Michele Reiner’s response to my previous letters “Answering ‘questions’” from Oct. 9 has revealed that she has not read or doesn’t understand “The Initiative” she submitted to the City on March 26.
Measure R — as submitted — is 12 pages. She asserts, “All centers in the Civic Center must still obtain a CUP for all new Chain Store locations.” This is false.
Please see pages seven and eight of the Initiative “R.” On these pages, Section 6 adds a new section — 177.66.130(a) — to the Malibu Municipal Code. Under (c) on page seven, “The Conditional Use Permit required by subdivision (a) of this Section shall not be required for a change of ownership of an existing formula retail, exclusively, or for the following types of formula retail establishment.” … Item (10) on the list of exemptions is found at the top of page eight, “A formula retail establishment: (A) located in a shopping center in existence as of April 1, 2014 in the Civic Center commercial district … ” This is an exemption for the existing shopping centers in the Civic Center.
In (B) — still on page eight — the exemption above is modified to only include existing spaces between 1,400 to 5,000 square feet.
This exemption makes 83% (per the city’s impartial analysis) of the existing spaces in the Civic Center exempt from the requirement for a Conditional Use Permit if a formula retail establishment wants to move into any existing space in the Center. This does not protect the existing small businesses that currently occupy those spaces.
If Michele Reiner thinks she was only exempting the existing formula retail locations, her lawyers failed to make that distinction.
Carol Moss, another of the proposing proponents, is similarly misinformed when she claims “Measure R applies the exact same rules to all shopping centers across Malibu.”
Measure R was poorly drafted by a Bay Area law firm for clients who either haven’t read or don’t understand what they paid for. They apparently believe that claiming others are wrong without referring to the document will fool enough voters to get them past the election.
Paul Grisanti