From the Publisher/Arnold G. York
Last week, a water main broke in the vicinity of Pacific Coast Highway and Coastline Drive. In a flash, traffic was backed up for miles. Most everyone picked up their cell phone and called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lost Hills Station, but it turned out the break was outside their jurisdiction. Whoever was manning the phones got a flurry of phone calls, but apparently it never occurred to anyone to call the California Highway Patrol or Caltrans to get them rolling on it. It’s that “it ain’t my job” syndrome. Perhaps it’s time the leadership of the Sheriff’s Department got together with the CHP and the Los Angeles and Santa Monica police departments. They all share jurisdiction over different parts of Pacific Coast Highway, along with Caltrans. No matter where the problems occur, it backs up the traffic into everyone’s jurisdiction. It should be a relatively simple matter to divert traffic temporarily around the blockage until the rush hour traffic is rolling again.
The Malibu Local Coastal Plan fight is still going on in Judge Goodman’s court in West Los Angeles, and all sides are waiting to see who the lucky winner is going to be. Either the California Coastal Commission, the City of Malibu or, perhaps, no one is going to be issuing coastal permits after the judge decides. But whatever the decision, everyone knows it’s going to be appealed immediately. Meanwhile, there are so many unique questions of law to be briefed in this case, particularly with 12 or so related cases waiting in the wings, that entire forests are being cut in Canada just to accommodate the legal paperwork We should have an answer, at least the first answer, in a week or so.
We also have to be grateful when we look out our windows and see the shining sun and the ocean gently lapping the shores. I just spoke to my sister Matti in Manhattan, and she reports the snow on Broadway on the upper Westside is stacked so high you have to dig down to find the tops of the parking meters. Today was the first day the snow had actually lightened, and the snowplows have managed to turn Broadway in to two or three lanes. But in the process, they’ve had to push a gigantic amount of snow onto the sidewalks, which are totally impassible in many places.
I’m having a little difficulty understanding the state of California plan for enhancing the Malibu coastline into a visitor-serving zone. On one hand, the Coastal Commission is pushing Malibu hard, going as far as to push our kids off the ball fields in Bluffs Park, and insisting that we enable low-cost types of tourist facilities. But on the other hand, the commission just managed to put the Topanga Ranch Market out of business. If there is any area that qualifies as a low- and moderate-income residential and commercial area, it’s the strip on the landside, along Pacific Coast Highway, across from Topanga Beach. Little by little, the state is forcing those businesses out. Of course, later, when it wants to replace those business with other visitor-serving business, you just know it will oppose any new low-cost motel as not being sufficiently environmental. The state has also put it all out to bid, and suddenly, it is a developer just like anyone else trying to make the top buck they can out of their land.
For those of you who have been asking about it, the Dolphin Awards ceremony is going to take place on Saturday, March 15, at the Mission Club, which is the completely restored Malibu Courthouse. Invitations will be going out shortly to the Dolphin winners, their guests and former Dolphins, now accumulating at a rapid rate and numbering more than 125. Unfortunately, we’re limited by the capacity of the room to the number of people we can invite.
Lastly, a personal note. Many of you called and sent cards after my son, Tony, and I both wrote about his experience in Washington, D.C., when he had to jump out a third-floor window of a burning building to save his life. After a three-week convalescence here in Malibu, we put Tony and his lady on a plane to go back to their home in Seattle.
Despite a fractured heel, some serious damage to his heel pad and a couple of fractured vertebrae, Tony is well on his way to mending. If you’ve got to get hurt, youth and good health are remarkably useful in accelerating your recovery. In a month or so we hope he’ll be off his crutches. Thank you all for your very thoughtful and considerate notes and calls.
P.S. The entire Emergency Response system in Washington, D.C. is now under fire. Several people who called 911 to report the 6 a.m. fire in which Tony was injured were put on hold because it turns out that the Washington, D.C. Fire Department had only one operator on duty that morning. Remember, this is the nation’s capitol at a time of terror alerts. Sure doesn’t fill you with confidence.