From the Editor / Arnold G. York
Well the California Supreme Court clearly settled the fight. The justices refused to even consider reversing the Court of Appeal decision that kept Sharon Barovsky on the April 11 ballot. So she is now officially and legally running for reelection to city council, much to the chagrin of the spinmeisters, who tried to convince us otherwise.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where many people create their own reality when they don’t like the one they see.
I’ve been watching city councils come and go since 1991, when we became a city and, in my judgment, this city council is probably among the best we’ve ever had. The current council is composed of five people reasonably well grounded in reality with a pretty good background of experience, and they all work hard at doing the job of being a councilperson. It’s a very collegial group, with no one member dominating, and most of their decisions are pretty much consensus and, to my judgment, seem to be well thought out. True, they’ve had trouble holding staff, but that should come as no great surprise. As a long article in Monday’s Los Angeles Times about Santa Barbara indicated, all the affluent beach cities have about the same problem. None of our staffers can afford to live here and usually have to drive long distances to get to work, and typically once they get an opportunity to work closer to home, they jump ship. Frankly, who can blame them?
Despite this, the council has accomplished some major things for which it can well be proud.
First and foremost, we are in the process of buying the 20 acres in the middle of our city, on what’s called the Chili Cook-Off site. It’s a wonderful thing because for generations to come we will have a central park square in the middle of the Civic Center. It’s going to have ponds, a creek, trees, walking paths and who knows what else. We’re going to have that instead of another shopping center. It’s this council that made that happen, and it took guts. The council members put themselves out on a limb. They hung in there when it was far from clear if we could raise the necessary $25 million to make this happen. You might think that people who didn’t want to see development in the Civic Center would be delighted. But you’d be wrong because not only are they not delighted, au contraire, they’re furious. Truthfully, I’m not sure why. As near as I can tell from listening to them, they’re furious because this council did what they could not do.
Then there is the issue of the ball fields at Bluffs Park. Bluffs Park was owned by the state of California, and as far as the California Department of Parks and Recreation was concerned, they wanted our ball fields off their land, and the sooner the better.
Now there is a whole back-story that goes with the ball fields. At one time the Little League ball fields were located at what is now the lagoon next to the Malibu Colony. The state wanted that area back for a preserve; brawls and lawsuits followed, and our Little Leaguers made numerous trips downtown to try and save their fields. Ultimately, then Gov. Jerry Brown sent his then-chief of staff, a young man by the name of Gray Davis, to cut a deal between the state and the Malibu Little League, which they did. The league moved up the hill to Bluffs Parks. It was never 100 percent clear whether that move was permanent or temporary, and it wasn’t until years later that that question came to a boil. The state insisted it was only meant to be a temporary fix, but the city council hung tough. In fact, a sequence of city councils hung tough and kept negotiating. Well, ultimately, this council managed to do it. They closed the deal whereby we get to buy the ball fields from the state and they become the property of the city of Malibu so no one can ever kick us off again. It took guts, it took perseverance, it took a little bit of luck and it took a shift in the political climate, but they pulled it off and generations of Little Leaguers and soccer players now have a permanent field, plus the Michael Landon Community Center.
It’s been my observation that councils that can work together can get things done, while councils that are split, particularly if the splits are acrimonious, accomplish very little. We’re fortunate. This council works well together and I think because of it they’ve been able to accomplish a great deal, and Chili Cook-off and Bluffs Park are just some of the evidence of what they’ve been able to do.