They’re clearing the burned out lots now, which, I suspect, is the reason you see those big double dump trucks on the highways. A lot of that debris is headed for the landfills or special hazardous waste dumps. For many, it was a tough decision. If you went with the state program for debris removal, your home’s foundation was probably going to be torn out, but if debris removal cost more than expected, the state picked up the overage cost. If you did it privately, you might be on the hook if it was more expensive than you thought it would be. Neither solution was perfect and it made people very crazy for a while.
Now, people wanting to rebuild are going ahead with architects and plans, but the big uncertainty for many of them is the LA County Fire Department. The department wants 20-foot driveways, a big space to turn around big engines and a water flow of 1,250 gallons per minute for two hours. The problem is most people, particularly those in older burned-out homes, can’t even come close to meeting those standards. The fire chief said the department is going to be reasonable, but no one is sure what that means. Will a pool or water tank be enough? How about a pump that connects into the water system? Can you get an answer in advance or do you have to go ahead and spend a lot of money before you can get an answer? No one knows for sure. Even if the homeowner can put everything in that the fire department wants, does Waterworks District 29 have the capacity to give us the water the Fire Department wants? Suppose they can’t?
There is a plan—a County of Los Angeles plan—to update the Topanga / Malibu water system over a bunch of years at a total cost of $250 million, which is a lot of money. But when you consider that the actual cost of Woolsey Fire is probably close to $2 billion, the $250 million doesn’t seem like that much. The plan died originally because some people feared it would lead to overbuilding in the mountains. Well, we lost 1,600 or so homes in the Woolsey Fire, including 700-plus in greater Malibu, and it could happen again if we don’t increase our water supply as well as put in more water tanks and bigger pipelines to carry that additional water. This rebuild is going to be a test of our political leadership, of our city council and, even more importantly, the County Board of Supervisors and particularly Sheila Kuehl, our supervisor. If she puts her political muscle behind the rebuild, then it will happen. If she doesn’t, it will limp along forever and take years.
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In a recent unanimous and, I believe, very significant United States Supreme Court decision written by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the current high priestess of liberalism, the court said state and local governments cannot forfeit properties at will or with very spurious rationales, or impose excessive fines. Many of those states and localities have turned property forfeitures and excessive fines into a local cottage industry and the Supreme Court finally said enough. The reason is that the U.S. Constitution says you can’t, and that now that applies to state and local governments as well. Here is the Malibu impact: A year or so ago, the California Coastal Commission levied a $4.2 million fine against a Malibu beach homeowner for not opening up a beach access. I think those days are over. Some have said to me the Supreme Court decision doesn’t apply because that $4.2 million was just a civil penalty. I believe whether you call it a penalty, a fine, an in-lieu extraction, a general screwing or a petunia, it doesn’t matter. They can no longer just pick out a feel good number, try to teach someone a lesson for talking back to government or try and finance their operations with forfeitures and excessive fines.
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The U.S. Navy cruiser Lake Champlain, named after a naval victory on the lake during the War of 1812, spent the weekend in Malibu, anchored off the Malibu Pier. This cruiser is filled with the latest electronics and state-of-the-art missiles and defensive weapons, but the basic ship doesn’t look very different from the cruisers that were in service when I reported to the Navy 60 years ago—except for one thing. The makeup of the crew is entirely different. I was at a cocktail party for the captain, officers and some of the crew members at the home of John and Anne Payne. The captain of the Lake Champlain is a woman by the name of Jen Ellinger, a Naval Academy graduate married to a Marine and mother to two children. The senior enlisted person on board, a Navy chief, is also a woman. Overall, 18 percent of the crew is female as compared to the 1960s, when zero percent of the crew was female. If I could tell my old chief back in 1960 that women in the future would also be chief petty officers and serving on board ship, he would have thought I lost my marbles. Sometimes, it feels like it takes forever, but things really do change and change for the better.