The city is likely to file a lawsuit against the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy this week over its plan to enhance three parks in Malibu. A councilmember says the conservancy would probably “make something up” to sue the city.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s attorneys on Monday were instructed to prepare for the defense of a suit by the city of Malibu and a possible countersuit against the city. The SMMC board made these decisions about litigation involving its Malibu parks enhancement plan during a special closed-session meeting on Monday.
With the possibility of massive litigation on the horizon, SMMC Executive Director Joe Edmiston said he hoped the courtroom battles could be avoided.
“We would like to see that compromise happen, if we really are as close as Mayor Ken Kearsley says,” Edmiston said, referring to the mayor’s recent statement that the conservancy and the city are “98 percent in agreement.”
Edmiston said it is a matter of what is included in the disagreement that would determine whether compromise is possible.
“We want camping to be a component of the plan. We have a right to use Ramirez Canyon. If those items are what constitutes the 2 percent [of disagreement], then I don’t know if there are grounds for compromise.”
Last week, the City Council instructed the city attorney to file a suit against the conservancy, citing that the parks enhancement plan was illegal because it did not have what they considered a proper environmental review and the Malibu government had no approval power over it. City Attorney Christi Hogin told The Malibu Times last week that filing the suit could be avoided if the conservancy and city staff reached a compromise before Dec. 20, the last day the SMMC board’s approval of the enhancement plan could be legally challenged. Although meetings are taking place behind closed doors, no official agreement has been finalized, so the filing of the lawsuit is almost guaranteed.
Filing a suit does not necessarily mean negotiations are over. There is the possibility that the city could file, reach a compromise shortly after that, and the suit goes nowhere. Edmiston said the same bodes for a countersuit, which he said might never be filed if solutions can be found outside of the courtroom. As to what would be the basis of a suit against the city, Edmiston declined to comment.
“These are the type of things our attorneys tell us during closed sessions, and are not necessarily the type of things that would be included in a newspaper article,” Edmiston said.
Councilmember Andy Stern had his own theories on what would be behind a conservancy suit: “They’d probably make something up to sue us about. We just want them to conduct their business in accordance with the Malibu LCP and the Coastal Act. I’m not surprised Joe Edmiston is talking about a lawsuit. His organization has certainly had many of them in connection with Malibu, mostly on the losing end.”
The SMMC’s Ramirez Canyon property has been a point of contention since Barbra Streisand donated the property to the conservancy in 1993. Both the city and local homeowners in the area said they were troubled by what they said was the SMMC’s use of the property for various parties and other large gatherings. The city sued and eventually won at the Court of Appeal level, with the court saying the SMMC’s property was subject to Malibu law. Later, the SMMC obtained a coastal development permit for the property without going through the city. That permit was set aside last year by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge after the Ramirez Canyon homeowners sued.
The current parks plan, which only requires California Coastal Commission approval, includes the enhancement of conservancy-owned parks at Ramirez, Escondido and Corral canyons with overnight camping and other amenities. It also calls for connection of the three parks and the parks at Zuma/Trancas and Solstice canyons with a trail system.
City officials have blasted the plan for its lack of an environmental impact report, and claimed it was an attempt to circumvent the Malibu LCP. These issues would be the basis of litigation from the city. Ramirez property owners, who have alluded to a possible suit over the plan, have criticized the proposal for many of the same reasons the city does, and because of the perceived fire risks that come with overnight camping at Ramirez Canyon. The property owners, along with anti-tax groups, have already filed a suit challenging the conservancy’s funding of the plan with clean water bond money it received from Proposition 50.
The conservancy had a recent victory in the Ramirez Canyon saga. Earlier this month, a Simi Valley judge ruled against the local property owners’ request for a judgment prohibiting the conservancy from using its Ramirez Canyon property for its offices, because it is zoned by the city for open space. The judge cited technical reasons for rejecting the suit, but he also wrote in his ruling that having offices on a property did not violate the city’s designation of the property as open space. The property owners’ attorney said the case would be appealed.