The State Department of Parks and Recreation and the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers came down to the City Council on Monday to lay out the various options they are considering to get rid of the Rindge Dam, which is a couple of miles up Malibu Creek from PCH. Judging from the people who showed up and the general level of skepticism on the Malibu City Council, they’ve got a long way to go to convince the locals this is a good idea. But nothing is going to happen very quickly, and they’re talking about a public workshop or perhaps two this summer.
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Drug and rehabilitation facilities, of which there are reportedly at least 40-plus in Malibu, are being advertised on national TV as the place to come for a high-end, 4-star recovery environment with an ocean view and proven results. The latest entrant into the rehab business seems to be actor Matthew Perry, formerly of the TV show “Friends,” who, according to the most recent issue of People magazine, has decided to turn his Malibu home into a sober living facility. Needless to say, some of his neighbors are not exactly overjoyed at the prospect, but I think it’s a capital idea because since the recidivism rate is such that many addicts go through rehab several times before breaking free of the habit, it makes imminent sense to turn your home into a rehab facility. The upside is you probably would get a big discount on the price, and at $40,000 to $70,000 per month that’s not small change.
You’d also get a chance to invite your friends, many of whom are probably going to be going through rehab at one time or another. And for the rest of us unwashed, but strung-out masses, we’d get a chance to rub shoulders with Hollywood and TV glitterati, which would certainly be worth the price of admission. The thought of all those celebs like Lindsey Lohan, both in rehab and in the rehab business at the same time, and earning lots of money simultaneously, why, it could turn into a growth industry.
The city and the neighbors are going to be upset, but that really doesn’t matter because it’s the state law that governs. The cities don’t have much say if the facilities stay within the state-set rules; although the brewing battle in Malibu is the charge that many of the facilities are not staying within the rules and, in fact, are exceeding the six beds per facility allowed.
Rehab is a big industry here in Malibu. Just do the arithmetic. If there are 40 facilities with 6 patients in each who are paying, let’s say, an average $50,000 per month, that adds up to $12 million in gross revenue per month. Multiply that by 12 months and we have easily a $100 million-plus, per-year industry, in our little town. And with those kind of dollars in play you can expect a lot of expensive lobbyists and lawyers getting into this fight.
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Rehabilitation seems to be in the news these days, except this time it’s a different kind of rehabilitation, the rehabilitation of disgraced politicians. There was a time when disgraced politicians would just slink away and no one would ever think of bringing them back, but not anymore. Apparently we now love repentant sinners and not only are we prepared to forgive, but also to re-elect. First the former South Carolina governor, Mark Sanford, who told the world he was off walking the Appalachian trail and apparently lost his way and ended up going farther south then he had originally planned, to Argentina to be with his girlfriend, just managed to get himself elected to the Congress. Clearly that gave encouragement to several other repentant sinners. Next, former New York Congressman Anthony Weiner of Weiner’s wiener fame, decided that time is ripe for a comeback. Nothing so lowly as a seat in Congress for him; no, he’s going for the big time, mayor of New York City. Sadly, the brains of New Yorkers seemed to have softened since I left the Big Apple and, much to my amazement, Weiner is actually running well in the polls.
Now, former Gov. Eliot Spitzer has decided to run for New York City Comptroller. At least his ambition is more modest than Weiner’s and he can say “I’m starting over.” But the headline in the New York Post, in an amazing show of brevity, put it all into four words: “HERE WE HO AGAIN.”