Arnold G. York
A new council, and a close call
The new council was sworn in Monday night, and narrowly avoided a train wreck. A battle had been brewing all week over who was going to be the next mayor. Under the old rotation plan, it wouldn’t have been Pam Conley Ulich, but, instead, one of the other council members. Ulich’s supporters felt this wasn’t fair, as she was the top vote getter, and felt she should go first. There was some heavy negotiation going on all week because everyone was somewhat reluctant to start the new council with a knockdown, drag-out battle over the next mayoralty spot, which, in large measure, is purely ceremonial, but still clearly important to everyone involved. If it had come to a showdown, it probably would have been Ulich and Jefferson Wagner on one side, and Sharon Barovsky and Andy Stern on the other, with John Sibert as the tiebreaker. Whichever way the vote went, it would have left a residue of bitterness and might have hardened a split on the council. Ultimately, they worked out a deal so Ulich, Barovsky and Stern would all have an opportunity to be mayor over the next two years. They did it by shortening the mayor’s term and agreeing that Ulich would go first. They had reached the Rubicon and they had managed to cross it without drowning, which was a positive sign because, clearly, this new council is not of one mind on certain issues, as was the previous council.
The city council election itself was also a bit different. There were really three separate factions. Ulich ran as an independent. Sibert and Kathy Wisnicki ran as a team. Wagner and Susan Tellem ran as a team, and the Malibu voters split the ballot, picking one from column A, one from column B and one from column C, which is not terribly different than what the statewide electorate has been doing.
In the past few Malibu elections, there had been two separate slates running, and the winners typically all came from one slate. But this time it was different.
Ulich, who originally won the 2004 election with the support of the Barovsky-Stern-Ken Kearsley group, moved away from them and their choices, and ran as more of an independent. She made peace with the Ozzie Silna factions, who were backing Wagner and Tellem, and it was not unusual to see lawn signs that were for Ulich- Wagner-Tellem at some houses and Ulich-Sibert-Wisnicki at other homes. With approval from both coalitions, Ulich was the top vote getter and easily won re-election.
Other things have been changing also.
For one thing, the electorate is slowly shrinking. There were fewer registered voters in the 2008 than there were four years ago. In the election of 2002, Malibu had 9,011 registered voters. In 2004 that shrank to 8,779 registered voters. In 2006 it shrank to 8,418 registered voters. Last week, for the fourth election in a row, we again had fewer registered voters. This time we were down to 8,280 registered voters.
That is just the registered voters. The number of registered voters who actually cast a ballot has also been shrinking. Last time we had three open seats, 40.6 percent of the registered Malibu voters went to the polls. This time it was a 35 percent turnout. Next time, in 2012, who knows what the turnout will be, maybe 30 percent?
The strangest part is that the elections have been close, and the absences of those voters have been felt keenly. For example, Wisnicki lost to Sibert by only 24 votes.
I know that Malibu is not shrinking. We haven’t grown a great deal, but I suspect there are more people now than there were in 2002. There certainly seems to be fewer parking spaces. I can only surmise that residents are less interested in the council and politics than before, but I’m not quite sure why.
There are a number of other things that have changed in our elections. For one thing, many more of us are voting by mail. In 2002, 30.9 percent of the Malibu voters cast ballots by mail. In this election, 50.4 percent voted by mail. From a candidate’s point of view it means they can’t wait until the last minute because by then one-half of the people have already voted. Candidates are going to have to start their campaigns earlier, and probably spend more of their own money upfront, because it’s always harder to raise money at the beginning of a campaign rather than toward the end. This isn’t just happening locally. It’s happening all over the state, which is why politicians who are good money raisers and have a big war chest become more powerful. In our world, having money to give to other campaigns is political power. Recently, some labor unions asked outgoing Assemblyspeaker Fabian Nuñez to give back some of the money they had helped him raise, since he was leaving office. As I understand it, Nuñez’s reply was unprintable.
Some other things have remained the same. The majority of Malibu voters are in the west end of Malibu. About two-thirds of the Malibu electorate lives west (some of you might say north) of Pepperdine University, and one-third of Malibu voters live south of the university. That has pretty much stayed constant during the last decade, and the voter turnout is about the same in west Malibu as it is in east Malibu.
One thing has clearly emerged, and that is term limits have changed the political world. Because officeholders now have a more limited time in office (in Malibu eight years) they are not prepared to wait, or to allow themselves to be mentored slowly. They all want to make their mark and make it quickly, so I suspect we are entering a more contentious period in Malibu politics, somewhat similar to what’s been happening on a statewide level.
Whether it’s better or worse, time alone will tell.