Heated meeting filled with profanity-laced comments. Three versions of MBC development agreement are proposed.
By Jonathan Friedman/Special to the Malibu Times
The mayor of Malibu faced attitudes ranging from hostility to a desire for cooperation to general curiosity at last Thursday’s Malibu Community Action Network (CAN) meeting, which took place to discuss the Malibu Bay Company (MBC) Development Agreement.
CAN was recently formed in response to the development agreement. Its leaders, who include Ozzie Silna, John Mazza and Steve Uhring, have been among the most vocal opponents of the MBC Development Agreement. And despite the city’s announcement of a Plan B at a special City Council meeting last week, and the likelihood of a second version of Plan B, many Malibu CAN members still remain skeptical. (See story “New deal” at left for details on the plans.)
At the meeting, resident Steve Posey shouted, “The Malibu Bay Company is holding a gun to the heads of the people of Malibu, and I’m pissed off about it! And I don’t want to see us roll over while they (MBC) say ‘This property (Chili Cook-Off) is for sale if you give us all that we want.’ “
Guest speaker at the meeting, Mayor Ken Kearsley, responded to that statement by asking what the alternative is. Posey, in a profanity-laced comment, said the city could tell the company off. Although several other people added to the anti-MBC sentiment, there were some who spoke favorably to the new idea. One of them was resident Georgiana McBurney, who said she is concerned about wastewater destroying Winter Canyon.
“That canyon is in deep trouble right now,” she said. “And there’s no way you can get it out of trouble unless we get a way to get rid of all that wastewater going over there. What I see in an opportunity like this is for the city to take over control of water disposal. That also means we control some of the development.”
But Tammi Clark took another view on the matter. She said although she favors finding a way to clean Malibu’s water, she fears that a wastewater-treatment facility might be playing into the hands of developers.
“We are basically giving carte blanche to the rest of the development in addition to the Malibu Bay Company,” she said. “You’ve got Schultz. You’ve got La Paz … you’re basically helping them justify the amount of development they want to do.”
Several other people also expressed a concern that the city was not getting much out of Plan B, noting it did not address many of the concerns they had with Plan A.
“Other than the fact that we now can buy the Chili Cook-Off, under certain conditions, by the way, none of the other issues of the development agreement are diminished to their side of the ledger,” Silna said. “And we, in fact, now do not have the donation that they were originally giving.”
Kearsley reminded the group that City Attorney Christi Hogin is addressing those issues in the deal for second version of Plan B. This led several people to ask why a top-notch negotiator was not being hired to deal with the MBC representatives. Kearsley responded that he believed Hogin was best for the job because she had a special relationship with the MBC negotiator.
Several people said the city could get the upper hand in the deal making if the right people are doing it. Efrom Fader said he found MBC owner Jerry Perenchio’s behavior odd.
“If he (Perenchio) could do whatever he wanted, he would have done it already,” Fader said. “Something’s holding him back, and I don’t think it’s anything philanthropic.”
Kearsley said he had his own ideas on what was going on in Perenchio’s head, but said it was difficult to know for sure.
“Dealing with a man who’s got enough money where this really isn’t a big issue is an entirely different process,” he said. ” I assume there’s probably some ego involved in this.”
Kearsley also told the group he was confident the city could get the $25 million to buy the Chili Cook-off site, but added that nothing was a guarantee. In response to questions on what the rush was to get a deal done, he said if Gov. Davis is out of office, it would most likely mean the chance to get the Prop 50 grant is also gone, since it is his people who are saying the chances are good.
The mayor said he expects the second version of Plan B to be ready by the end of this week, because Perenchio is leaving for Europe. But Hogin said in an interview Monday night that there is no set deadline. However, she added that a final deal would definitely be made before the next City Council development agreement public hearing on July 9.