January
The year opened with a great nonevent when the much-ballyhooed Y2K turned out to be the first bust of the New Year. It left us relieved and with a closet full of water bottles, canned goods and flashlights, and disaster-ready for the next one.
The first political battle of the new year happened when Mr. and Mrs. James Brolin, n Barbara Streisand, wanted to tear down a home on their compound on Point Dume, overlooking the bay. Some of their neighbors balked at the project and the Planning Commission gave a very unusual interpretation of the definition ‘neighborhood standard.’ The application made it to the City Council where it was passed.
Streisand’s old home, located in a multi-house compound in the back of heavily-wooded Ramirez Canyon, which she had deeded to the state several years ago for a environmental think tank, was also in the news when it was transformed from think tank to catering hall.
The ever cash-short Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy first moved their offices into the canyon and then decided they wanted to rent out the facilities for weddings, bar mitzvahs and such. The neighbors went ballistic. Even Streisand was incensed, and later demanded they take her name off the center. It’s all headed for a showdown with the California Coastal Commission.
There were ominous signs on the horizon for the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, which is going through its worst budget crisis in years because of low enrollment. The district may have to hack $2 million to $2.5 million out of its budget. They’ve come up with 65 options for making the cuts, which may include library, nursing and physical education cuts.
“It’s downright embarrassing for any school district to say we can’t afford those programs, especially in a booming economy,” said Phil Cott, Webster Elementary School principal.
The Malibu Times announced Dolphin Award-winners for the Year 1999
Barbara Barsocchini
Lisa & Bill Curtis
Beverly Hammond
Doug Himmelfarb
Steve Ravaglioli & Bonnie Lockrem
Kristin Reynolds
Jack Schultz
Nidra Winger
Michael Zakian
A number of angry Point Dume residents gathered at the Community Center to protest what they describe as a city policy of selective code enforcement, which threatened to turn many people on the Point, with long-standing unpermitted structures, into a group of code-violating criminals. Many of the structures, which include unpermitted sheds, barns, playhouses and guest cottages, descended from earlier years of a more rural Malibu, when a looser county ran the show. The citizens now found themselves confronted with a less sympathetic set of urban rules, which the city decided to enforce.
In a year that saw many city personnel changes, the first to go was City Planning Director Craig Ewing. Ewing left to become the Community Development Director for the City of Lafayette in Northern Calif., after 2 years on the Malibu job.
February
The City of Malibu and the State of California, locked in a battle for 5 years over the headlands preserve in Point Dume, finally cut a deal, after some judicious head-knocking by former State Senator Rusty Aerias, now the California director of parks. The dispute hinged over what the state saw as a city attempt to block public access by posting the entire area with ‘No parking’ signs, and then, for good measure, dropping large boulders onto the edge of the road. The city also saw the area as an unsafe traffic situation. They both compromised.
For months, a City Council Ad Hoc Committee, consisting of Tom Hasse and Joan House, has been meeting in private with Malibu’s largest landowner, the Malibu Bay Company (MBC). They’ve been trying to hammer out a development deal. The MBC wants to develop its Civic Center, Point Dume and Trancas properties, and the city is looking for amenities like a community center, ball fields, and to preserve open space.
The proposed deal they worked out:
Malibu gets:
- A 20-year agreement with amenities, which include:
* 18.87-acre Point Dume parcel gifted to the city
* $5 million cash gift to help build ball fields and a community center
* 25.54 acres given to wetlands/open space
* 3 parcels in Civic Center
* 1 parcel in Trancas
- 10-year delay on the build-out of the 20.61 Civic Center acres, which includes the Chili Cook-off site
- Overall reduced commercial square footage from IZO and General Plan
Malibu Bay Company gets:
- 122,261 square feet of new commercial space
* 89,000 in the Civic Center
* 33,261 in Trancas
- 20 new, single-family homes in Trancas and Trancas Beach area
- In 10 years, the right to build another 155,046 square feet in the Civic Center to include four theaters with a total maximum of 500 seats
Surprisingly, in the first flush of reaction to the proposed development deal, several strong, typically anti-growth advocates looked at it and found it OK.
“It [the deal] appears on the surface to be very balanced. It may need a little tweaking, but it appears to be equitable,” said Jo Ruggles, planning commissioner.
“It looks good to me,” said Art London, former member of the General Plan Task Force.
The April City Council race for the three open council seats got off to a polite, but political first, forum. Hot button issues and schisms that dominated the campaign were rapidly identified. The old coalition of three long-time incumbents, Mayor Carolyn Van Horn, and Councilmembers Walt Keller and Joan House, had acrimoniously split apart, with Keller and Van Horn on one side and House on the other. House teamed up with Planning Commissioner Ken Kearsley. Former Councilmember Jeff Jennings and, a new face, former General Plan Chair John Wall, both running as independents, rounded out the field.
March
Malibu Little League season opened at Bluffs Park with former Boston Red Sox Reggie Smith kicking off the opening ceremonies for 250 little leaguers. The Little League still has a home at Bluffs Park, but no one knows for how long. Even with the park, the city is woefully short of fields and nearly half of the games are being played on converted soccer fields.
Code enforcement seems to be this year’s red hot political issue and a legion of residents from Point Dume and west Malibu have joined together to form a PAC, called Malibu Homeowners for Reform, to let politicians know they’re very unhappy. A great deal of that unhappiness is directed at Carolyn Van Horn and Walt Keller, who many in the group see as the authors of very harsh code enforcement policies in the name of no-growth.
In a rare weather event, 1 1/2 inches of snow covered parts of Corral Canyon and hail stones rained down on PCH in far west Malibu, sending moms scurrying for overshoes. Several motorists lost control, crashing into each other on PCH, while they tried to learn how to drive on slick roads.
The city’s Local Coastal Plan, years in the making, and now before the California Coastal Commission for what was termed as an administrative review, apparently was pronounced dead-on-arrival by several high-level coastal staff members. It seems that Malibu is going to have to go back to the drawing board and redo the entire plan if the city ever expects to get it approved by the Coastal Commission.
In the Republican presidential primary, Bush took California and L.A. County, but it turned out that Malibu was definitely a renegade. All 13 Malibu precincts went for John McCain, although there was a suspicion that some equally renegade Democrats crossed over and cast their open primary ballots for McCain also. In the Democratic primary, Gore clobbered Bradley in all precincts.
In a shock to the community, sitting Councilmember Harry Barovsky, who many knew was ill, but never knew how ill, died of lung disease. Barovsky had attended many recent council meetings, toting an oxygen bottle around to help him breath. In a packed memorial service at HRL, many friends came from around the country to celebrate his life and to say a few words.
April
A major election campaign issue is a plan by the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy, led by Gil Segal and his troops, to take the roughly 90 undeveloped acres in the entire Malibu Civic Center and turn about half of them into a wetland. The proposal, supported by Keller and Van Horn, is offered as a counterpoint to the proposed development deal hammered out with the Malibu Bay Company. An analysis of the proposal, by The Malibu Times, to build a manmade 45-acre lake and connect it with the creek or the ocean, put the land acquisition and construction costs between $162 million and $176 million.
Malibu went to the polls in a landslide decision with 3,962 voters deciding to make a total change of leadership. Long-time incumbents Carolyn Van Horn and Walt Keller were overwhelmingly defeated. In the final count, House, Jennings and Kearsley beat Keller, Wall and Van Horn by almost 2 to 1. The election set new records for dollars spent. The results and costs were:
Order of finish Votes Contributions
Joan House 2,565 $17,980
Jeff Jennings 2,484 $32,166
Ken Kearsley 2,473 $20,484
Walt Keller 1,314 $18,094
John Wall 1,255 $13,970
C.Van Horn 1,248 $16,280
May
Noah’s Bagels, a fixture of the Malibu breakfast scene for several years, closed suddenly and disappeared overnight when the company went into Chapter 11 Bankruptcy proceedings.
One of the first actions taken by the new City Council was to thank and promptly disband the Local Coastal Plan Committee, which has spent 6 years working on a coastal plan. There was a last-ditch effort by the old committee, a hotbed of Keller and Van Horn supporters, to get a another shot at fixing the plan, but the council said “No.” Newly-installed Mayor Tom Hasse added, “At some point, the committee must let go and let the City Council handle it.”
The State of California, owners of the Malibu Pier, decided to pull the plug on the Malibu Pier rehabilitation because a joint venture between the two contractors working on the job had fallen apart. The contractors were constantly battling and the project was falling farther behind schedule. This month, the state put it out for rebid, looking for a new contractor and expected to restart in September.
Mark Hughes, 44, charismatic founder and chief executive of Herbalife International, which he built from nothing to $1.7 billion in annual sales, died in bed at his Malibu home of what was later found, after an autopsy, to have been a combination of alcohol and a variety of drugs.
June
Malibu got a revitalized addition to the supermarket scene when newly remodeled HOWS Market opened in Trancas in what had been the former Trancas Market and before that, Alexander’s Market.
The four-member City Council named community activist Sharon Barovsky to take the seat of her late husband and former Councilmember Harry Barovsky. The council also called a special election to be added to the November ballot so Malibu voters could ultimately decide who they wanted to fill out the remainder of the two-year term.
Pepperdine University, after a nationwide search, which included 40 nominees, decided to go with one of their own and picked Andrew Benton, executive vice president since 1991, to be the next president of the university, replacing David Davenport.
July
City Manager Harry Peacock, who came to Malibu from the City of Saratoga in Northern California, and survived three years of Malibu council infighting, hung up his gloves, retired, and moved to San Diego. After a search and interviewing 50 applicants, the council quickly hired an experienced city manager, Marilyn Leuck, the administrative services director for the City of Ventura.
Ed Stotsenberg, a skier, runner, fly fisherman, horse trainer and musician died. A local activist and philanthropist, he, along with his wife, Dorothy, contributed to the Malibu cultural scene with the Stotsenberg Recital Series and also the Classical Guitar Competition at Pepperdine.
Several reopenings in July. Tra Di Noi Restaurant, almost destroyed in a 1999 Christmas fire, that totally destroyed its next door neighbor the Malibu Colony Company gift shop, reopened after extensive restoration. The state also opened Malibu Pier, which had been closed to fishermen for several years because of the decrepit condition of the decks.
The people pushing the Right-to-Vote on Development Initiative, which was later to become Proposition P on the November ballot, tried to persuade and then block the City Council from putting its own proposition onto the ballot — Proposition N. The reason for the battle was each proposition contained a so-called ‘poison pill.’ This ‘pill’ meant a proposition could lose, even if it was passed by voters, if the other proposition got more votes. It turned out to be prophetic because, ultimately, both propositions did pass, but Prop N received more votes and knocked Prop P into the ashcan of Malibu political history, for now anyway.
A local mom had a run-in with the local gendarmerie outside of Blockbuster Video when she stopped in a handicapped parking spot, motor running, while her young son hopped out to drop a tape into the return slot. The local parking patrol blocked her in, issued a ticket to the very irate mom, and, before it was all over, the mom was sitting in the back of a patrol car in handcuffs and Malibu was rapidly taking sides.
August
One of the nation’s beautiful couples, actors Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston, tied the nuptial knot on the Malibu estate of entertainment executive Marcy Carsey. The wedding, with a rumored $1 million tab, took place amidst a legion of security people, paparazzi with long lenses, and a ‘no-fly zone’ over the estate, courtesy of the Sheriff’s Dept., trying to avoid a repeat of the Madonna/Sean Penn nuptials more than a decade ago.
The California Coastal Commission is contemplating adding another 18 vertical accessways to beaches in Malibu to supplement the already 13 existing accessways. Many of these accessways were acquired years ago by the Coastal Commission but never accepted because of lack of funds. The state now wants to accept them before the time limit runs out, but locals are uneasy about parking problems and lack of restrooms.
President Bill Clinton arrived in town for a presidential library fundraiser at the home of Barbara Streisand and James Brolin. Enroute he made a short unscheduled stop on Zumirez Road to shake hands and sign autographs for the Sills clan.
The November ballot initiative, Proposition P (Right to Vote on Development Initiative), hit a major roadblock when Malibu City Attorney Steve Amerikaner reported to the council he had analyzed the proposition and, in his opinion, found it had legal flaws. He said there was a “high likelihood it’s not constitutional.” The other side immediately screamed foul and went into full-attack questioning the city attorney’s integrity.
The Planning Commission decided not all actors get what they want in Malibu. Despite an eloquent plea by actor and long-time resident Stacy Keach, they gave a thumbs down on his proposal to subdivide his Winding Way parcel into two separate lots. Later, on appeal, the council sided with the commission and Keach lost.
Mary Lou Blackwood, hard charging executive vice president of the Chamber of Commerce for the past 12 years, and a fixture on the Malibu business and political scene, decided it was time to call it quits. We’ll all miss her Texas twang, which never went away despite the fact she lived in Malibu since 1973.
September
A large 1,640-acre tract of land at the corner of the Pacific Coast Highway and Topanga Canyon, which includes commercial property on PCH housing the Topanga Ranch Market, Topanga Ranch Motel, the Reel Inn Restaurant, Something Fishy Sushi Restaurant, Oasis Furniture and the Feed Bin, as well as hundreds of acres up into the canyon, along the creek, are up for sale and a deal is in the works. The property, owned by the Los Angeles Athletic Club parent company, has been up for sale before, but this time it could happen because the state has $40 million budgeted from the recently passed $2.1 billion Park Bond Act to make the purchase.
An acrimonious dispute in the Malibu Stage Company between a number of board members and the reputedly difficult artistic director Charles Marowitz broke out onto the front pages of newspapers when 8 of the 12 board members resigned en masse. It is apparently the fifth time such a mass defection has taken place in the 10-year history of the organization. Some of the resigning directors charged that Marowitz had consistently been abusive and insulting to the board and friends of the company. Marowitz did not see it that way and shot back a fax to The Malibu Times saying, “The recent board of the Malibu Stage Company, led by a cabal of five disruptive members, has, over the past 18 months, attempted a hostile takeover of the theater.”
In the ever-changing political scene in Malibu, recently-appointed Malibu City Manager Marilyn Leuck, handed in her resignation after barely a couple of months on the job. She released a joint statement with the council stating the parting was mutual. According to observers, it really was due to “irreconcilable differences,” apparently, about the role of the city manager. Even more shocking was the rehiring of Christi Hogin, former Malibu city attorney, as the replacement interim city manager. Hogin had been forced out a year earlier as city attorney with a $250,000 goodbye package. One of those pushing had been Mayor Tom Hasse, but the city manager resignation created a crisis, so Hogin and Hasse met, decided they could overcome their past differences and work together, and Hogin was unanimously accepted back. Of course, in the interim, there had been an election, and Keller and Van Horn were now gone.
Malibu schools opened, and, like the rest of Southern California, enrollments were up at all local schools. Webster and Cabrillo had waiting lists in several grades and the Point Dume Marine Science School is rapidly reaching its physical capacity. Malibu High School has 1,180 students enrolled in grades 6 through 12.
October
In a clear indication that Malibu septic problems may be worsening, and also that there is increased political pressure from both the state and the Regional Water Quality Control Board, the City of Malibu served a 60-day letter on both the Malibu Bay Company and Koss Real Estate Investments. Both are owners of a significant portion of Civic Center real estate. The letter from the city said they had to clean up their systems, come up with a plan, or start pumping daily.
Former Pepperdine student Daim Blanton took a gold in two-man team beach volleyball at the 2000 Olympics in Australia. He and his partner upset a Brazilian team they had not been able to beat in four previous matches.
The public schools of Malibu performed well in the Academic Performance Index (API), often referred to as the Stanford 9 tests. The results were:
Spring 1999 Spring 2000
Malibu High School 793 799
Webster Elementary 824 873
Pt. Dume Elementary 856 901
Juan Cabrillo Elementary
792 837
The City Council was grappling with the question about whether they want to sue the State of California over a bill passed late in session called AB 988. AB 988 takes away power from Malibu to write its own Local Coastal Plan and gives it, instead, to the California Coastal Commission. The bill, co-authored by Senator John Burton, president pro tem, and Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, and signed by Gov. Gray Davis, puts the three most powerful political leaders of the state in opposition to the City of Malibu. The council was considering whether they wanted to risk turning a defeat into a disaster.
Malibu got a new postmaster, Mary Jane Smith, who remembers first coming to Malibu to surf, and now returns after 22 years in the postal business to run the Malibu operation at its four locations; Pt. Dume, La Costa, the annex and the Main office in the Colony Plaza Center, near Ralphs. Smith comes from a post office family. Her husband, Joel, is postmaster in Agoura.
November
A battle that’s been raging for years on Lechuza Beach between developer Norm Haynie and the California Coastal Commission, who has been denying him permits to build on his 21 beachfront lots and three inland parcels, looked, for a brief moment, like it might settle. Haynie agreed to sell the land to the state, and the Santa Monica Coastal Conservancy budgeted $10 million to purchase the property. However, the local homeowner’s association wasn’t happy and has gone to court to try and block the sale.
Malibu went to the polls to vote on two dueling propositions, both of which had to do with commercial development. In a very close race, Proposition N, backed by the City Council, edged out rival Proposition P (the Right-to-Vote on Development Initiative), but only by a razor-thin margin –100 votes or so. After a later recount, Prop P, which was originally thought to have lost by six votes, actually ended up passing by eight votes, but still did not have enough votes to overcome Prop N’s lead. This means Prop N is now law and some time in the future Malibu will get to vote on the proposed Malibu Bay Company development deal. It also means Prop P is dead, unless some court rules otherwise. Prop O, the advisory on the $15 million park facility bond issue collected 58 percent of the vote, which means there will probably be a real bond issue, not just an advisory on a future ballot.
Big dollar politics have come to Malibu with the propositions race setting a dollar record for a Malibu election. The proponents of Proposition N spent more than $125,000 and those pushing Proposition P spent about $100,000.
In other races; for the two years left on the City Council term of the late Harry Barovsky, his widow, Sharon Barovsky, beat newcomer Rob Roy Van de Hoek. de Hoek had the backing of the entire pro-Prop P crowd, in a race that was closer than anyone predicted. Pepperdine professor Michael Jordan swept into office, easily finishing first in the field for a seat on the Santa Monica-Malibu School District Board, and, with Pam Brady, becoming the second Malibu person on the board. Proposition Y, the school Parcel Tax measure, passed districtwide, overwhelmingly in Malibu. Brad Sherman was reelected to Congress, Sheila Kuehl to the State Senate, Fran Pavley to the State Assembly, and new District Attorney Steve Cooley clobbered Gil Garcetti in Malibu and countywide.
The Code Enforcement Task Force, a group of appointed citizens meeting every week for a number of months, has been struggling mightily over Malibu’s code enforcement problems and trying to find some consensus. They finally ended by agreeing to disagree on some of the basics and sent both a majority and minority report to the council. If the council had hoped to find an outside consensus about what to do, it’s apparently back to the drawing board, because some of the questions, like whether or not to get rid of the code enforcement officer position or what to do about substandard rentals, is one the council is definitely going to have to decide.
Heal the Bay issued their Summer Beach Report Card, and most county beaches were in worse shape than the year before. Once again, Malibu Beaches didn’t do very well. An accusing finger has been pointed at a number of sources, including Malibu’s septic systems, canyon runoff, Tapia discharges, Pepperdine emergency water dumping, and a variety of animals and humans living along the creek. The state and the Regional Water Quality Control Board are on Malibu to do something. In case the city balks, there is the recently passed and signed AB 885, which shifts control of onsite sewage (septics) to the state and RWQCB. The message is, “You fix it or we’ll fix it and you might not like our fix.”
December
The holiday season began with the re-opening of the Malibu Crche, now in its 40-plus year, having first begun in 1958. Malibu holiday season has always been ecumenical, and the first event of the season is a Thanksgiving morning interfaith service, which rotates to a different church or synagogue location each year.
In keeping with the interfaith tradition, two of Southern California’s larger real estate companies agreed to merge. Fred Sands Real Estate, after 31 years, is joining forces with Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, in a new operation, which will use the Coldwell Banker name after a phase-in period. The newly-merged company is now the largest real estate operation in Malibu, and in the west side of Los Angeles.
The City of Malibu got together with all the landowners in the Civic Center area so they could see each other’s plans and try to figure out a way to work cooperatively with each other and the city over things like roads and sewage and such. The problem is, the old City Council killed the proposed Civic Center Specific Plan, which had been a couple of years and many dollars in the making. And, for now, everyone is doing their own thing. Vacancies are low and commercial land is in short supply, so everyone appears to be moving forward at the same time and the city’s worried.
Coming off a banner real estate year, a recently merged, excited, and somewhat apprehensive group of Malibu Realtors elected Beverly Taki as their new president and awarded Michael Novotny, of Fred Sands, the coveted Realtor of the Year Award. The Malibu Chamber of Commerce also has a change of leadership and hired Catherine Garcia as its new executive vice president to replace recently departed Mary Lou Blackwood.