Arnold, you are or were a lawyer, right? So you should know better than to support, in your “Coming attractions” piece, a bureaucratic demand that Malibu prove it is blameless respecting an alleged, but unproven and unspecified, “sewage problem.” In law school, and the last I heard, it is the accuser, and not the accused, who bears the burden of proof of alleged wrongdoing. So, we, the city of Malibu, are not required, as you maintain, to “prove we’re blameless.” Even your paper has reported that the Regional Water Quality Control Board on the basis of unfounded suspicions of water pollution caused by septic system failures, as did L.A. County before them on the basis of an unsubstantiated “health hazard,” is seeking to ban septic systems and impose sewers on Malibu. If you know of any foundation for the RWQCB action, let us in on it.
The matter is not even controversial, with people of nearly all political stripes opposing banning of septic systems and the forced sewering of Malibu without cause. But you appear to be gleefully looking forward to the forced sewering, and ultimate massive development, of Malibu. With friends like you, our city doesn’t need enemies. We all know, from past history and experience with the county, supported by interested developers and their newspaper friends (that means you, Arnold,) that a sewer system is the essential first step toward realization of dreams for high density development of Malibu.
And we also know that, as sure as night follows day, this dream/nightmare of massive development would be completed by ramming through a freeway or ocean causeway to satisfy demands for rescue from PCH gridlock of tens of thousands of residents who would inhabit a “new and improved” Malibu megalopolis. Should anyone be unaware, what I refer to as developers’ dreams were not so many years ago parts of concrete (pun intended), seriously intended, plans of the county and Caltrans. And now you would have us believe that environmentalists are now elitists, opposing protection of water quality, and that The Malibu Times is now leading the charge to save Malibu by sewering it. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? As the song goes, “Whatever’s old is new again.”
Arthur London