearances.) It’s a positive way to put a project on the radar screen — that’s all … At absolutely no time did I represent the city. In point of fact, I went on the record stating that I’m not representing the city …”