MAY
• The death toll on PCH continued and a 45-year-old man was killed near Topanga Canyon when his motorcycle was struck by an alleged drunk driver turning left coming out of the parking lot of Mastro’s Ocean House.
• Ozzie Silna, a well-known local personality and political activist, died aged 83 at Cedars Sinai hospital. Silna, a longtime community member and local philanthropist, had generously contributed toward many local causes and organizations over the years.
• The embattled Santa Monica-Malibu school superintendent Sandra Lyon announced she was leaving the district and moving down to the warmer and possibly less contentious climes of the Palm Springs Unified School District — where she probably won’t have to deal with PCBs, district separation advocates and Malibu parents.
• Reports of a shooting in the unincorporated Malibu area just above Las Flores Canyon turned out to be a suicide by an unknown Caucasian male, according to the homicide detective who responded to the call.
• A boat caught fire just off the Malibu coast near Neptune’s Net restaurant. The occupants, two people and one dog, were successfully rescued out of the water, but the boat burned down to the waterline and couldn’t be saved
• The long debated Malibu Wastewater Treatment Facility — the Malibu sewer, if you prefer plain English — began, with $47,372,466 for the first phase of construction, plus $4 million for the land. The project ultimately will be funded by low interest loans from the state, grants and assessments from the users. For the foreseeable future, the Civic Center and adjacent Winter Canyon will see a large amount of construction activity, and probably traffic delays during the construction of the plant and digging for all of the piping.
