Don’t be relieved or feel complacent by last week’s stories that some California Coastal Commission (CCC) members are beginning to revise their Local Coastal Plan (LCP) for Malibu. Granted a few Commissioners are now questioning staff for the first time about items like everything in Malibu not being a “public scenic resource” or splitting off some dissension by having the CCC avoid taking a position against the permanent status of Little Leaguers at Bluffs Park. This may lead to some improvements in their plan, but many bad items will undoubtedly remain as their September deadline rapidly approaches. And the main fact remains that the Commission still is embracing a mission impossible of writing it for us.
A State agency like the CCC is plainly not the appropriate governmental structure to write an LCP. The CCC has come up with a few ideas to improve our LCP and has spurred us on occasionally to think creatively; however, by and large, the CCC staff and members expectedly have repeatedly demonstrated that they do not have the knowledge of our City topography, geography, PCH problems or even the biology of our canyons and beaches or to even pronounce our places of interest let alone understand our community resources and problems.
The CCC should stop wasting its time and our tax monies and go back to its originally mandated job under the Coastal Act of providing general guidelines for a local government’s LCP. They should stop some of their key staff and Commissioners from trying to micro-manage our community often with a vengeance. It only can lead to embarrassment and/or headaches for the CCC to demand that our homes can’t be painted white, or we can’t fly two American flags, or that we must have a Caltrans style bridge across Cross Creek or we can’t landscape our homes with non-invasive non-native and native plants of our choosing, or can’t have horses or fencing that protects our pets and children, or brush clearance that protects our lives and homes, etc.
Even Commissioners as insiders to their staff’s dictating process have not and probably will not have the time or interest to read all the details and pursue all the maps of their LCP. Request these LCP and LUP drafts for yourself by calling the CCC at 805-585-1800 or getting on their web site. Try reading these hastily written documents which will supersede your City’s carefully debated and democratically adopted General Plan and Zoning Ordinances and Maps that took public notice and years of public input to complete. You will find many CCC, LCP and LUP sections are missing, still under revision, inaccurate, incomplete, and worst yet unworkable and illegal.
Yet some key CCC key staff and Commissioners are still proceeding with all speed to push through their bad plan and mission impossible on the rest of the Commission by September, only two short vacation months away. They have little to lose since they cannot be held accountable for their mistakes in court and they don’t have to pay the bills for lawyers to defend them or the bills for City and private services and liabilities that will ensue with their plan.
We need to pull together now and marshal all of our personal resources and contacts throughout the State to be effective in restoring a label of “proudly made locally” to our City LCP. Unless we succeed, there will be many harmful legal precedents set which will threaten our rights and democracy as well as California agriculture, equestrians, landscaping, nurseries, retirement funds, home values and related jobs and pleasures. All these CCC infringements are without any demonstrable or proven significant improvements to our beautiful coastal environments that we cherish and we worked for to have our City to protect.
We must convince Governor Gray Davis, State Senator John Burton and the new Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson to stop this social experiment from going further awry and to produce the basis for a win-win-win strategy for the State – CCC and local governments like the City of Malibu. Return the LCP process to the citizens and City of Malibu for at least one year of careful deliberations and a democratic adoption process. Have the CCC staff and members participate in periodic briefings.
We have good strategies and good ideas to make this truly a local LCP we can be proud of and support balancing environmental protections and personal and City rights and responsibilities. Our group, Californians for Local Coastal Planning, has done a lot of the preparation and seeks your financial and personal support to help us all succeed at having a democratic, science based LCP. Contribute today! Contact us to help at 317-8487 or via our web site californiacoastplanning.org.
Jeff Harris