Ozzie Silna, the Daddy Warbucks of the last City Council election, having contributed substantial monies in support of Proposition P (the Right-to-Vote on Development Initiative), apparently has decided to give it another try.
Recently, he pulled together a meeting, at Serra Retreat, of the most improbable group of people, many who are seldom in the same room together without their boxing gloves on. The attendees included many from the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy and its supporters, including Gil Segal, Steve Uhring, Frank Basso, Sam Hall Kaplan, Patt Healy, Marcia Hanscom (of Wetlands Action Network) and former Councilmember Carolyn Van Horn, who apparently is coming out of retirement. Others attending were Jo Fogg, president of the Malibu Senior Citizen’s Club, Georgianna McBurney, Laure Stern, Laureen Sills, Dierdre Roney, (education & recreation groups), Ann Payne, and several others.
Silna apparently has hopes of putting a political group together in support of a public bond issue to raise money for land purchases. The plan is to try and raise $15 million in a bond, or perhaps even more, to purchase vacant land with hopes that there will be federal and state grants to match the money raised. Many, apparently, were in agreement with raising the money through a bond issue, but it was also apparent to some at the meeting that there were some major disagreements as to where the money would go. They did seem to narrow it down to three priorities; ball fields, a multipurpose community center, and open space/wetlands, but this is only the beginning and as the saying goes, “The devil is in the details.”
There is a potential deal, now in the discussion stages, to try and work something out over Bluffs Park. The state wants their land back and the ball fields moved. The city, which is already desperately short of ball fields, wants, replacement ball fields. Roy Crummer, the landowner who owns a substantial hunk of the bluff alongside the state’s land, wants to build seven or eight single-family residences on his bluff land. The Malibu Road people are worried about irrigation water running down from the ball fields and destabilizing the bluff, and the California Coastal Commission doesn’t want any land taken away from visitor serving uses.
That’s a lot of players and a lot of conflicting agendas to put around one negotiating table. Mayor Tom Hasse and Mayor Pro Tem Joan House are negotiating for the city and reports are they seem to be getting closer to a deal.
Malibu Pier reconstruction is rolling ahead pretty much on schedule and they expect to finish Phase 2, which consists of most of the structural aspects of the rehabilitation, by the end of this month, according to Hayden Sohm, State Parks and Recreation top guy.
The pier will be open from March until about the end of the summer when Phase 3 of the reconstruction will begin. Interim work will also continue during the summer. In Phase 3, work will continue on the buildings, principally the old Alice’s Restaurant site, and if all goes well, all work will be completed and a new restaurant in place by mid-2002.
A public meeting will take place concerning the pier, which is tentatively scheduled for March 7. The project, not unexpectedly, is coming in at about $1,000,000 above what was originally estimated. This appears to be fairly typical of historical rehabilitations, which inevitably run into septic, asbestos, lead paint or other hazardous materials types of problems. The state has already put $2.2 million into the rehabilitation and, before it’s all over, they expect costs to run as high as $4.3 million, perhaps more. Ironically, the costs are what some original pier experts said it would be years ago.
The next hunk of dollars will probably come from the county, which has $2.9 million in Prop A bond funds that were originally committed to the project by former Supervisor Ed Edema a number of years ago. Another $800,000 in bond funds will come from the City of Malibu. These deals are not quite done deals yet, because the county and the city are looking for assurances that the pier will be maintained by the state, even in bad economic times. But most people involved feel that, ultimately, details can be worked out with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the City of Malibu.