• Labor Day Weekend brought 375,000 visitors to Malibu beaches and the kickoff of the 38th Annual Chili Cook-Off, which went off as scheduled, hosted this year for the second time by the Boys & Girls Club of Malibu. The weekend was hot; a 40-acre fire on Friday close to the location gave everyone a scare but the firefighters jumped on it and beat it down. With everyone a bit uneasy from recent events, there was also heightened security with a Sheriff’s SWAT team right in front of the cook-off entrance.
• Mountain lions keep trying to cross the freeways and, as you might expect, they don’t all make it. A young female named P-65 was only the second female to make it across the Ventura (101) Freeway. There is also an underground culvert that some have used, but not all. The National Park Service can keep track because almost all of the animals have been outfitted with radio collars. Not all the animals are as lucky as P-65. On the San Diego (405) Freeway, a four-year-old male, P-61, which had successfully crossed the 10-lane freeway once was killed on a return trip.
• The California legislature, in an attempt to deal with the gig economy, has passed a new law, AB 5, which makes it harder to have a workforce of independent contractors. Many have resisted because of the significant additional costs, like insurance, social security and limited work hours. The driving services like Uber and Lyft fought a losing battle to block it and we’re probably going to see some ballot propositions about it next year in November.
• The LA County Supervisors, with the concurrence of our local Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, changed the county land use plan to permit overnight camping in the hills above Malibu. Despite the recent massively destructive Woolsey Fire, and a great public outcry by Malibu citizens, the county just moved ahead and gave its OK, leaving many of us puzzled as to why.
