I thought I’d be able to report in this column that the LA County Fire Department was going to relax its standards for water flow in Malibu so that many people in the canyons who were burned out would be able to rebuild. That’s what we were told at the Business Roundtable meeting just last Friday—we all thought the matter had been decided. In writing our story about it for this week’s newspaper, we have been calling around to confirm the standards have been relaxed, but we can’t seem to get a solid confirmation that is the case.
Perhaps a bit of background will help. Our Supervisor Sheila Kuehl, who is one of five on the LA County Board of Supervisors, came out here to Malibu and Calabasas, holding what she called listening meetings to hear what her constituents had to say about the fire and the county’s subsequent response. But in politics, it means more than “she’s just listening.” She’s communicating to us, her constituents, that she has our backs. And equally as important, she’s communicating to the county employees—particularly the fire department, the sheriff’s department and the Department of Public Works—that helping the rebuilding is a high priority to her and that she wants them all to know it. So why is it that we’re having problems getting a confirmation about water flow?
It may mean nothing more than they are trying to draft some rules and it’s taking a bit of time. It may mean the Fire Department really doesn’t want to change the rules and it is stalling new changes. Bureaucracies have lots of ways to push back. Easiest, of course, is to say the change is too dangerous and will put lives at risk. Maybe the department claims it doesn’t have the equipment or firefighters to change the rules. Maybe it wants a commitment for more budget dollars. Or perhaps the new rule has to be fine-tuned to various areas and it needs more time to research it. Now I don’t say this is happening now, but I’ve seen this all before so I’m a bit skeptical.
The basic water issue is the LA County Fire Department requires properties have a fire flow of 1,250 gallons per minute for two hours in order to get an approval. Without that approval, you can’t get a permit to rebuild. Practically none of our canyon homes can currently meet that standard. For one thing, the pipes are too small to carry that much water. The water pressure is also inadequate. There are insufficient water storage tanks. And even if they wanted to, Waterworks District 29—the LA County agency that provides our water—doesn’t have the ability or storage to produce that kind of water flow. In other words, the standard is impossible to meet. The state, on the other hand, only requires a water flow of 500 gallons per minute for 60 minutes—most of our canyon properties could meet that standard. We were told, or perhaps surmised, the LA County Fire Department was going to adopt the state standard, but so far, no confirmation and every rebuilding up in the canyons is stalled (temporarily, we hope).
P.S. After writing this column we got this email from a spokesperson for Supervisor Sheila Kuehl: “Our office is working with Waterworks 29 and the county fire department to determine what the water flow requirements should be. We are confident that the standard we agree on will allow rebuilding. And our intention is to make like-for-like rebuilding possible.”
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While this is all going on in the county, our City Council has decided to take action with a loss of 433 or so homes in the City of Malibu and all together, a total of about 750 homes in our area (ZIP code 90265) from the Woolsey Fire. It apparently believes this may be a good time to downsize our homes. Why, they haven’t quite explained. Currently, the 90265 ZIP code has about 18,000 people or so. We’ve lost about 750 homes in the fire, which is about 3,000 residents lost in our area—or about 17 percent of our population. I’ve been told the schools’ students are down about five percent also. We probably won’t know until the fall how badly our population has been hit. I know that in western Malibu, the businesses are in trouble with revenue down significantly, up to 30-50 percent some have estimated. Overall, our little city has taken a major hit and somehow, the council, in a 4-to-1 vote, seems to believe this is an auspicious time to pile on the rest of us. It used to be just a few fanatics like Planning Commissioners John Mazza and Steve Uhring as well as Rick Mullen on the city council who wanted to roll us back to the 1970s, or perhaps the 1950s. This fantasy desire to roll us back to a smaller, simpler time has spread; Skylar Peak, Jefferson Wagner and even Mikke Pierson have joined in. They’re doing it because they think this is what you all want, or perhaps Mullen and Peak think it will help them from getting recalled. Whatever their reason, unless people start screaming, it’s going to happen. The real estate people tell me it is going to reduce the value of our homes.
Is this what you all want?