After hearing he and wife Michele are two of this year’s Dolphin Awards recipients, Rob Reiner had one question.
“What the hell for?”
He has a point. The newspaper that publicly opposed Measure R is now honoring its leaders for committing their personal funds, time and reputations to lead a community effort to place Measure R, which allows residents to take a stance on major developments, on the November 2014 ballot. The measure passed with nearly 60 percent voter approval. Despite a heated campaign season, the Reiners and their team of advocates campaigned until the last ballot was cast.
“This award is certainly not about me,” Rob said. “This award is for the people who voted for Measure R and who are trying to keep Malibu true to its mission statement by fighting hard to preserve its rural way of life. I’m not a big awards person but what I do care about is keeping people engaged and aware of what it is we want to do for the community, which is empowering the voters in Malibu with the opportunity to have some say in the future and destiny of their community.”
Rob says the idea to create the measure began a few years ago when he noticed the former Malibu Lumber Yard was replaced with a shopping mall, and when Michele saw story poles for what was supposed to be a new hotel near Pepperdine. The couple then began to educate themselves on the large, looming wave of development that would flood Malibu, particularly its Civic Center area, and threaten the uniquely rural character the city’s own mission statement seeks to protect.
“I basically saw Malibu about to be overrun and I felt very strongly that we had to do something about it,” Michele said.
The Reiners are no strangers to political activism.
The couple was also the main backer in the Supreme Court case that saw California’s Prop 8 overturned, a historic victory in the national fight for the legalization of gay marriage. Additionally, Rob chaired the campaign to pass Prop 10, the California Children and Families Initiative, which created First 5 California, a program of early childhood development services, funded by a tax on tobacco products.
The Reiners cite the environment and young children as the causes to which they are most committed. In fact, their passion for wanting to right the wrongs they see in the world stems from their own childhoods. “It was the way I was brought up,” Rob said, recounting both of his parents’ political activism in opposition to the U.S. war in Vietnam and as outspoken proponents of the Civil Rights Movement. “These things were always talked about in our house.”
The husband-wife duo makes a great team, with Michele identifying causes and Rob strategizing ways to fix them.
“A lot of people use celebrity to raise awareness about things and I think that’s good,” he said. “But for me, the satisfaction is not just raising awareness, it’s also affecting change. You have to have a political strategy to move it forward. Awareness and strategy have to work together on a path to move forward to ensure success.”
It’s this humble authenticity that so many Malibu residents have come to respect and admire about the Reiners.
“We were just the faces of the people who have been struggling with this issue for many years,” Michele said. “I’m glad we could bring it to the forefront.”