MBC lead counsel Volpert argues his lucrative client’s M position in a simplistic letter to editor of Oct. 23. Millions in attorney fees will have been wasted by MBC if No on M prevails. Consequently, if Malibu citizens do not vote “yes,” he threatens to retaliate by attempting to sell MBC properties parcel by parcel. So what? Isolated parcel by parcel purchases will not happen because prospective buyers, if any, will lack the funds and influence to obtain the myriad of permits, EIRs, etc. to overcome the dozens of city requirements to even be interested. If there is parcel by parcel development, it can be more easily controlled and will take years, perhaps decades, to accomplish. Malibu will remain essentially the same for the foreseeable future.
Volpert’s reference to a “partnership” between MBC and the City is an indictment of the entire plan with MBC clearly being the managing and controlling partner in the over-development of the Civic Center, with benefits to the City wholly conditional and uncertain. Counsel mentions “public acquisition of the Chili Cook-Off site.” What he fails to state is that the acquisition is a three-year option for the City to buy the site for “only $25 million” in order to build an odorous sewage plant in the middle of town which will treat the waste generated by MBC commercial tenants (lots of MBC rental moneys there), the filth and waste resulting from a measure which the City Council endorses despite recommended rejection by the Council’s own Planning Commission.
New Community Center? We have them. $600,000 for a “wetlands feasibility study”? Common sense dictates that land locked, still waters (swampland) attract infection bearing insects, mosquitoes and other vermin. M will “create” an Urgent Care Center? MBC will build an ER and attempt to lease it to a medical group which will never be able to afford the market-rate rent which MBC will demand. Volpert’s statement implicitly likens MBC to a philanthropic organization which is more than misleading. It is a cruel hoax.
Baseball fields galore? We already have them. Malibu Little League, Inc., a charitable corporation won the permanent possessory rights to the existing Bluffs Park fields over 20 years ago in lawsuit settings involving the state DPR and Coastal. League board members owe a fiduciary duty to hundreds of ball players, their parents and other little league members to put a stop to City Council meddling in league property interests and an even greater fiduciary duty to preserve the existing possessory interests of the children and other league members in the existing Bluffs sites. Volpert’s phantom fields are not feasible anywhere on MBC property involved in M and he knows it.
Counsel sounds like he is arguing before an unsophisticated, intellectually challenged jury in another part of Los Angeles County, not the savvy citizens of Malibu.
Conrad Kohrs