The Malibu Dog Park Association attended a workshop of the Parks and Recreation Department for the proposed Trancas Park site on May 2. There have been over 700 local voters who have signed petitions requesting a dog park in Malibu. Plans for a dog park have been presented to the Parks and Recreation Department.
This dog park will be financially supported by the dog owners and therefore the City of Malibu can proceed on this matter with dispatch. Please contact the City Council members and impress on them the importance of getting the dog park completed as soon as possible.
Susan and Al Navarro
Eleanor and Ron Lawrence
Maintenance inaccessible
I read with amusement about the effort to open more public access in Malibu. My husband and I live next to a public access on Malibu Road. We love it. We love to share what we enjoy every day with people from all over the area. It is really fun for us to watch families with little kids squeal in the water, old folks exercising in the sun, students settle into the sand to dig into their big huge books, and fishermen work the waves.
What confuses me is how on earth the county thinks it is going to maintain more accesses when it cannot adequately maintain what is already open. Don’t get me wrong, the guys show up dutifully and do this sweet dance every sun-up and sun-down to unlock and lock the gate and empty the trash can. They are very friendly and polite, and we always wave at each other.
But everyone knows that the gates don’t lock. All you have to do is stick your hand through the gate and twist the knob from the other side, for it to be and stay completely unlocked. I saw a group of fishermen do this last Friday evening. They fished until around the time our company left, like about midnight. And even though they don’t hurt anything, they leave all their trash on the beach, such as Styrofoam cups and plastic water bottles and sometimes dirty baby diapers and tampon tubes. The county has never once, in the two years since we bought this home, cleaned the debris off the sand, even if we place numerous phone calls to them about it. Either the water takes the garbage out, or my darling husband can’t stand the sight of it anymore, and he either hires someone or he cleans the beach himself. (Can you see David Geffen getting involved in this nonsense?)
This is just the start of summer, so we’ve only had late night fishermen for the past few weekends. During the summer, some weekends they sleep all night under the house and spend a few days. We do not provide toilets.
Thank goodness, so far they have been the harmless types. I would hate to have to get involved with the sheriffs, and if the unfriendly types show up, I would worry about retribution taken out on us and our property. Which is why we hesitate to involve the sheriffs in the first place.
Anyway, this b.s. about opening more accesses is absurd. The county can’t even get a lock that works and clean the rubbish off the beach. And it is not like we haven’t complained to anyone who would listen about the locks. The county has been out here a few times to look at them. They are aware that the locks do not work, but told me it is too complicated to make the change.
So, here’s to another summer and more accesses that cannot possibly be maintained under the current program. A bad combination.
Shelley Schuster
Coastal seen as savior
In 1976 the California Legislature passed the California Coastal Act to preserve and protect the natural resources that lie within California’s coastal zone. In recent months developers have successfully used Malibu’s attack on the Coastal Commission as a launch pad to undermine the Coastal Commission’s mandate to enforce the provisions of the Coastal Act. Instead of saving Malibu, our attack on the Coastal Commission may result in a situation where we help to deliver the entire coast along with the natural resources we all cherish to the development community.
Typically, cities write their own Local Coastal Plan (LCP) that is then reviewed and certified by the Coastal Commission. Once the LCP is completed the City takes over and incorporates the guidelines contained in the LCP in its normal administrative activities.
For numerous reasons, some of which we still do not fully understand, the City did not complete their LCP on a timely basis, and in September 2000 the State Legislature unanimously passed AB988 requiring that the Coastal Commission write the LCP for Malibu. Malibu has funded an aggressive lobbying and PR attack (two city lobbyists, a contract with LSA Associates and frequent trips to Sacramento) on the Coastal Commission’s LCP, when in fact the Commission is simply doing the bidding of the State Legislature.
The developers and lobbyists have expanded this attack, alleging that the Coastal Commission is attempting to assert dictatorial control over the entire State Coastal Area. In Sacramento, in Malibu and in other coastal cities they have launched a merciless misinformation campaign against the Coastal Commission in hopes of destroying the Commission’s ability to enforce the Coastal Act.
If you have a problem with the Coastal Commission’s LCP, talk to your elected officials and find out why they did not get their LCP done on time. Or, you can call your legislators and find out why they voted unanimously to have the Coastal Commission write the LCP. We should not allow Malibu to be used as a pawn in a program to dismember the 1976 Coastal Act.
Steve Uhring
City must control land-use
With the Malibu City Council election barely over, the City is now contemplating a severe shift in its subdivision ordinance, which has the ability to change the character and beauty of Malibu forever. On the evening of Monday, May 13, citizens who care about whether or not Malibu becomes overdeveloped are advised to attend the City Council hearing at which this topic is scheduled to be addressed.
Two areas of grave concern include lot line adjustments and certificates of compliance, seemingly obscure land-use terms that are the beginnings to opening up development on currently unbuildable parcels of land and making them buildable. This translates to more development, more traffic, overcrowding in schools and other impacts that accompany unbridled growth.
What is the City Council being asked to do? Abdicate their own authority over these issues and allow staff the final and supreme authority over giving old, antiquated, unbuildable lots the reconfigurations they need to turn themselves into speculative profits for outoftown real estate speculators.
Under the current proposal, neither the City Council nor the Planning Commission would be allowed to hear appeals on these issues, as municipal bodies like these do in countless cities and counties throughout the state. The staff would decide, as they say they have always done since we’ve been a city. If this is true, then the City has not been following standard procedures for lot line adjustments or certificates of compliance, and no wonder we see new mansions cropping up on every hillside each week.
The current subdivision ordinance has a public review process, through the Environmental Review Board’s oversight of these decisions, which will be officially eliminated in the new ordinance. The community’s voice is essentially eliminated in this process, with no appeal possibility and no review by elected officials. While in recent months the city has chosen not to convene the Environmental Review Board, all candidates in the recent election publicly stated their unwavering support for the Environmental Review Board being an active oversight body for development issues in Malibu.
Brian Sweeney, who has been a master of using these subdivision tools to make himself gobs of speculative money from public agencies, has been buying up more and more land in the Santa Monica Mountains and now even in Malibu. His scheme is to use these tools to increase the possibility for entitlements to build and then try to force agencies who do not want such lands to be built on to buy the land from him. His scheme was uncovered by The Los Angeles Times, and his activities led to the passage of SB497 last year, which limits the ability to profit from this type of speculation. This subdivision change is not consistent with the new state law, and would play right into Sweeney’s hands, making future land acquisitions for open space the city might covet more difficult and more costly.
SB 497 states that parcel reconfigurations between four or more lots must comply with all provisions of the General Plan and Local Coastal Program. Is this determination best left to the city staff or to an elected body like the City Council, answerable to the voters?
I sincerely hope that Malibu citizens will awaken from their slumber in time to realize this issue affects not only the future of their commute times and their property values, but their quality of life in this community.
Marcia Hanscom
Rescue Wildlife Center
I respectfully request the attention of your readership to a pressing matter that directly affects very important members of local communities – our native wildlife. Recently I learned of the dire situation faced by the wonderful non-profit organization, The California Wildlife Center, which is based in the Santa Monica Mountains. For those of you who are not familiar with this worthy group, the CWC is responsible for the rescue, rehabilitation and ultimate release of orphaned, injured or ill animals, including aquatic creatures, which cohabitate our local areas. The CWC relies on volunteers who are on call 24/7 to provide immediate attention to whatever the wildlife emergency. It is hard work, often requiring acts of bravery that usually go unnoticed.
Unfortunately, the CWC is facing a real, immediate crisis. The Center is currently filled to capacity and the problem just seems to be intensifying. Here is a statistic that might better illustrate the problem. In April of 2001 there were 99 animals rehabilitating at the center. This April there are 470! This fivefold increase will certainly only worsen considering the lack of rain and subsequent serious fire season we are facing.
The core reason for my letter is to implore you to make a donation to and/or volunteer at the California Wildlife Center. I truly feel that in light the caring generous nature of our citizens, this financial predicament would not exist if people were aware of this critical situation. It is also important to note that the CWC receives absolutely no federal, state or city funds. They rely solely on membership, donations and a few small grants. I am confident that with this information we, the stewards of our beautiful land and all the beings that inhabit it, will rectify this problem. Please make a donation, whatever the amount, to this vital organization. For more information on the CWC, log onto www.californiawildlifecenter.org.
Jessica Newell-Gorman
Don’t let John’s go
John’s Garden is being forced to close their doors forever in August, after 27 years in the Country Mart. The landlord has decided to cut their space in half and raise the rent beyond their ability to pay.
John’s is an institution in Malibu that has faithfully served the local population as well as the visitors who come to shop and enjoy the park on the weekend.
The story is a familiar one. The Ballet Studio, after 25 years, and the NailBox/Insurrection salon, after 17 years, were also faced with the dilemma of exorbitant rent increases. They were both fortunate to have found other locations. Where can John’s Garden go? John’s is synonymous with the Malibu Country Mart. What could replace it that we need so badly?
We hope that Koss Management will reconsider and keep one little piece of “Old Malibu” intact.
Kelly and Kathy Higgins
Learn to build right
What remains of Malibu’s chaparral wilderness is its most valuable legacy, which includes hundreds of extraordinary drought tolerant plant species that need no help from us to live, require no irrigation, no fertilizer, no gardeners, and feed over 100 indigenous bird species and larger creatures that are completely dependent on these extraordinary plants that have evolved here over at least 14 million years. But the people who just moved here are typically unaware that common and inexpensive building materials like concrete, metals, glass and tiles will simply never burn even if the native chaparral grew right up to the walls of their homes. So with ignorance of the most rudimentary knowledge of materials, architecture and botany, that any child could have easily acquired, people still leave wood exteriors exposed or put cotton curtains in their windows and expose themselves to risks for no reason whatsoever. Finally the insurance industry got tired of picking up the bill for such ignorance, so they got the fire department, who doesn’t employ even one botanist, to enforce the wholesale destruction of tens of thousands of acres of this extraordinarily beautiful carpet of evergreen wilderness, that creates the beauty that holds these mountains together. Extreme 200 to 400 foot clearings are being required where a 30-foot separation has been repeatedly proven to fully protect wood from flames. In this arid environment, once destroyed, the native plants will not restore themselves because more aggressive invasive plants will first take over the soils, and then dry out each summer increasing fire risks. Significantly the cost to restore native plants no doubt exceeds the generosity of anyone living in Malibu, perhaps costing far more than the value of their houses, and further would take decades of work to accomplish.
Since people can’t see that no conflict needs to exist between their constructions and the environment, they promote a very destructive assault; and the environmentalists in turn try to rescue whatever they can from this inconsiderate spirit, which naturally has to exclude the destructive clearing and bulldozing of these mountain treasures; all because we can’t conceive of building in a way that is compatible with nature and restorative of the natural environment; and these destructive conflicts are even written into our extraordinarily abusive building and fire codes. I can see no way to encourage change for such unbelievable stubbornness and ignorance; but there is little doubt that this is an environmentally sensitive habitat area (ESHA) and its irreplaceable loss would be by far the greater tragedy and a permanent loss that could never be undone.
Sad recollection
There is no doubt in my mind when I remember seeing live on TV the good people (adults and children) of Jenin dancing in the streets and honking horns celebrating the tragedy we Americans suffered on September 11. It was a sight which I will never forget and it was for real.
Geraldine Forer Spagnoli