I’m appalled by the shortsighted and extremely prejudiced (by her role in their respective election campaigns) opinion expressed by Melanie Goudzwaard that neither councilmember Andy Stern nor Sharon Barovsky is responsible for the manner in which they chose to fire commissioners Adler and Roney.
While they had no role in what happened at the Dec. 1 planning commission meeting, they most certainly are responsible for their reprehensible conduct in response to it. If they believed Adler and Roney deserved to be removed from the commission rather than the clearly negligent assistant city attorney held accountable for his lack of legal guidance, they could have done so quietly without even stating a reason. The issue here is the manner in which Mr. Stern and Ms. Barovsky chose to publicly attack two respected and selfless servants of our community, which speaks strongly of their own characters and extremist agenda.
If Ms. Goudzwaard had bothered to check the facts before speaking out, she would be aware that Ms. Barovsky and Mr. Stern were part of a council chastised by a judge over similar Brown Act violations. This is a clear case of the pot calling the kettle black. The hypocrisy, therefore, clearly lies with Ms. Goudzwaard and her councilmember “friends” whose grandstanding play for self-aggrandizement is clear to the vast majority of voters and will not be forgotten. To suggest that any elected officials be given blind loyalty in the face of inappropriate behavior smacks of a gross ignorance of the basis of our American form of government. We are a Democracy that recalls governors and impeaches presidents, when such action is called for. We question and change laws and officials whose actions do not reflect the will of the majority as well as vote to defeat measures that the majority do not support.
We do not blindly accept anything, as is reasonable in a mature and thoughtful democratic society. Is Ms. Goudzwaard even a U.S. citizen? Blind acceptance of inappropriate behavior is a dangerous and infantile practice she would do well to rise above. Barovsky and Stern were the puppets in this scenario, used to fan the flames of dissent as trigger men for the sore-loser proponents of Measure M, who were clearly in the minority position, as evidenced by its defeat. They were the equivalent of suicide bombers who, not being up for re-election themselves, acted to cause as much damage as they could on their way out. They are a disgrace to our community.
That Ms. Goudzwaard is too shortsighted and narrow-minded to recognize the unnecessarily cruel public manner in which Stern and Barovsky intentionally acted may be a warning to the voters of Malibu to give extra scrutiny to whichever candidates she next espouses for election.
Kate Delaney