News Briefs

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City hires parks and recreation director

Outgoing City Manager Katie Lichtig announced this week that Robert Stallings has been hired as the city’s parks and recreation director. He is the permanent replacement for Paul Adams, who left Malibu late last year to take the same job in the city of South Gate. Stallings will begin work on Feb. 6.

According to an e-mail written by Lichtig, Stallings has more than 25 years of parks and recreation experience. His most recent job was as recreation manager for the city of Moorpark, where he was responsible for recreation classes, youth and adult sports, teen programs, a recreation center and maintenance of a 70-acre community park and gymnasium.

California Coastal conservationist dies

Ellen Stern Harris, co-author of the California Conservation Act of 1972, the precursor to the Coastal Act, died Jan. 2 at age 76.

Harris founded the Council for Planning and Conservation and served on the Los Angeles County Water Quality Board from 1966 to 1970. She proposed the creation of the California Coastal Commission in 1968 and then went on to co-author the California Coastal Conservation Act, which the voters approved as Proposition 20. The act created an ad-hoc Coastal Commission.

Harris was appointed to the Coastal Commission in its first year. She left four years later and became a critic of the state agency when it became a permanent body in 1976, saying it failed to properly combat overdevelopment of the state’s coast.

Harris taught public policy at UCLA and ran unsuccessfully for the Beverly Hills City Council in 1988.

Assemblymember Pavley endorses Brownley to replace her

Following Assemblymember Fran Pavley’s staff assistant Louise Rishoff’s announcement last month that she was dropping out of the race for the 41st Assembly District (which includes Malibu) seat, Pavley has endorsed candidate Julia Brownley.

Brownley is the president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District. She received the endorsement of state Sen. Sheila Kuehl last year. Also last week, Brownley received an endorsement from Los Angeles City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, whose council district includes Pacific Palisades, which is in the 41st Assembly District.

Brownley is a Democrat. Three other Democrats are running for the seat, which is being vacated by Pavley because of term limits. They are Calabasas Mayor Barry Groveman and Santa Monica residents Kelly Hayes-Raitt and Jonathan Levey.

Nolte completes probation for DUI

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lawrence Mira ruled last week that Malibu resident Nick Nolte has successfully completed the three years of probation he was ordered to serve after his 2002 no-contest plea to a misdemeanor count of driving under the influence of drugs.

Nolte was arrested on Sept. 11, 2002 after being seen driving erratically on Pacific Coast Highway and later failing a sobriety test. He was accused of being under the influence of the drug gamma-hydroxybutyrate, known as the date rape drug. Nolte’s lawyer said in 2002 that his client had inadvertently consumed the drug while taking a weightlifting supplement.

As part of Nolte’s probation, he was ordered to undergo counseling and drug testing.

-Jonathan Friedman