City Council expected to ratify agreement Monday, as well as consider an appeal for an alcohol license by the Circle K gas station.
By Knowles Adkisson / Associate Editor
The City of Malibu has secured a long sought-after indemnification agreement with California State Parks, which would shield the city from lawsuits related to the controversial project to dredge and reshape the Malibu Lagoon. The City Council is expected to ratify the agreement at its Monday meeting, as well as hear an appeal by owners of the Circle K gas station after the city Planning Commission rejected their application for an alcohol permit.
The previous City Council was reluctant to take a position either for or against the project, which will dredge the lagoon and reconfigure its western channel with the goal of improving water flow and improving water quality in the lagoon. But city officials raised increasing concerns ahead of April’s municipal elections and the June start date to the project. The most pressing concerns raised by the city related to the portion of the State Parks plan that involves pumping polluted lagoon water out to the ocean via Surfrider Beach.
“This pumping threatens to potentially degrade water quality in and around Surfrider Beach by transporting pollutants directly from the Lagoon,” City Manager Jim Thorsen wrote in a staff report. “The pumping also threatens to disturb the sands along Surfrider Beach, forcing the known pathogens into the waters off the beach.”
In multiple letters to State Parks and the California Coastal Commission in fall 2011 and this spring, Thorsen had expressed fears that the mitigation efforts proposed by State Parks—including treating the lagoon water and disposing of it in the ocean—could be insufficient and create a public health hazard if pathogens present on Surfrider Beach migrated to the ocean. While the lagoon is State Parks property, it is bordered on all sides by City of Malibu property.
In that scenario, the city could have been subjected to “enforcement activities and financial penalties from the State or Regional Water Quality Control Boards, and lawsuits from private citizens” under violations of the federal Clean Water Act, according to the staff report.
On March 30, State Parks responded in writing to Thorsen’s letters and agreed to indemnify the city, but a final agreement was not hammered out until June 26, according to the staff report.
Under the agreement, State Parks agrees to indemnify the city should it incur liability “for any impairment to water quality” that comes from the outlet pipe leading from State Parks’ water purification system to Surfrider Beach.
Council to hear appeal on gas station alcohol permit
The five-year quest by the owners of the Circle K convenience store to secure an alcohol permit continues Monday when the council will hear an appeal on the matter. The city Planning Commission voted 3-1 in November to deny a conditional use permit for the gas station to sell alcohol.
The application appears to face an uphill battle, as city planning staff have recommended upholding the planning commission’s decision because “the Appellant has not submitted any new information or evidence” since the decision, according to the staff report.
The Sarraf family, which owns the gas station, first sought a conditional use permit for alcohol in 2007 when they were building it. But their application was denied by the planning commission after nearby residents circulated a petition opposing the permit, acquiring 300 signatures. Many of those same residents appeared again at the planning commission’s meeting in November, this time with another 100 signatures added to the original petition list.
Residents argued the issuance of the permit would “disrupt the quietude of the neighborhood, poses a serious safety issue due to the unusual configuration of the intersection, and will add to the dangerous combination of the sale of alcohol on the highway at a gas station.”
Development consultant Don Schmitz, representing the Sarraf family, offered to provide a private security detail to reduce vagrancy and loitering as a mitigation measure, and offered to have the conditions of approval reviewed after six months. Schmitz also argued that multiple other businesses in the area sell alcohol and his clients should be able to as well.