Time of responsible action

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    Barry Haldeman’s invitation to the citizens of Malibu to educate themselves about the facts regarding the current coastal planning process is commendable. The true story of how this situation came to pass has been so successfully obscured that he and many citizens might value a review. Taxpayers Liable Communities has some facts to offer and the proof to back it up.

    A broad cross-section of the citizens of our city, guided by Malibu’s own planning staff and an experienced consultant, completed a draft set of coastal policies well before anyone spoke of punishing Malibu for not complying with the Coastal Act. That citizens’ draft coastal plan was submitted and was awaiting comment by Coastal Commission staff when the city manager and the planning director (on the job only four days) took the Coastal Commission staff to lunch to revoke the citizens’ draft plan. The commission staff never reviewed it. It was not dead. Instead, it was Malibu’s secret choice to abandon it. None of these facts were revealed to the public then, and they still are falsely denied today.

    Malibu failed to provide any replacement coastal plan and within a couple of months, the Legislature ordered that coastal planning in Malibu be completed by Sept. 15, 2002. Money was allocated and a former city planning director was hired to complete the process. The day Malibu has its own LCP will mean the end of development review by two governmental agencies applying different standards. Everyone knows the current process has been trouble since incorporation.

    It is a fact that the Legislature directed Malibu to play a prominent role in completing its own coastal plan, despite whining to the contrary. The citizens of Malibu were supposed to be vital players in shaping the plan that will shape their city. Instead, many among us have participated in or heard about private meetings. Even so, there has not been one public workshop to develop the city’s response to the Coastal Commission’s draft plan.

    Instead, everyone has heard that everything is happening behind the scenes. Whose interests are being represented in the secret negotiations we have all heard about? Without an open and public process, the public information vacuum is being filled with outrageous and unsubstantiated rumor. The chaos of misinformation is likely to divide us more than ever throughout the rest of our own lifetime.

    The reason stated by the court for granting the city’s request to dismiss portions of TLC’s case is that everything that could have been accomplished after a lengthy trial had already occurred. Part of TLC’s lawsuit challenged the city’s so-called Hogin [City Attorney Christi Hogin] LCP, adopted on July 23, 2001. In court, the city’s high-priced counsel from San Francisco insisted that the Hogin LCP was a “dead letter.” Judge Sohigian ruled that if the city intended its LCP to be a “dead letter,” then there was nothing more for TLC’s case to accomplish. Judge Sohigian did not dismiss TLC’s allegations that the city violated open meeting laws by not publicly disclosing its abandonment of the citizens’ coastal plan. TLC will prove the truth of these facts at a trial later this summer. Without truth, there can be no resolution.

    Malibu residents are too smart to swallow the current fear campaign that the Coastal Commission is taking over the town. The Coastal Commission’s LCP for the most part is taken directly from the city’s own adopted rules, regulations and policies. Much of the remainder of it, the parts most unpalatable to the citizens of Malibu, is state law, which the voters statewide overwhelmingly adopted by initiative in 1972.

    Coastal planning pertains to future development. There is nothing in anybody’s coastal plan requiring a change to anything already built. Why are people saying so? Isn’t it time to work responsibly with the Coastal Commission and establish home rule?

    Corin L. Kahn,

    Chief Counsel

    Taxpayers for Livable Communities