A very strange election

    0
    177

    From the publisher/Arnold G. York

    In the last decade of City Council elections this is far and away one of the strangest. Malibu is scheduled to go to the polls April 9, which is less than two weeks away, and I just don’t sense any buzz, any sense of urgency, and I can’t figure out why.

    Malibu elections usually revolve around a big idea, usually growth, ball fields bonds, or a passion play of good against evil, but none of that appears to be present this time.

    I’ve attended a couple of the candidate forums and they were very civilized and low key, and not very informative. The forums really didn’t reveal much about any of the candidates. You wonder whether what we’re seeing is an election strategy that says, keep it low key, keep the turnout down and turnout the faithful. I suspect the victory in this election will go to whoever turns out their supporters.

    This is an important election because the battle for Malibu’s future is shifting away from what the council does to what outside agencies decide to do. First and foremost is the California Coastal Commission and its Land Use Plan for Malibu. If it passes in its present form, and it’s now looking like it might since the Sara Wan/Peter Douglas alliance probably has the seven Coastal Commission votes necessary to get it through in any form they choose, it’s most certainly headed into litigation. I think we’re looking at five to 10 years of expensive litigation over things like ESHAs (environmentally sensitive habitat areas), the Coastal Commission’s own homegrown version of the endangered species and threatened plant act, and down-zoning of what little apartment stock we have. That will throw a great many things in Malibu into limbo. Things will stop until we get some court decisions.

    Both our state senator, Sheila Kuehl, and Assemblymember Fran Pavley tried to head this off and facilitate a settlement, but the problem has turned out to be a thorny battle. I think both of them have just backed off a little and are waiting to see what happens.

    My own judgment is that despite all the Coastal Commission spin to the contrary, its plan will be a disaster for us and practically turn us into its vassal state.

    So the next City Council is going to have to take them on, head on, and be very smart about it. It will require husbanding our money, maintaining the support of our community, mobilizing our resources and our clout, and looking for political opportunity wherever we find it. We need allies, and that means forming alliances with other cities along the coast so we’re not battling the Coastal Commission alone, or trying to get the California League of Cities with us and working with a number of other citizen lawsuits that will be going on simultaneously.

    It also may depend on what happens in the governor’s race in November. If the race tightens, which right now doesn’t look terribly likely, and Republican candidate Bill Simon begins to pick up some traction, we may see some major shifts in the Coastal Commission. The city and its staff are still trying to persuade the coastal commissioners to be more reasonable. They have to pretend that’s doable. Frankly, I don’t think they have a chance in hell. What finally happens at Coastal will depend on politics, and right now our governor, Gray Davis, is beholden to the environmentalists. However, if the race gets tight, all bets are off. If the race tightens, the White House is going to expend some substantial clout in this state, and they would love to cut into some of the democratic environmental base along the coast. If enough Democrats, like myself, begin to believe the enviro extremists have taken control of our lives, enough that they’ll consider voting Republican, then, if the polling picks it up, the governor is going to get very nervous. It also doesn’t hurt to send the governor an e-mail to let him know what you think about the Coastal Commission’s agenda for Malibu.

    Our next City Council is going to have to be very political, very competent, and light on its feet, and less politically partisan than in the past.

    What we are going to need on the next council is intelligence, courage and toughness. What we need are some “wartime consiglieri.”