City Council caused a stir Monday night by suggesting the standard City Council Meeting agenda could be moved around to place the public comment section last, behind other agenda items.
A report, requested by City Council Member John Sibert, was intended to help council determine if there is a way to avoid having consultants and legal counsel, many of whom are paid by the hour, having to wait until 10 or 11 p.m. to speak at council meetings, sometimes missing the window and having to return to a meeting at a later date.
Many members of the public, however, took another view of the suggestion, with several coming to speak at the Nov. 8 meeting.
“Receiving and addressing public comment on the issues of the community [is] a major thing that you should be concerned with,” said Ted Vaill, Vice President of the Malibu Democratic Club. Vaill told council members they should be able to dedicate the necessary time and energy to sit through long council meetings.
“If you can’t, don’t run,” Vaill suggested.
In the end, Council did not take any action on the report —which also included suggestions such as limiting the minutes of public comment at the beginning of the meeting and pushing back the rest of the comments until the end or reducing the amount of time from three minutes to two minutes for general public comment — other than receiving and filing the information.
The discussion did lead to the unofficial decision that council may opt to hold separate sessions on items that are predicted to take a long time.
Malibu Planning Commissioner John Mazza first made this suggestion to council during public comment on the item.
“In the Planning Commission, we will have special meetings when we have a big item, because we know that’ll take four or five hours, and that gets around the problem of people waiting until 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock,” Mazza said.
“If we have an item that’s going to be really blocked, I’d just as soon have another meeting,” Council Member Joan House said.
Other suggestions — such as Sibert proposing council members could limit their disclosures — were not met with as much support.
“You’re actually legally required to put into a public record the meetings that you’ve attended on the city’s behalf,” City Attorney Christi Hogin said.
The overall discussion by the council was that no changes needed to be made, a decision that seemed to calm the members of the public who attended Monday’s meeting.
“I appreciate John [Sibert] making this an item and us being able to talk about it,” Council Member Skylar Peak said.
City to tighten regulations on vacation rentals
City Council also worked Monday to figure out how to better regulate vacation rentals in Malibu’s neighborhoods.
Vacation rentals, which are private residences that are rented out for weeks or weekends at a time, have been causing a stir in residential neighborhoods around Malibu, an issue council has been active against, famously subpoenaing rental websites last year.
“Is there a way to do it so that if somebody is called to your residence and you’re renting it out, if there is a complaint … after two complaints, you lose the ability for X-amount of time to rent out your house?” Mayor Laura Rosenthal asked.
“It’d have to be something more than a complaint,” Hogin replied.
“Three violations,” Peak said. “Do you think that’s something feasible to enforce?”
“It’s possible, it’s just a lot of government involvement,” Hogin responded.
“It’s only if you break the rules that you then start to fall under this, and that’s why I liked it a little more,” Rosenthal said.
City Manager Jim Thorsen suggested ironing out exactly what the violations would be.
“Maybe what we can do is develop some … progressive violations, and I’m not sure what exactly those are,” Thorsen said, “parking, building violations, noise violations or other things.
“Come up with some ideas on how best to address those violations and what the penalties might be, whether they have to stop renting for a certain period of time.”
“It’s an arrow in our quiver if we need it,” Rosenthal said.
City staff is now charged with the task of drawing up the specific regulations, which may have to walk a tightrope between code enforcement and neighborhood feuds.
“Keep in mind that we do have neighbor against neighbor stuff that goes on, that may not be valid in terms of complaints,” Sibert reminded staff.