At the very beginning of my legal career, I handled a few divorces. I also handled a few armed robberies. I preferred the armed robberies because those were so much more civilized than the divorces. Malibu schools are now going through a divorce from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and what started out looking like a friendly breakup has now degenerated into a divorce—Hollywood style. I’ve had cases where people wanted alimony for five years, 10 years and once, even as much as 25 years. But I’ve never heard of alimony for 50 years, which is apparently what the school district wants now before it goes along with the breakup. That means when the kids in elementary school today are parents or even grandparents, they’ll still be paying alimony to Santa Monica. That’s not alimony; that’s extortion. For now, the board has kicked the final decision over until February. I suspect it’s to let things cool down a bit and perhaps also to see if the district attorney decides to indict one of their board members. I think it’s time for us to take the gloves off and pursue every possible avenue for escape. That includes a major litigation fund because I suspect that’s where this is all going to end up anyway. We can no more rely on the good will of the school board than Charlie Brown can rely on Lucy to not pull the football out from under his foot.
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There is an incredible story in this week’s paper about a car chase and shootout on Pacific Coast Highway. Apparently, a burglar got caught in the act in Ventura County and was confronted by an armed homeowner. They tussled, the burglar got a hold of the gun and shots were fired. At this point, most people just would have backed off but not this homeowner. He went back into the house to get another gun,. and the burglar took off in his vehicle, with the homeowner in hot pursuit. The burglar, while driving, apparently leaned out of the car window and fired shots at the pursuing homeowner. It looks easy in the movies but I suspect it’s really not that easy to drive a car and shoot at the car behind you at the same time. This homeowner wasn’t giving up; he smashed his vehicle into the rear of the escaping burglar’s car. Both cars finally came to a stop. Somehow, the burglar managed to get away but if he has any brains, he should be considering a different, less hazardous line of work.
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Our Planning Commission began taking a look at short-term rentals in this town and it turns out that it is a thornier issue than many may believe. There are people who rent out rooms in their homes, people who own buildings and have practically turned it into short-term hotels and old-timers surviving in Malibu on rental income. There are homes being turned into party rental houses. There are good, responsible owners and tenants, and some who don’t give a damn and have turned into neighborhood nightmares. There are lots of conflicts and tough calls to be made. The commission sent it back to city staff with instructions to dig deeper into the issue, but it will be back.
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Our president doesn’t like sanctuary cities. Our esteemed Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III most certainly doesn’t like sanctuary cities and he intends to put a stop to it. Recently, letters went out from the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Washington D.C.—which apparently has fallen into the hands of the Confederacy—to 20 plus counties and cities in California, demanding changes in local ordinances related to the issue. The DOJ appears to be of the opinion that these governmental entities are breaking the law (whether of the U.S. Constitution or of the Articles of the Confederacy is not quite clear) by not bending to the will of our president and cooperating with the federal immigration authorities. By cooperating, the Feds want a free hand to do whatever it is the authorities do to principally conduct a campaign against immigrants—legal or undocumented. Malibu had the honor of being one of those entities that received a letter from the Feds. However, I’ve just read that a federal judge recently stepped in and told the president that it can’t cut funding already approved by Congress (which is the hammer they threatened) to counties and cities just because the authorities don’t like them or what they are doing. If you’d like to see the letter and the entities that received it, go to californiacitynews.org or go to Google.
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Congress is busy trying to develop a new tax bill, promising everyone lower taxes and a better tomorrow. They’ve managed to craft a bill, actually two bills—a House bill and a Senate bill—that effectively do a similar thing. The bills cut taxes at the top, lower the tax rates overall and put a substantial part of the new burden on the blue states, like California and New York, while easing the burden on red states, like most of the Southern states. We have a situation where the richest, most profitable states are invariably the most urbanized states. The poorest states, those least able to survive without federal government help, are states with large rural populations (which generally are more the Southern states). For every dollar we send to the federal government, we get back somewhat less from the Feds. States like South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana get back from the Feds many times what they pay in taxes. Don’t take my word for it. Go online to Google and plug in the words “states returns on federal tax dollars” and check for yourself. That doesn’t even get into the question of whether this a middle-class tax increase, so do a little it on homework on Google and decide for yourself.
P.S. I promise not to assign any more homework assignments in future columns.