Bureaucracies do not learn, Mr. Publisher, they just exert and expand their power in any way that is possible. It does not concern them that they are destructive, immoral or doing illegal things. They were given authority to do their function and they consider themselves the good guys and any who interfere the bad guys. As Mr. Jefferson said, “The tendency is for government to increase and liberty to decrease.” This basic reality is something that the voters of this state and this community need to learn.
The best way to handle a bureaucracy is to not give it life in the first place. When people give their power away to a government bureaucracy, like the Coastal Commission or any number of other alphabet soup government agencies, you should expect this kind of treatment and situation. Protecting the environment and coastline was the good intention and now we are at the end of the road to Hell.
The people might get lucky and the courts will find this bureaucracy unconstitutional and abolish it. We can always hope and as a Libertarian I know that the only way to reform this government program is to get rid of it.
Time to learn, citizens of Malibu, that government is not the solution to your problems, it only increases and worsens the problems. As Mr. Jefferson also said, “That government is best which governs least.”
Charles Black