As I write this on Tuesday, we’re getting ready for The Malibu Times-sponsored debate with the six city council candidates will be held on Wednesday, Sept. 21, 2016, in the city council chambers of Malibu City Hall beginning at 6:30 and ending at 8 p.m. It promises to be interesting and hopefully informative and might even get a little hot.
Beginning with this week’s newspaper, we have the first of six interviews with the candidates. Part of the interview will be in the newspaper and the entire interview on The Malibu Times website at malibutimes.com. The order in which we are interviewing the candidates was determined in a blind draw. We put all six names in a coffee mug and drew them out one at a time, which determined the order of the interviews in the newspaper.
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The Malibu movie theater, now officially called the Regal Malibu Twin, which was about to close this month, has gotten a short reprieve. Rumors are that it will remain open until the end of the year, and then close. The main problem is that the basic economics of movie theaters has changed and only the larger multiplexes seem able to sustain themselves and operate profitably.
The Malibu movie theater was offered to a number of movie chains, both large and small, and the universal response was, “Thanks but no thanks.” If we want to continue with a commercial movie theater in Malibu, it’s probably going to have to be subsidized in whole or part. Recently, we were in Aspen and we were told that the only way they were able to retain their theater was with some subsidy from the city.
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The new US News and World Report college rankings brought good news to Pepperdine University, which just cracked the Top 50 ranking. For a university that was only started in 1937, 79 years ago, that is nothing short of amazing. Many, if not most, of the top 50 colleges have been around for over 100 years — and many even longer then that. Although most colleges and universities have real problems with how the list is chosen, and what criteria are used, they still all want to be in the top 50 because lots of people look at that list and use it in making their choices.
Pepperdine has seen a jump for each of the last four years, from 57th in 2014, to 54th in 2015, to 52nd in 2016 to now 50th in the 2017 rating.
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The city council campaign is in full swing. We can tell because the letters are getting a bit nastier. If you send them in, we will run them, provided they’re not libelous. What that means as a practical matter is that if you send us a letter that says the opposition candidates are dirty rotten rats and why they are dirty rotten rats we will probably run that letter. If you say that they are dirty rotten rats and are also criminals we probably won’t run that letter. Also, when we run a letter we are not vouching for the truth of what is being said in the letter. That’s for you, the voter, to decide when you cast your ballot.
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There is some construction currently going on in Malibu and several people have asked me about it. The old Sands Center in Eastern Malibu, which for many years had the Thai Dishes Restaurant and also the China Den Restaurant, has had a major renovation and an entirely new look. The sign in front lists the LeFrak organization as owners and they are major apartment builders in New York City. That would seem to mean that Malibu is still considered a good place to invest and the investors probably will keep coming.
There is also a major renovation on the ocean side of PCH in Eastern Malibu in the vicinity of Nobu Restaurant, but it’s not yet clear what it’s all going to be — although I’ve heard mention of a small hotel. Further west, in the Civic Center area, there are all sorts of equipment parked on a little triangular lot at the intersection of PCH and Webb Way. The lot is being used as a staging area for the equipment and supplies need in constructing the new Civic Center Wastewater Treatment Facility, or sewer, if you prefer.
What continues to puzzle me is why, across PCH, Stan Kronke — who owns the LA Rams, which have just moved to LA — continues to treat his Malibu Colony Center, where Ralph’s Market is located, as an ugly step child. I’ve lost count of how many years ago Granita Restaurant closed — certainly over 10 years — and then more recently Theodore’s moved out, and before that the copy store. Maybe there is a plan, but I sure don’t see it.