Political veteran joins Planning Commission

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Appointed to the commission by Jeff Jennings, Carol Randall has been an advocate for reducing speeding on PCH for many years. She considered running for City Council and says she regrets not doing so.

By Jonathan Friedman/Staff Writer

Newly appointed Planning Commissioner Carol Randall is a 40-year resident with a history of activity in local politics, including chairing Councilmember Jeff Jennings’ 2004 re-election committee. She has also been on the Public Safety Commission since its inception, was a member of the committee that created the Malibu Senior Center and chaired a committee that formed proposals on solving Civic Center Way traffic problems. But Randall’s priority has been reducing the number of speeders on Pacific Coast Highway, an issue that has affected her family.

In October 2002, Randall’s son-in-law, Mark Osborne, was killed when a motorist traveling nearly 20 miles over the 45-mile speed limit swerved to the side of the road and hit Osborne in front of Randall’s home on Pacific Coast Highway near Las Flores Canyon Road. Osborne was in town from Germany with Randall’s daughter, Julie, for the funeral of Randall’s husband, Carl. Losing two loved ones in a week’s span was a terrible tragedy for Randall and her family, but she said community support helped her get through it.

“The Malibu community was very helpful to me,” Randall said. “They just took over Carl’s memorial service. That was just so helpful.”

The memorial service for Carl Randall, who was a longtime community activist, took place at the home of Mayor Sharon Barovsky, then just a councilmember. The next day a service took place for Osborne, put together by an El Segundo Company, Candle Corp., from which Randall had recently retired.

Just two weeks after Osborne’s death, Randall came to a City Council meeting to demand something be done about speeding on Pacific Coast Highway. Since the state operates the highway, the city could only advocate for something to be done, and what it came up with was a proposal to double speeding fines on the highway from Topanga Canyon to Decker Canyon.

Assembly member Fran Pavley sponsored a double-fine bill, called AB 1009. It passed in the Assembly, but the state Senate’s Public Safety Committee refused to approve it. Randall said she hoped to see the bill come back in a slightly altered form, either this month or next month. She said doubling the fine would get people’s attention to slow down in area where many do the opposite.

“People have a tendency when they see a straightaway to just gun it, not realizing they are going through a residential neighborhood,” Randall said.

Even before Osborne’s death, Randall was an advocate for highway speed reduction. She joined a traffic study committee when the city of Malibu was formed in 1991. This eventually became the Public Safety Commission, of which she is still a member.

Randall is a native of Milwaukee. After graduating from high school, she worked as a secretary for 11 years at a brewing company. Then, in 1959, she decided to move to California, settling in Santa Monica.

“I was bored,” Randall said. “I was tired of shoveling snow.”

Randall soon met Carl, and the two were married in 1964. They moved to his Malibu duplex, where Randall still lives today with her son, Carl, and his wife, Shelley. Randall’s daughter, Julie, is a classically trained singer who lives in Berlin. The elder Carl Randall also had a son, Paul, from a previous marriage. He is now a realtor in Malibu, and remains close with the family.

The Randalls were active in the PTA and Little League while their children were growing up in the 1970s. In the 1980s, Carl Randall began work as a staff member for the Malibu Township Council, the organization that represented Malibu on issues prior to incorporation. Carol Randall said she helped her husband with his work, so she became knowledgeable about local issues.

Financial constraints forced the Township Council to cut Carl Randall’s job in the mid 1990s. The Randalls did not involve themselves much with local politics after that until the Local Coastal Program issue came to the forefront.

Since rejoining the political scene, Randall has been a regular at government meetings. Although she pulled papers for the 2004 council run, she did not return them to City Hall to make her candidacy official. Instead, she issued a press release stating that she preferred to concentrate on traffic issues and wanted to avoid what she predicted would be an ugly campaign. Randall said she now somewhat regrets not having run.

“I chaired Jeff’s committee, and I gave all the effort anyway,” she said. “After being involved in it, it’s not as terrifying as I thought it might have been.”

Randall said she is not sure if she will run for council in 2006.

Randall, who has a part time job at a gardening company, said in her spare time she enjoys socializing with family and friends, taking care of her flowers and knitting. She often knits while in the audience during government meetings. But she joked that Jennings, who appointed her to the commission, has already warned her that she can’t do it during planning meetings.