The Malibu Times endorses for City Council:
Jeff Jennings
Joan House
Ken Kearsley
A. Vote Yes on the ordinance to limit council members to two terms in office
B. Vote Yes on the 10 percent parking fee
C. Vote Yes on spending dollars on beach patrol, emergency preparedness and parks and recreation.
We believe after 10 years it is clearly time for some fundamental changes in our city government. Even the most casual observer can see it isn’t working very well. The reason it isn’t working is Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn.
Look at their record and who is running against them or supporting their opposition.
Two years ago, they said give us one more vote on the council and it will all be all right. The voters did and elected their chosen candidate, Tom Hasse. Within months, they were accusing Hasse of being a traitor, and he finally was pushed out of the coalition and is not only not supporting them for re-election but has spearheaded a ballot proposition to create term limits.
Four years ago they ran with Joan House as part of their team, and again they fell out with her and purged her from their group. They’re now barely speaking to her, and she’s running independently and also supporting Ken Kearsley.
Ken Kearsley was also a slow growth activist four years ago who also was purged and why, because he was too independent a voice on the Planning Commission. He found unpalatable Walt and Carolyn’s strongly held belief that you reward your friends and those who give you dollars and punish anyone who disagrees with you. So he split.
Former mayors Jeff Kramer and John Harlow are both supporting the terms limits proposition.
John Wall was part of their group, and he’s now running independently and trying very hard to make it very clear he’s independent.
Every day, the list grows longer. People who were their supporters who no longer are. You have to ask yourself the question, why? Why are the people who appear to know them best leaving them? The answer is, our city government is dysfunctional because Walt and Carolyn don’t know how to govern, nor how to make decisions, nor how not to poison every decision with politics, nor how to disagree amiably and still keep their friends and supporters.
Now they’re saying give us another four years. Well, they’ve both been around for 10 years, and now they want 14 years to get it finished.
Enough already!
We are very fortunate. We have three very competent people who can do the job. All three are decent, reasonable, intelligent individuals of accomplishment. Jeff Jennings when he was mayor took the lead in getting Kanan-Dume Road fixed and reopened. Joan House has had the courage to try and negotiate a deal to solve some of the city’s most pressing facility needs, for which they have attempted to vilify her, and Ken Kearsley has had the guts as a planning commissioner not to roll over every time a Keller/Van Horn supporter wanted something for which Kearsley likewise has been constantly attacked. These are people of integrity who know how to disagree civilly.
They’re all committed to addressing and solving the real problems of this community, like traffic, lack of ballfields and lack of public amenities like a senior center and a teen facility.
They all live in the real world.
And perhaps most importantly, they all have life beyond sitting on the Malibu City Council, which gives them a real-world perspective, not some imaginary pipe dream world. If you believe that our town can improve, that we can and should stand up responsibly to our needs, then I urge you to vote for Jennings, House and Kearsley on election day, and most of all vote.
The untimely death of Harry Barovsky has created a difficult situation on our council because it still takes three votes to pass anything. If Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn were to be re-elected, the council would most certainly gridlock at two votes to two for the next seven months , until November, when a fifth member is elected. Until then, everything would stop. We can’t let that happen.