This is KBUU News –
A special Saturday edition.
The headlines:
- = A massive demotion at the Malibu Lost Hills sheriffs station… and across the L A Sheriffs Department.
- = The temporary Malibu post office was flooded last week … in the rain.
- = Caltrans rushes through a project to save P C H from the ocean .. at the giant sand dune.
- = The smartest mountain lion in the Santa Monica Mountains is found dead … with burned paws.
This is Malibu’s only local daily news …
a special Saturday extra edition of the news …
from Radio Malibu …. F-M 99 point 1 K B U U.
Good morning … I’m Diane Laetz reporting.
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Heads are rolling at the Malibu Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station.
And countywide.
The new sheriff … Alex Villanueva … has now ordered almost 500 lieutenants, captains and commanders to in essence reapply for their jobs.
And in an unprecedented move for a paramilitary organization … the new sheriff has told all of the lieutenants, captains and commanders to fill out forms he’s handed out … fill-in-the-blank résumés.
Villanueva tells the L-A Times that the resumes will be used to determine whether the officials will remain in their positions or be reassigned … maybe to lower levels.
Villanueva also told every one of the nearly 500 supervisors to remove the gold pins on their collar that indicate their rank.
Villanueva said the move is intended to shake up conventional thinking among the top brass.
The the union that represents the sergeants, lieutenants and other department staff calls it demoralizing.
Villanueva says it’s the other way around.
He tells the L A Times that “obsessions with rank and self-centered behavior is what got us into trouble over the past two decades.
“Ranking members of the department were treating their subordinates like crap.”
And he says … “that was considered acceptable.”
We have a link to the L-A Times story on the KBUU Newswire.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-sheriff-rank-reassessment-pins-20181207-story.html?
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Mail was flooded … and one worker fell through a hole in the floor … when rain flooded the temporary Malibu post office last week.
Sources within the post office … not authorized to speak to the news media.
They tell KBUU News that the old blue building on PCH … next to the UCLA Urgent Care Clinic at the Civic Center… is leaking at enormous rates.
The building had been a post office branch for decades … until the post office moved out about 10 years ago.
It was pressed back into service as a mail-sorting and pickup location in the aftermath of the fires.
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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu … F-M 99 point 1 K B U U. ((( time ))))
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As if the fires and mudslides are not enough … Caltrans officials are worried about the eroding highway falling into the ocean between Malibu and Ventura County.
Last October … waves eroded away the beach across the street from the giant landmark sand dune … at Thornehill Broome State Beach.
Waves have chewed into the sand bench that has held the highway since 1926.
A 10-foot vertical scarp stretches directly beneath the fog line for about 100 feet.
Money from the gas tax hike … and other tax sources … has been shuffled by the California Transportation Commission for the repair project.
7-and-a-half million dollars will be needed to repair damaged slope and shoulder, place boulders to protect the slope, and repair any damaged utilities.
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Another mountain lion has been found dead in the local mountains … a victim of the fire.
P-64 had burned paws.
This was the clever male mountain lion .. the one who figured out how to ctoss the 101 Freeway many times.
P-64 was the the “Culvert Cat”.
The only mlountain lion cat ever tracked using a flood control culvert near Malibu Canyon … a curved pipe under 12 lanes of freeway.
Biologists were tracking P-64 as the fire approached him in the hills north of Oak Park … north of the 101 Freeway.
Rather than run towards civilization … people and fire trucks … P-64 ran into the fire.
He continued to travel throughout the Simi Hills for the next few days, covering several miles before then hunkering down in a remote area.
The amount of distance he traveled, combined with the fact that the biologist located P-64 on November 26 with a telemetry device in an unburned portion of the Simi Hills, boosted hopes that P-64 may have been on a kill and surviving.
P-64 was approximately four years old and was first captured in February 2018 in cooperation with The Boeing Company at the Santa Susana Field Lab in the Simi Hills. Also known as “the Culvert Cat,” he surprised researchers by using a long and narrow storm drain multiple times to cross under the 101 Freeway near Liberty Canyon in Agoura Hills.
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Weather for the Malibu ….
(((( Sunny today )))) … highs (((( 65 )))) beaches … (((( 70 )))) mountains and canyons.
Downcoast winds … ((( around 5 )))) miles per hour this afternoon.
Sunset tonight is at (((( 4:43 )))).
After that … ((( partly cloudy )))) tonight … low (((( 54 )))) beaches … (((( 46 )))) mountains and canyons.
Tomorrow should be (((( much the same )))).
At 8:45 a.m. … at Trancas it’s (((( 57 )))) degrees.
Upper Malibu Canyon … (((( 53 )))) .
And at Civic Center Los Angeles … (((( 52 )))).
The KBUU Newswire is posted midmornings … at RadioMalibu.net and at the MalibuTimes.com websites.
Remember… breaking news always goes first to the radio … on F-M 99 point 1 over all of Malibu….
Our web player is simple …. you can hear Radio Malibu in your phone or stream it to your car.
Navigate to Radio Malibu dot net . … and we’re streaming in your ear anywhere in the world.
I’m Diane Laetz reporting …. 99 point 1 F M K B U U News.