Be careful: Malibu City Council’s 2015 pot shop decisions could give you some serious whiplash.
On Monday, council voted 4-1 to change its mind on a July 13 decision denying a conditional use permit (CUP) to Malibu Community Collective (MCC) and its owner, Steve Braverman, instead sending the item back to the Planning Commission — a governing body which approved the CUP earlier this year. Council Member Lou La Monte was the sole dissenting vote.
Rather than accept the decision it directed city staff to draw up two weeks ago, council threw the shops back to the commission, extending a process which has already stretched on since Braverman’s first application in April 2014. This was in the face of serious pressure from both Braverman and his attorney, Joseph Yanny, as well as several speakers who came out to support the proposed dispensary.
“The only one that’s going to make out from this is going to be me, my firm and [City Attorney Christi Hogin’s] firm. The losers are going to be the taxpayers of Malibu,” Yanny said, threatening a future lawsuit. “Mr. Braverman and his MCC will win, and the only ones who will lose will be the taxpayers of Malibu, because they will have to pay the expenses, as they always do.”
According to allegations from Yanny and Braverman, the council’s decision was swayed by accusations MCC forged a document, rather than complaints over location, such as the city claimed.
The staff report for the meeting recommended the permit be denied on the grounds that the site is “not physically suitable … due to the immediate proximity of the liquor store, its location right off the highway and the configuration of the site,” “not compatible with the land uses presently on the site,” and “would be detrimental to the public interest, health, safety, convenience and welfare.”
Braverman claimed those reasons were “rather silly,” and compared MCC to the other pot shop currently operating in Malibu.
“I don’t see any difference between us and 99 High Tide for any of those three reasons,” Braverman said.
In the end, council agreed, though council members chastised Yanny for his comments.
“I would advise you when you come before a body that you have your facts correct,” Council Member Laura Rosenthal told Yanny.
When asked if it was a threat of legal action that made council retract its denial of Braverman’s CUP, Mayor John Sibert told The Malibu Times that was absolutely not the case.
“No,” Sibert said. “I don’t respond to those kinds of threats.
“There were arguments made — not by Mr. Yanny — but there were arguments that made me think it should be revisited,” Sibert elaborated.
Civic Center sewer ballots scrapped
Assistant City Manager Reva Feldman announced Monday that ballots sent out to the 57 property owners within the Civic Center Sewer Phase One District had to be scrapped, following “ballot discrepancies.” Officials claim the process of discarding old ballots and mailing out new ones would not significantly impact the timeline of the project.
City Manager Jim Thorsen explained, “after the ballots were mailed, we determined that there was a different methodology that was better.”
The methodology includes a different estimate for biological oxygen demand, a factor in the breakdown of sewage, as well as updated estimates for the cost of the project.
“We went in and corrected the estimated amount in our total bid package to accurately reflect what we’re going to be paying for the [land] parcels we’re acquiring,” Thorsen told The Malibu Times.
“It helps everybody make sure we’ve got the right numbers in the ballots that go out.”
The new estimated cost, said Thorsen, is about $2 million less for the land parcels, and another $1 million less for the assessment district. According to city documents, the estimated cost before these adjustments was $39.7 million for phase one of the project.
Thorsen explained that all landowners received a letter explaining the ballot issue, and that many also received phone calls from the city to avoid confusion
Minimum wage increase considered
The City of Malibu is considering a gradual minimum wage increase that will mirror the law recently adopted by Los Angeles County and the City of Los Angeles.
Council Monday unanimously approved a motion to have city staff write an ordinance for a proposed increase, which could see minimum wage in the city gradually increase up to $15.79 in 2019, despite some concern from stakeholders.
“If we insert ourselves … we are going to have an impact on the ability for young people to get a job,” local development consultant Don Schmitz said, worried that residents from outside Malibu would come in to take high paying, low-skill jobs designed for young people.
“Our teenagers are great,” Rosenthal replied. “They can compete with whomever they need to compete with.”
City Council Member Skylar Peak agreed. “I think for a place like Malibu to go against something like this would not be sending the right message,” Peak said.