There is a terrible flash flu going around that has laid low many in Malibu, including me. I spent the better part of three days lying around on the couch, watching a spectacular Ken Burns PBS documentary on Amazon Prime about the Roosevelts — Theodore Roosevelt and the Oyster Bay family on the north shore of Long Island, FDR and Eleanor at the Hudson River Hyde Park, and the New York City branch of the family and all of their many kin.
The story of the Roosevelts is the story of the first half of the 20th century and you’re immediately struck by a couple of obvious facts. The quality of the language by all of the Roosevelts is filled with imagery and is so much more descriptive than the pale shorthand we use today. It’s hard to imagine what FDR’s famous inaugural quote — “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” — would have sounded like if it had just been shortened and texted over an iPhone. But there was a very positive side to the PBS documentary. If you believe that today’s presidential politics are about as low as it can go, you can take heart. It was every bit as bad then as it is now and that was even during wartime.
One incident in particular was a story making the rounds during WWII in which FDR was accused of having left his little Scottish terrier Fala on an Aleutian Island in Alaska and that he had allegedly sent a Navy destroyer back to get the dog at a cost of millions to the taxpayer.
If Ronald Reagan was the great communicator, then FDR was the man who wrote the textbook on political communication. His response and defense of his dog to what he describes as “Republican fiction writers” was so letter-perfect that I couldn’t do it justice by paraphrasing it. Instead, just go to YouTube and put in “FDR’s Fala speech restored” and listen to a political master at work.
On a more local front, there are a number of things going on around Malibu. Every place you turn, there seems to be renovations going on of shopping centers or stores or restaurants. It should come as no surprise. Since it’s darn near impossible to build anything new, the same result is achieved and it’s a lot less expensive to buy existing property and renovate. Whatever is left of all those little old buildings on either side of PCH, both commercial and residential, will probably all be gone, replaced by spanking-new renovated buildings. If the original no growth objective was to keep Malibu, Malibu, we probably have achieved the exact opposite of that objective.
Measure R, the initiative to limit certain kinds of commercial chains in Malibu, which was soundly approved by Malibu voters last November, has been challenged in Federal Court and has had its first day in court. The Federal District Court Judge decided to grant the City’s motion for abstention and has effectively split the case into two parts. So, as a practical matter, one case has turned into two cases. If bad lawyering is expensive, good lawyering is incredibly expensive and this was good lawyering. To put it into layman’s language, what you’re really saying to the Federal judge is this: Judge, unless you have some strong desire to mediate a battle between Malibu’s real estate royalists and Malibu’s NIMBYs, you can dump this whole turkey by splitting the case. Send the State issues back to a State Court first, where, between hearings and trials and appeals, it will probably chew up a few years, by which time Malibu will have changed so much that the case is going to ultimately settle and you will never have to worry about trying the Federal case. If the Federal judge has a very busy calendar, it’s a very tempting offer.
Lastly, there is a battle royal going on at the Adamson House, which is now closed down. We started looking into it and it’s a bit like the movie “Rashomon.” It all depends on whom you ask. Fingers are pointed in all directions and, apparently, the State Department of Parks and Recreation has been unwilling, or totally unable, to put out the fire between the Board of Directors of the Adamson House and their leadership and the docents and their leadership.
It’s difficult to tell at this point if this is a policy clash or a personality clash. Whichever it is, we need to get this settled and the venue reopened. It doesn’t appear to be money because we heard that they are sitting on close to $800,000 in their account. Pepperdine has an excellent Dispute Resolution Center with a national reputation and the State, which owns the property, should get a mediator in there quickly. If that doesn’t work, then our local state legislators should get involved and get it reopened because what’s going on seems almost childish.