The Malibu Times sent a questionnaire to all seven Malibu City Council candidates. One profile will be printed each week until March 29. Election day is April 10.
Name: Hans Laetz
Birth date: April 14, 1957
How long have you lived in Malibu?
Since 1997
What is your education and employment history?
I have a Bachelor of Arts in journalism from the University of Arizona (1982), a Master of Arts from California State University, Northridge (1995) and a Juris Doctorate from Ventura College of Law (2009). I have worked as a professional journalist for 40 years, including 25 years in Los Angeles television news. I was an Emmy-winning news editor at KTLA, CBS News and CBS2, then news operations manager at KTLA and ABC7. I left TV to become a journalism professor via studying law. I now work part-time as a news editor at City News Service and take freelance jobs from L.A. TV stations, as well as work on environmental law issues.
Why are you running for City Council?
Malibu has been a city for 21 years, and has so very little to show for it. Pacific Coast Highway is a disaster, the city doesn’t own one inch of beach or access, our parks are overcrowded and we face a tidal wave of commercial development. Malibu lets outside agencies make all the big decisions on local issues. We are a regional punching bag, and we deserve that because Malibu has not acted like a responsible city. I am running because I am tired of watching Malibu avoid the responsibilities that come with cityhood.
What makes you qualified to be on the City Council?
I’ve been working for Malibu for years, and frankly I have accomplished more for this city than some past councilmembers. I took some personal shots while successfully fighting as a private citizen to preserve Trancas Riders and Ropers. I had to fight the city to win an OK for a new safety lane at Trancas Market. I had a multibillion-dollar oil company go after me personally during the LNG battle. Ask Southern California Edison about how I fight for this city! I offer voters the choice of a mature, educated, experienced person for an important job.
What, in your opinion, are the most important issues facing the city at this time?
Public safety first, local control, protect/enhance the Malibu way of life. These are more than slogans. PCH is unchanged after 21 years. Malibu must demand Caltrans pay to fix this state highway, and simultaneously we must assume control of our main street. Malibu needs to be a responsible steward of the precious coastline, and use that maturity to demand that outside agencies stop making local decisions here for us. Every single thing that the city council does must be in line with our official civic vision: we are a little, rural beach town with responsibilities to protect exactly that.
What is your opinion of the Malibu Lagoon Restoration Project? Do you think it is a good idea or a bad idea?
The Malibu Lagoon project is a bad idea because our city screwed it up. When this project arose years ago, the City Council should have made it clear to State Parks that it could not happen without our city’s buy-in and approval. Malibu should have held hearings and conducted studies. Legitimate concerns should have been examined and the project modified to address them. Instead, the city council shrugged “it’s not our project” and let outside agencies control a project in the heart of Malibu. Our city gets no respect because we have run away from our coastal responsibilities.
What is your opinion of the city’s agreement with the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Board to build a centralized wastewater treatment facility (i.e., sewage treatment) for Civic Center businesses by 2015, and another one for central Malibu homes by 2019?
It’s simple. State law states that the sewage plant must be built. If the affected residents vote against the sewage plant, they face huge fines from the State Water Board and will be essentially unable to build anything, replace failed septic tanks, or even get a mortgage or sell their homes. Without the commercial sewage plant, the homeowners will have astronomical costs. Malibu has to reduce the amount of both septic nutrients and clean water flushed into the lagoon-area aquifer. That’s the law, period. We can choose not to like it, but we cannot choose to disobey it.
Are you in favor of a city ordinance that would require shopping centers to preserve a certain amount of space for local “mom and pop” businesses or for services such as cleaners that are geared toward residents rather than visitors? Or do you think that government involvement in business is counterproductive and that a “shop local” campaign or some other measure would be more effective?
Large shopping centers should be required to balance retail uses for neighborhood-serving, signature retail and beach visitor needs. There is room for all three, while limiting chains to 40 percent of the large centers. Our problem is that our government went into the shopping center business in the glitziest, most lucrative way possible. Our municipal “Lumberyard” changed things forever, now it’s time to tone things down a little bit. We must work with Protect Malibu, landowners and the chamber on a great plan.