Stoking the already blazing fire under City of Malibu officials over the battle with the California Coastal Commission about a local coastal plan for the city, a nonprofit group has filed suit against Malibu for allegedly violating the Brown Act.
Taxpayers for Livable Communities (TLC) filed a case in Superior Court against the City of Malibu early this month, charging the City Council acted illegally when it changed its coastal land use policies in December without including public input.
“The case alleges that the City Council made its decision ‘off the record’ in private, denied the interested public the right to be heard and failed to deliberate publicly-all violations of the Ralph M. Brown Act and a specific written city policy,” stated a press release from TLC.
The Brown Act requires that certain government committee meetings and minutes be open to the public.
This is the second case filed against Malibu by TLC, an organization that states to represent people who have been environmentally active in Malibu over the past 10 years. The corporation is whispered to have ties with former Eagles drummer and singer Don Henley, but these ties are not formal, said Corin Kahn, attorney for TLC, who hopes to enlist Henley’s support in the future.
The first case filed by TLC against Malibu was in 2001, in response to then interim City Manager Christi Hogin’s actions as she drafted a new coastal plan on behalf of Malibu without including input from an earlier draft.
“She abandoned the LCP that had been generated with five years of public input as though it was useless and irrelevant,” said Kahn. “But it is the only plan that satisfies the public.”
This case is still in litigation.
As for as the new case, Kahn said TLC was “tipped off to” the “secret meetings” the city was holding on the LCP when Efrom Fader, Malibu Township Council president, attempted to enter one of the meetings and was “immediately told to leave the ‘private meeting.’ “
Even though Michael Jenkins, assistant city attorney, had not read the new case as he spoke with The Malibu Times two weeks ago, he discredited the litigation’s validity.
“That allegation is completely untrue,” said Jenkins. “These folks continue to file frivolous lawsuits against the city. The record is clear that there were numerous opportunities for people to speak on the matter.
“Otherwise, the city doesn’t have a legal obligation to submit something it doesn’t want to submit,” he continued. “The City Council is an elected governing body for the city. If they decided to submit a new draft, that is a political issue, not a legal one.”
But Kahn feels the case is valid because the environmental community in Malibu worked hard to create a coastal plan in 2000 that was not given a chance.
He said the old LCP included the participation of three different councils that appointed people to a coastal planning committee and it included 110 public meetings. Furthermore, the creation of the plan cost $200,000 of taxpayer’s dollars, and a coastal planner with a statewide reputation guided it, explained Kahn.
“As a result, the plan they came up with was very balanced,” he said.
In 2001, “The city said the Coastal Commission didn’t want to look at the plan, but it’s not true,” said Kahn. “It was the city who said to the commission to stop looking at the old plan because it was drafting a new one.”
But even TLC agreed that the Coastal Commission should not draft the plan for Malibu. Kahn noted the Coastal Commission’s plan also suffers from lack of public participation and that it admits this fact to TLC.
As for the outcome of the lawsuit, the Coastal Commission’s decision on a LCP will not have a direct impact unless the city gives up the fight altogether.
“If the city wants to sue the CCC [Coastal Commission], then I need to ask myself whether to seek an injunction to stop it,” said Kahn. “The bottom line is that I don’t think the city should spend any more money in defense of an indefensible plan.”