I am responding to Rebecca Dmytryk’s histrionic rebuttal letter to my observations on the upcoming City of Malibu regulation on Styrofoam. If Ms. Dmytryk had restricted her annoyance and reviewed my “Jest to the Editor” she would have discovered that I, like most Malibuites, are in favor of clean beaches, oceans and streams. However, the Styrofoam law, as passed by the Malibu City Council, and so well dismembered by Arnold York’s editorial in this newspaper, is feebly written and does a disservice to the persona of our community. The Malibu City Council needs to review this styro-law and make it both workable and enforceable or drop it from the city books.
As the law is written, it is neither practical nor enforceable and I commiserate with the City treasury when the first lawsuit is filed by a local business, surely to be funded by the polystyrene industry. Rebecca, when will the contemporary school of local environmental conservatives learn that all land-owning Malibuites are in fact seasoned preservationists?
Thank you for your reminder that I personally get involved again in the Coastal Cleanup Day this September. I guess that you have forgotten that I have supervised, for the past decade or so, the local Sheriff’s Ham Radio Volunteers who are involved in communications for this event and my Ham Radio Repeater, located on Point Dume, provide communications up and down Malibu for the various work teams. I’m optimistic it was just your way of reminding the community to get involved.
I won’t take the reader’s time reviewing your arguments on polystyrene pollution, because I don’t have a universal disagreement with them, nor do I feel that the community in general disagrees. My (and our) dispute is with the law, as written. Alas, to answer your personal queries, the leftover dinner in my Styrofoam container was magnificent and it is always a fantastic experience to be “Googled” by you.
And that is all I have to say.
Tom Fakehany