(The following letter was sent to Republican candidate for the governor’s office, Richard Riordan.)
I enthusiastically endorse your candidacy for Governor of California. As the only Republican serving on the Malibu City Council, I have had a front row seat in watching the Gray Davis administration attempt to destroy local control and home rule of cities through a California Coastal Commission that puts ideology over intelligence.
Under a law passed by the State legislature and signed by Governor Davis in 2000 (the year I served as mayor of Malibu), it is now the California Coastal Commission that’s charged with writing Malibu’s LOCAL coastal plan-a plan that controls land use decisions throughout our entire city. Local Coastal Plans are historically written by duly elected City Councils and submitted to the California Coastal Commission for their review and adoption. Despite intense lobbying by the City of Malibu, Mr. Davis signed this legislation into law, which now has our usually laid back community up in arms. Both their property rights and property values are under siege by the Coastal Commission and its ideologically extremist executive director.
As you are a former mayor, I trust you’ll value local control and home rule of cities and stop the State of California in general and the Coastal Commission specifically from further encroaching on land use decisions that properly belong to duly elected city councils chosen by a vote of local residents.
Good luck on March 5. Given his meddling in the GOP primary through his always misleading advertising, you really are the candidate Gray Davis fears most. Which makes you the candidate Malibu needs most.
Thomas J.D. Hasse
City Councilmemberetter