The environmental group’s leader says the statement, put in the opposition’s rebuttal argument, was taken out of context.
By Jonathan Friedman/Special to The Malibu Times
With the Malibu Bay Company Development Agreement set to go before voters in just two months, controversy has arisen over the ballot arguments, which citizens will receive informing them of the pros and cons of the deal.
Heal the Bay Executive Director Mark Gold has sent a letter to the city requesting a statement attributed to his organization be taken out of the opposition’s rebuttal ballot argument on the Malibu Bay Company (MBC) Development Agreement, now known as Measure M. Also, Dolores Rivellino Walsh, who signed the argument, asked that her name be removed.
“I understand the information given to me was false, misleading and apparently fraudulent,” Walsh wrote in her letter to City Clerk Lisa Pope, although she did not specify to what information she was referring. Walsh could not be reached for comment.
The statement of concern to Gold in the ballot is, “Heal the Bay, the leading environmental group focused on cleaning up pollution in Malibu Lagoon, stated ‘the likelihood of supporting the agreement is none.'”
Gold said it was taken out of context of a larger statement from a private e-mail conversation. He added that Heal the Bay neither supports nor opposes the agreement, nor plans to do either. Rather, Gold said the group would be issuing a paper in the coming weeks that outlines some of its concerns. The position paper to be released in a few weeks will be on what Heal the Bay feels needs to be done in terms of wastewater and stormwater treatment in the Civic Center. The group has already said it has some concerns over the environmental impact report, and there is no need to get into that again.
The Malibu Times obtained a copy of the entire e-mail of which Gold spoke. It reads, “The likelihood of us [Heal the Bay] opposing the DA [development agreement] is slim and supporting the DA is none.”
Gold said to use only part of that statement implies Heal the Bay publicly opposes the agreement. But Measure M opponent Ozzie Silna said he does not agree with Gold’s logic.
“It (the statement) doesn’t declare that Heal the Bay is opposed to the agreement,” he said. “It just says that they’re not supporting it.”
City Attorney Christi Hogin sent a notice to Steve Uhring, the designated filer for the argument, telling him he had until the end of Tuesday’s business day to respond to Gold’s complaint. That could include removing the statement. If Uhring declines to remove it or does not respond, then a Malibu voter or Hogin, on behalf of the city, could file a writ of mandate to have the statement eliminated. If the suit were successful, the statement would not appear on the ballot in November. The same process applies for Walsh’s request to have her name scratched.
Gold said he is not sure if he will try to take this to court to get the statement revoked. He will have a better idea once he hears what the response is from the Measure M opposition. He hopes the statement can be removed without it coming to that.
As of 1 p.m. Tuesday, Uhring said he would wait to speak with Gold before he would decide what to do.
That was not the only controversial issue about the arguments. With Planning Commissioner David Fox signing the argument favoring the measure, he became the first commissioner to take a public stance in support of the agreement. Uhring said he finds Fox’s decision odd, because at the May 7 commission decision meeting on the original agreement, Fox focused his dissenting comments on the residential development at the MBC’s Trancas property. This remains part of the revised agreement.
“The biggest problem of this development agreement is what it does to Trancas,” Fox said at the meeting. “Fifteen homes, [the] loss of Riders and Ropers, big homes … it’s, in a way, more precious to me than the Civic Center.”
Fox could not be reached for comment. However, education activist Laura Rosenthal, who signed the proponents’ argument, offered her opinion on why he would sign it.
“We got a planning commissioner [to sign the supporting argument] because when all was said and done, he understood it was a good plan,” she said. “Nothing is ever going to be perfect.”
Uhring said his side did not attempt to get any commissioners to sign its argument, because the commission’s decisions in May and July were enough of an endorsement. However, Planning Commission Vice Chair Deirdre Roney said she had a problem with how the opponents classified the commission’s decisions in their argument.
They wrote, “Malibu’s Planning Commission unanimously rejected the Development Agreement twice.”
“We rejected Plan A (the original agreement) and recommended decoupling Plan A from Plan B, because Plan B might be a good plan, emphasis on ‘might,'” she said. “That’s more accurate to say.”
Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan said he had no problem with the opponents’ statement, but added he has not made a decision on where he stands with the agreement until he has completed his research. Roney said she is doing the same thing.
What is a sewer?
Included in the Measure M proponents’ argument is a statement that the city would not be constructing a sewer on the Chili Cook-Off site if it were successful in purchasing the property. Rather, it might build a wastewater treatment facility to clean the city’s various polluted waters. However, the measure’s opponents say they see no difference.
“A sewer is a collection system, and the agreement allows several pieces of property to be connected to that treatment plant,” said Efrom Fader, who also signed the opposition argument. “Therefore, in effect, it is a sewer. Large, small or otherwise, it’s still a sewer.”
Mayor Pro Tem Sharon Barovsky, who wrote the proponents’ argument, said a sewer does not operate the way this facility would.
“This is going to treat the water, send it back for reuse … it will be zero discharge,” she said. “In other words, every bit of water we’re using is either going to be reused or spray irrigated.”