• Johnny Strange — Malibu-raised extreme sports adventurer, known worldwide for his exploits — died tragically in the Swiss Alps while BASE jumping in a wingsuit at the age of 23. By the time Strange was 17, he had already climbed the Seven Summits — the tallest peaks on each of the seven continents. Mayor Pro Tem Laura Rosenthal shared “that even as a little little boy, he loved jumping off things and testing limits.”
• Local actor and entertainer Dick Van Dyke, who rarely says “no” to Malibu events and requests, celebrated his 90th birthday at Malibu Playhouse with a weeklong series of fundraising events to benefit the playhouse, where he serves as the executive creative producer. The big birthday blowout was in December at Disneyland, where the Disney organization pulled out all the stops for its resident chimneysweep.
• In a close 7-5 vote, the California Coastal Commission finally — after several years and millions of dollars spent in lawyer and consultant fees, and studies — gave permission to Broad Beach homeowners to replace the sand on their rapidly shrinking beach. At one time, it truly was a very broad beach, with East Coast, Cape Cod-like sand dunes, which are now all gone.
• In a somewhat analogous situation, a rising ocean and scouring by the waves and Hurricane Marie last year had potentially endangered much of the support for PCH between Big Rock Drive and Las Tunas State Beach. The state and all of its agencies quickly allowed the construction of a 1,600-foot-long, 20- to 30-foot-tall wave breaker to protect the slopes and shoreline. The prompt and necessary action did, however, raise questions about whether there is a double-standard that agencies like the California Coastal Commission employs — one for themselves and the government, and quite another for private landowners, who, many suspect, might have had some difficulty getting permission to build a 1,600-foot-long, 20- to 30-foot-high seawall.
• The winds blew, causing widespread power outages in Malibu, leaving a total of 6,580 customers in the Santa Monica Mountains without power on Friday, Oct. 30. According to Southern California Edison, power was out from Busch Drive to Topanga Canyon Boulevard, as well as Malibu Colony Road to the Ventura Freeway, including the traffic signals on PCH and Pepperdine University campus.