The City Council candidate says the incumbents are resistant to creating a Specific Plan for the Civic Center because of their pro-development stance.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
For those who pay attention to local government, John Mazza’s face is as familiar as those of any member of the City Council or the Planning Commission. The Point Dume resident has rarely missed a meeting of those two government bodies during the past several years. Often he attends to speak in opposition to what they are doing.
“I point out flaws in the approval process, which are due somewhat to the inexperience of the planning staff” said Mazza, who stressed that he has only once appealed a project approval.
Mazza is making his second run for a seat on the City Council. He finished in last place in the 2004 election, but that year his name did not appear on the ballot because he entered the race too late.
“I have been told by several people involved in campaigns that for a write-in candidate to receive 1,200 votes is impressive,” Mazza said. “I think I did very well in that election against the odds.”
Mazza said he is running for council because he wants the local government to be more responsive to the people, something he said the incumbents have forgotten to do. One of his big issues is making the planning process smoother.
“The time it takes to go through the system [to get a permit] is very long,” Mazza said. “And that has to do with staff turnover and having to use outside contractors to do the plan checks. Everything falls apart when there’s a new guy every 10 minutes doing the planning.”
Malibu has had four planning managers/directors and two interim planning heads since 2002. Numerous city planners have come and gone, with many only staying for a few months. Mazza said a major reason for that is that the planning staff was weakened in 2003 when the Planning Department became a division of the Environmental and Community Development Department. He said that means the planning manager is not in charge and is unable to be a strong leader who can motivate the staff members to stay.
“We need to upgrade the Planning Department to where it belongs,” Mazza said. “And then the council needs to encourage the planning director to actually plan rather than just approve individual projects.”
Mazza said an important step would be the creation of a Specific Plan for the Civic Center, something that is required by the city’s General Plan but has never been accomplished because of the inability of community activists to agree on what should be included in it.
“The general idea that we need to plan our future has to be brought back to the city,” Mazza said. “We can’t just be reactive rather than proactive. Unless you have a Specific Plan for the Civic Center, you’re going to have traffic problems, pedestrian problems. You need to plan how the town will stay cohesive.”
Mazza said the current council has been resistant to creating a master plan for the Civic Center because of its pro-development stance and distaste for planning in general.
“Their philosophy is that the developers have a right to develop without the interference of a comprehensive plan,” Mazza said.
Another thing Mazza said the city needs is a grants coordinator “who knows Sacramento.” He said Barbara Cameron, who currently has the job, is an amateur and was partly responsible for the city’s loss of $8 million in grant money for the Chili Cook-Off site acquisition.
Mazza said the city in general has been “terrible” in its attempt to acquire the Chili Cook-Off site. He said it began in 2003 with Measure M, the voter-rejected proposal that the council members promised would lead to the acquisition of the Chili Cook-Off site but Mazza said “essentially gave massive development rights to the [Malibu] Bay Co.”
Malibu Bay then proposed to sell the site to the city in the fall of 2004 if it could come up with the money by the end of 2005. The offer was finalized in the beginning of 2005, but Mazza said Malibu did nothing to start the fundraising process then.
In the fall, the city acquired several grant guarantees from various state agencies but lost $8 million worth of them soon after because of a conflict with the state over the appraisal process. The Chili Cook-Off site is currently in escrow, with the city footing most of the bill through debt financing.
“They’re [the council] spinning it that this is the better way to do it,” Mazza said. “If that’s true, then why wasn’t it their first plan. Who takes their worst financing method first and then tries the better one second? That’s ridiculous.”
Some other issues Mazza said he sees as important to the community include the protection of the city’s trails, the building of safe walkways in high-traffic areas (although he does not support the Safe Routes to Schools project as it currently stands) and a consistent city support for the school district.
“We need a definite plan for funding the schools,” Mazza said. “Our city council has tried to play games with the funding and they don’t work. You need to be straightforward and support the schools.”
Mazza was born in Trona, a small California town near Death Valley. When he was 10, his family moved to Whittier. He spent most of the year there and the summers in Laguna Beach. Mazza said he became a surfer after that. Although he no longer surfs, he is an avid collector of surfing memorabilia and is in the process of starting up a surfing museum that will be located on the Malibu Pier.
Mazza attended Claremont McKenna College, where he graduated with a degree in economics. He then got an MBA from USC. After that, he took a job with William O’Neil & Co., an investment research and brokerage firm, where he remained for 15 years. In 1984, he helped the company launch Investor’s Business Daily, a national investment research publication. Mazza later started his own brokerage firm, Drake Holding, where he still works today in his Malibu office.
Mazza is the president of the Malibu Riviera I Homeowners Association. He is also on the board of directors for the Point Dume Community Services District and the Point Dume Community Association.
A resident of Malibu since 1972, Mazza married his wife, Robby, in 1990. They are animal lovers and own three dogs.