With the race too close to decide Tuesday night, no candidate goes on
the record declaring a victory.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
and Hans Laetz / Special to The Malibu Times
With no official winner declared Tuesday night, confusion reigned at Mayor Andy Stern and Councilmember Sharon Barovsky’s party at Taverna Tony and at the Sunset Restaurant & Bar gathering in support of the campaigns of John Mazza and Ryan Embree.
“I am hopeful that I’ve won the election,” said Stern, who was in the lead with 1,343 votes when ballot counting concluded on Tuesday night.
Mazza, who was in third, trailing second-place Barovsky by 56 votes, said, “I’m optimistic if there’s that many [ballots] left to be counted.”
Barovsky declined to comment on whether she thought she would win. She added that she would not be coming to City Hall on Wednesday to see the remaining 207 absentee and provisional ballots being counted because she planned “to sleep for the next three days.”
When asked if she would be having somebody call her with the results, she said that would be tough since she would be taking her telephone off the hook.
Following the announcement that ballot counting had concluded for the night, Barovsky made a speech to the crowd at Tavern Tony saying that she had been asked throughout the campaign to respond to the negative campaigning against her, but had declined to do it.
“I kept saying ‘No, Malibu knows better.’ Well I was wrong,” Barovsky said. “I just learned a big lesson. Negativity works. Why didn’t I wake up? From here on out, I give you my word, when I hear a lie, ‘I’m going to say you’re a liar.'”
Barovsky and Stern specifically pointed to an e-mail sent by 2004 City Council candidate Jay Liebig that said the incumbents were convicted of a Brown Act violation. They said this was false, because it implied the council had been convicted of a crime. However, Liebig did not use the word “crime” in his e-mail.
An appellate court did rule last month that the council violated the Brown Act, which addresses what a local government can and cannot do outside of public view. But there has so far been no criminal conviction.
“There were several e-mails that were disgraceful,” said Stern, who said if he does stay in the lead when the final ballots are counted, it was because “I ran a positive campaign based on my record.”
Meanwhile at Sunset, the mood was somber at first because those at the party were not aware that the results from Tuesday night’s counting were not final and believed Stern and Barovsky had won.
Former Planning Commissioner Jo Ruggles, a vocal opponent of the current council, said, when she thought Stern and Barovsky had won, “I’m discouraged, I’m disgusted and I want to move to Ventura or Oxnard.
“I can’t believe the voters are that ignorant,” she added.
Mazza noted that the voter turnout was not high, with just a little more than 34 percent of the eligible voters casting ballots.
“Just remember, the winners are back in office with the votes of fewer than one in 10 Malibu residents,” said Mazza, believing at the time that Tuesday night’s totals were the final results.
Mazza said even if he does lose, he would not stop being involved in Malibu politics. Mazza is a regular at Planning Commission and City Council meetings, often speaking in opposition to the members of both government bodies.
“I love Malibu and I will do what I can do to protect it,” Mazza said.
This year’s election campaign began with controversy when a citizens group led by former Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan sued the city to prevent Barovsky from getting on the ballot. The group said Barovsky was ineligible to run because she was illegally seeking a third term, as they counted her partial term from 2000 to 2002 as her first term.
A trial court judge agreed with the citizens group, but an appellate court overturned the ruling. The case was closed when the Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.
Since that legal dispute reached a conclusion in early March, the campaign had been absent of any major controversies or allegations until the weekend’s e-mails.
However, Barovsky felt her opponents ran a negative campaign.
“I think I lost a lot of votes by letting them go negative and not responding,” said Barovsky, who added that she believed there would be a lawsuit to challenge her re-election if she were determined to have finished second after Wednesday’s count.
Daniella Bosio contributed to this story.