Our president returned from his Middle East / European trip and, as is his custom, declared a total victory crowing at how he had made new friends. He also did manage in a mere nine days to first practically declare a Mideast anti-terrorism deal by cementing our relationship with Saudi Arabia, one of the major state sponsors of terrorism, then managed to offend the Germans to the point that Angela Merkel said to her nation that Europe has to take care of itself and couldn’t rely on others (meaning the USA). He convinced the rest of NATO we were an uncertain ally when he refused to mention Article V (which says we all stand together if anyone in NATO is attacked). In case any of them missed the message, he further attacked the Europeans for not spending enough on defense, got into a macho arm wrestling match with new French president Macron and boorishly pushed aside the prime minister of Montenegro to be in front for the photo op. Then, to cap it off, while in Italy he kind of (we will soon know for sure) turned his back on the Paris Climate Accords. All and all it was an incredibly impactful trip.
Locally, there are a bunch of things happening.
• The Civic Center sewer project (really, let’s call it what it is) seems to be proceeding on schedule and on budget, which is impressive. The big issue is what it’s going to cost the individual homeowners.
• The council is looking at extending new rules relating to septic systems, which some fear will increase expenses significantly to many homeowners in Malibu and push some on limited incomes out of Malibu all together.
• The council stirred up a hornet’s nest when they refused to do an EIR on Bluffs Park, effectively shutting the door on any additional ball fields, a community center, perhaps a swimming pool and other amenities. The opposition is already forming and have resurrected a group called PARCS, which will be out in Malibu gathering allies, raising money and pushing the council to look again at its decision to declare a full stop, or alternatively running people for council or perhaps creating a ballot proposition appealing to people who share their community philosophy.
• For those of you who are having problems with a rehab facility in your neighborhoods, it’s worth reading an enlightening series of articles done in the Orange County Register entitled “Our Broken Rehab System.” It turns out Malibu contains one of the highest per-capita concentrations of alcohol and drug rehab facilities and also sober living houses in California. We seem to be the top of the heap with 47 rehab facilities in a population of 12,861. Second is Costa Mesa with 102 facilities but in a population of 112,174. Most of the rehabs are on the coast, but inland gets some of its share also. Apparently rehab facilities are a very profitable growth industry in Southern California and raise all sorts of problems for cities and counties where they reside. (see OrangeCountyRegister.com/rehabs).
• Jerry Perenchio died this past week at the age of 86. He was a very interesting, talented and complicated guy who had a home here, had strong feelings for Malibu and was the owner of the Malibu Bay Company, which was (and probably still is) one of our largest land owners. Originally, the land had belonged to the Crummer family, who sold it to a partnership of Perenchio and the Konheim family and ultimately Perenchio bought out the Konheims. In all the years I’ve had the newspaper I never met Jerry Perenchio, who was famously press shy and did not like interviews. I once asked someone close to him to try and set up an interview and the response was, “Why would I do that? He’s just going to ask me questions I don’t want to answer.” He was often bad mouthed locally and I felt that was unfair. From what I could see he kind of liked Malibu as it was and had little need to develop anything. When he sold the city Legacy Park it was for way less than it was worth because it included several pieces of income property, which produced enough income to cover the cost of buying the property — and, in fact, in time threw off a surplus of income. It’s not that he didn’t know this. He gave the city a year to raise the money and we did and bought it. As time passes and rents go up, it will turn out to be one of the financial backbones of the city because of the participation leases. This city owes his memory a debt of thanks.