Thank you Christi Hogin for last week’s Public Forum article on the Local Coastal Plan. You captured in your piece the essence of what we’ve all been fighting for concerning the LCP: the right to have local control of laws that affect our daily life in Malibu.
We commend the City Council for their courage in fighting for the right of Malibu citizens to vote for their own zoning plan and not have it dictated by a commission that believes it has a right to suspend democracy.
Our organization, Californians for Local Coastal Planning (CLCP), composed of all volunteers, was very involved with others in the referendum drive that gathered over 2,400 signatures in 10 days from people who simply wanted to vote on their own zoning plan.
CLCP also filed an Amicus brief, well written by Dennis Seider, in the LCP case. All we asked for was the right to vote on the LCP and its provisions, many of which we feel are unfair to Malibu.
We have also filed an Amicus brief, well reasoned by Ted Vaill, in the case challenging the unilateral authority of the Coastal Commission. It is our belief that the commission should be more accountable to the people it serves.
That case is still to be decided.
We believe the court was wrong in denying Malibu the right to vote on its LCP. Now the City has to administer a plan it did not write, containing many provisions we believe are unconstitutional. The unfairness is that the city, (and thus its residents) will have to pay the legal fees to defend lawsuits filed by frustrated applicants over questionable LCP provisions about which Malibu citizens had no say.
So as the city is forced to implement the LCP, we believe that slowly but surely the residents of Malibu will discover house by house, permit by permit, lawsuit by lawsuit, why we have been all been fighting so hard.
E. Barry Haldeman
Californians for Local Coastal Planning