Drive plagues council meeting
By Jonathan Friedman/Special to The Malibu Times
Before it will allow the privatization of the lower portion of Zumirez Drive, Malibu City Council needs assurance that the property owners want that to happen. The council voted Monday night to bring back the request to its March 24 meeting.
For the past year-and-a-half, Malibu residents John Mazza and Robert Adler have been leading a movement to privatize Zumirez Drive south of the Wildlife Avenue intersection. Adler said the reason for privatization is so street maintenance efficiency can be increased. A homeowner’s road association would be formed to deal with this responsibility.
“[Privatization] just let’s us maintain it the way we want to, and maintain [the road] in a timely manner …,” Adler said. “The city can’t do that. The city has other needs, other budgets, other issues.”
Mazza and Adler collected signatures on a petition from all the affected homeowners, except for one.
William Nelson, who refused to sign the petition, said that he had been contacted three times about signing it, but declined each time because he found no need for it.
This brought up a troubling issue with some of the council members. According to the staff report, and a letter written to then-Public Works Director Rick Morgan, signed by Mazza, 100 percent of the homeowners who would be affected had signed the petition.
Mayor Jeff Jennings said he was under the assumption that all the homeowners supported the road’s privatization, and he was upset to find out that was not true. Adler responded that he had never presented that to be the case, and that the staff report was incorrect. He also suggested the statement in Mazza’s letter was due to a possible misunderstanding, which sparked a hot exchange between Adler and Nelson, who said he never gave the impression to anyone he might sign the petition.
In addition, Jennings said he had heard on several occasions that the ultimate goal of privatization was to be able to gate the street, which Coastal Commission rules prohibit.
Prior to the next council meeting, the petition will be reviewed to verify that all homeowners, minus Nelson, support the road’s privatization.
In another matter, the council approved revised film permit procedures, allowing the annual 14-day filming limit to be extended to 20 days in cases of extreme circumstances such as bad weather, if 100 percent neighborhood approval is granted, the number of permitted helicopter landings is reduced. All appeals will go to the Planning Commission.
The council’s next meeting will take place at the new Council Chambers at City Hall.