The 2010 council election-an overview
In April of this year, earlier if you vote absentee, as does about one half of Malibu, we’ll all be casting a ballot for two open seats on the city council. Mayor Sharon Barovsky and Councilmember Andy Stern are termed out, so with no incumbents in this race there has been a mad scramble by many would-be council members to jump into the contest.
A few-John Mazza, Ed Gillespie and Harold Greene-have run before with varying degrees of success. But they’ve all run in races with incumbents, which is always a bit of an uphill struggle. There are a number of new faces in the race; some are longtime community activists and some are totally new faces. They include: Lou La Monte, Laura Rosenthal, Steve Scheinkman, Mike Sidley, Kofi, Matthew Katz and Jan Swift. Although Malibu does not officially have political parties, there are two main groups in Malibu supporting candidates and then a number of independents running separately.
Two of the candidates, Rosenthal and La Monte, are running with the blessing of some of the current council members – Barovsky, Stern and John Sibert-as well as with the support of former Councilmember Jeff Jennings. Mazza and Scheinkman are running on the party ticket headed by Ozzie Silna and Steve Uhring, and several others who have served on city commissions.
The thing that makes this race a little different is there are a number of unaffiliated independents running-Gillespie, Greene, Sidley, Kofi, Katz and Swift-and it’s far from clear how it will all play out.
I suspect there are a number of issues that are going to rise to the surface in this race, and the question of how future councils should handle these issues. They might include:
– The prohibition on septic systems in the Civic Center imposed by the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, which appears to be dead-set on imposing some sort of sewer system on Malibu. This not only impacts the Civic Center area, but also the communities around it, including: Serra Retreat; Malibu Knolls; all of the condo projects bordering the Civic Center; the Malibu Colony and part of Malibu Road; the Sweetwater Mesa area; the commercial center of Malibu and Winter canyons, which impacts Webster Elementary School and Our Lady of Malibu Church and School, and also the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
– Issues involving Malibu High School and Middle School revolving around parking, traffic and safety, and the lights on the athletic fields.
– School finances in a very tough budget year of which the district parcel tax will be a hot topic.
– The development of the Malibu Lumber Yard and the partial rent deferral given to the mall owners, and the conflicts the city has as a owner and a landlord, as well as a regulator; all happening in a bad economy.
– The city’s purchase of the Malibu Performing Arts Center and its transformation into a new city hall; the problems that arise in trying to maintain a performance space at the same time the building would serve its primary function as a city hall.
– The explosive issue of a viewshed ordinance and all the issues of equity, enforcement problems and how to avoid getting the city involved in every back fence neighborhood dispute.
– The presence of many rehabilitation facilities in the city, particularly in certain neighborhoods where they are clustered, and impacts on those neighborhoods.
– Trancas area development, involving the Trancas shopping mall and the highly contentious issue of Trancas Park’s fields and the fight to limit its use.
– Traffic enforcement on Pacific Coast Highway: too much or too little and the use of motorcycles to ticket vehicles in what many think is a speed trap.
– A potential retail ordinance to try and keep out or limit chain stores and some of the difficulties involved in try to decide just what is a chain store, and then how to constitutionally regulate those businesses.
– Litigation. Who we sue and who we settle with, and why and whether we’re doing the right thing.
– Lastly, many of the issues I’ve identified involve other government entities-the federal government, the state and all its multitudinous agencies like the Coastal Commission, the Regional Water Quality Control Board and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, the County of Los Angles and also many people who are part of the greater Malibu area but actually live outside of the city, although their only access is through roads that originate in the city. The role of the city council members in relating to those agencies and also many of the nonprofits like Heal the Bay, Santa Monica Baykeeper, the Sierra Club, several of whom have sued the city to try and block us or push us into something they want, will be critical in the coming years on the council.
There are some issues I left out that may in the course of the campaign become significant and others that just might drop off the table.
What we can be sure of is that this is an important election. For the last decade or so the council has been very stable, which has enabled them, to my mind, to be very productive. But term limits are changing that. Whoever wins, a new majority will be on the council and the big unknown is where they want to take us and whether it’s a good idea. That’s what this election is all about.