What to watch for in the upcoming forums
There is a city council election coming up on April 10 for three open seats on the council. What’s unusual is there is only one incumbent, John Sibert, running for his second term and the rest are either old faces or brand new faces. Joan House, who served on the council for 12 years, and Missy Zeitsoff, who served on the first city council almost 20 years ago, have both put themselves into the race. Because their original terms were before term limits, they are able to run again. The big unknown is the four candidates who have never run before, Hans Laetz, Andy Lyon, Hamish Patterson and Skylar Peak. The forums will probably take on an added importance because it will provide us a chance to see them in action, separate out the candidates and find out what they view as the important issues facing us, and where they stand on those issues
There are several issues that may well dominate the election.
One is the changing face of Malibu. A number of citizens are upset because of the influx of high-end stores and what they see as the demise of the mom and pops. The perception is partially correct. Some individually owned stores have left, but many other have moved onto Pacific Coast Highway where the rents are somewhat cheaper. The bigger problem is what you do to fix the situation, if in fact the problem is growing. Initially, some wanted to keep out the chains, but that turned out to be tougher then many thought. After all, Starbucks, Subway, KFC and a number of others are either part of chains or franchisees of chains, but locally owned, so that idea was dropped and then morphed into a diversification ordinance. The diversification ordinance attempts to put government controls on all of the shopping centers and there are meetings going on right now to try and hammer out some solutions, but ultimately it may be decided at the ballot box or in a courtroom. There is a lot more to come on this issue.
The Malibu Lagoon project is another heavy issue with the sides totally divided and a split in the environmental community about the project. Although it’s not clear what, if anything, the city can do about this state project, it won’t keep many from trying to the get the city as an advocate for one side or the other.
The Regional Water Quality Control Board has imposed a prohibition, really a kind of moratorium, which kicks in in 2015. It’s going to be expensive to the homeowners in and around the Civic Center area and along the beaches and in the hills. It’s also costing the city a great deal of dollars. There may be some serious legal issues if the prohibition is justified, but the cost of challenging it would be enormous and ongoing.
There is also a move by a number of Malibu parents to allow Malibu to break off from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and start our own school district. It’s unclear if we have the finances to separate, but clearly if we want to break away we’re going to need a major financial commitment from the city of Malibu. Currently the City of Santa Monica gives the school district $14 million per year, and we currently are about 20% of that school district.
Many of the issues may boil down to an issue of money. So far the city has done fairly well with money. The council has been conservative and we have a surplus, but as time moves on there are growing demands on our treasury.
Recently, the issue of the view ordinance was before the council and despite a great deal of pressure and some angry constituents, the council took the wiser course on the issue of restoring old views, some as far back as 1991. They decided to create a deadline of six months to give people a chance to put in their claims and afford the council some time to carefully assess the costs of view restoration and then decide if they want to proceed.
Everything I’ve mentioned has a cost, a price tag. In young cities there are few demands. But as a city matures, and we are now 20 years old, the demands definitely do grow and sometimes councils literally have to decide between motherhood and apple pie. We need council members smart enough and mature enough to make those decisions and that’s what this next election is all about.