No performer myself, I nevertheless have always felt, as the Bard once wrote, “The play’s the thing.” So I saw City Hall drama proceeding apace last Tuesday when member Pamela Conley-Ulich took center stage with her obdurate refusal to vote giving city financial consultants authority to study a minor aspect of City bonded indebtedness because, once clarified, the Council might vote to use the related monies in ways of which she does not approve. Itself unimportant, this bit of comic relief served to overshadow an underlying City Council production plot.
As reprise, some months ago, Don Schmitz, La Paz point man and City Hall-regular, informed the Council it was “incontrovertible” that Malibu Creek pollution comes from Civic Center surface runoff. Now fast forward to January 11 when the Council, led by John Sibert and Sharon Barovsky, was intent on developing improved creek monitoring procedures to better determine the extent to which pollution enters Malibu from upstream, supplemented by member Jefferson Wagner’s concern that upstream polluters shouldn’t be allowed to use Malibu as their dumping ground.
Now, following Pam’s monetary conundrum, enter stage right Barovsky-touted Norm Haney, self-described Malibu commercial property expert and another City-hall regular. Norm, right on cue, delivered the opinion that “98 percent” of the creek pollution comes from surface runoff.
As an aside, emphasis by Schmitz and Haney on surface runoff suppresses, intentionally or otherwise, the idea that septic-system effluent from commercial properties might account for the pollution.
Thus was introduced plot thickening when no one, not Pam, Jefferson, Sharon, John, or Andy, public representatives all, felt duty-bound to ask the cost-justified and denouement-pregnant question: “What is your evidence of 98 percent, Norm?” You see, Norm’s non-answer would suggest that $15 million and rising Legacy Park is without technical justification.
Council casts come and go, and although City Hall machinations may never rise to high drama, the possibilities for a sitcom seem well worth considering, or, on the other hand, perhaps a tragedy.
Don Michael