Attempt to block City of Malibu land plan rejected
By Arnold G. York/Publisher
The Malibu Township Council (MTC), which recently has often been critical of the current Malibu City Council, suffered a major defeat in Superior Court last week when Judge Lorna Parnell knocked out an MTC lawsuit against the city in a summary court proceeding.
The MTC had sought to get the City of Malibu’s most recent version of the Local Coastal Plan (known as the 2001 draft) thrown out and to have the court impose upon the city what was, in effect, a gag order. In handing down her decision, the judge said, in the written order, “The court in essence agrees with the defendants [City of Malibu’s] contention … that the plaintiff’s [MTC] cause of action are based upon incorrect interpretations of legal authorities.”
The legal procedure, in which the court sustained the City of Malibu’s demurrer, without leave to amend (that’s just for the lawyers), is highly unusual, since frequently trial courts try to give the losing side an opportunity to correct their pleading. But in this case, the court was clearly of the opinion that what the MTC was trying to do was not legally permissible and therefore uncorrectable.
Malibu City Attorney Christi Hogin, who represented the city in the case, said, “The message of this case is that when you have a political dispute, the place to air it out is in the council meeting … if the MTC had won, the city would have, under a court order, to only speak when spoken.”
Attorney Frank Angel, who represented the Malibu Township Council, did not agree with either the court’s ruling or the city attorney’s interpretation of what it meant. He thought that AB 988, the bill that passed last year giving the power to the California Coastal Commission to draft Malibu’s LCP, essentially took the city out of the LCP game and relegated it to the sidelines. Although Angel conceded that part of the problem is the bill was poorly drafted and unclear, and thusly open to interpretation. He said the MTC sued because it sought to avoid the current situation where there are now two pending LCPs, the Coastal Commission’s version and the City of Malibu’s version, which, he believes, creates confusion. He said the MTC is extremely disappointed with the judge’s decision because MTC members felt it was a decision on a question that was not tough legally, just tough politically. He expects to meet shortly with the board of directors of the MTC to lay out all their options, which include the possibility of an appeal to a higher court, and get a decision on how to proceed.
Standing alone, the decision might not mean that much. However, the MTC lawsuit is joined by a group of other lawsuits, most from the green side of the environmental spectrum, and all appear to want to do the same thing-that is, tie the hands of the present City Council and keep it from exercising its political judgment in land-use matters.
Even if the MTC were to decide not to appeal, it would not end the legal challenges by the opposition to block the latest City of Malibu version (2001 draft) of the LCP.
There is another lawsuit coming up, filed by yet another group called Taxpayers for a Livable Community and by Malibu resident Jay Liebig. Liebig has been an activist in the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy coalition, which is seeking to stop the city from going ahead with the city’s LCP, and, in fact, wants the court to throw out the latest version (version 2001) and order the city to go back to the earlier version, which was drafted by the old Walt Keller/Carolyn Van Horn forces. That earlier version was unceremoniously dumped after Keller and Van Horn lost their elections. The reason it was dumped was never quite clear, although opponents claim the city told the Coastal Commission to dump it and the city charges that the Coastal Commission never considered it [the earlier LCP version] because it was inadequate.
Following the Taxpayers/Liebig lawsuit is yet another that seeks to force the City Council to reinstate Proposition P from the last election. You may recall that Proposition N (the City Council initiative) passed, and got more votes than Proposition and P and, since both ballot propositions contained a so-called “poison pill,” it was thought at the time it meant that N won and P lost. The enviro forces pushing Prop P apparently feel otherwise and are not about to go down without a legal battle royal and the case is probably enroute to the Court of Appeals.
It’s beginning to look like the issues raised in Malibu elections are never finished until a court says they’re finished, and that’s after years of appeals.
The interesting question is, who’s paying for all of this litigation? Most of the lawyers involved are first-rate political and environmental litigation types and they don’t come cheap. Someone or a group of someone’s is footing the legal bills, and many of these legal bills have got to add up to a lot more than it would cost to run for office.