I have followed the efforts of Marshall Grossman, who purports to represent Trancas Property Owners Association, in the fight to discredit Sara Wan, and am compelled to respond.
For months now, through letters, denouncements and personal attacks against Coastal Commission Member (and longtime Malibu resident) Sara Wan, Grossman has attempted to cobble together a case that Wan is “biased” against Broad Beach. Biased? Grossman’s “evidence” of Wan’s bias is that Wan has visited Broad Beach at least three times and has sought to inform the public as to the rights of the public to visit Broad Beach.
Gross-think goes like this: Since Wan supports public beach access, she is necessarily biased against Grossman, other Broad Beach property owners and indeed, all of Malibu. Thus, according to Grossman, Wan should be prohibited from being involved in any Coastal Act or Coastal Commission matters related to Broad Beach or Malibu.
Grossman has kindly distributed this nonsense not only to local papers, but to various state agencies, lawyers and other Coastal commissioners, all with the explicit intent to bully and harass said recipients into silence over the various long-running Coastal Act violations occurring at Broad Beach. Grossman’s efforts are doomed to failure.
Since when does support of the Coastal Act or public access constitute “bias?” Golly, way back in the old days, when even property owners supported beach access, support for coastal access was practically a job requirement for service on the Coastal Commission. Nowadays, according to Grossman, only people who are against coastal access should be able to serve on the commission. Nowadays, if you act from a private economic profit point of view, as Grossman (who owns property at Broad Beach) does, then you are “balanced.” Nowadays, if you act without economic motive and solely in the public interest, as Wan does, then you are a biased scoundrel to be slandered and pilloried. If this sounds preposterous to you, then welcome to the world of Marshall Grossman.
In the end, Grossman’s efforts to turn the world on its head will fail. Meanwhile, Grossman’s huffing and puffing only serves to underscore the lameness of his position and the need for the Coastal Commission to be ever vigilant in crushing self-serving attempts by the very few to eliminate the beach access rights of the very many. Reading Grossman’s merit-less tirades, it is hard to believe that his fellow Trancas Property Owners Association members can support or tolerate him. Perhaps it is time they intervene and restrain their reckless pit bull before his crazed yapping gets attributed to all of them.
Mark Massara, director
Sierra Club Coastal Programs