The local political scene is heating up quickly. In November, the election to fill two open city council seats from the termed-out retirement of Laura Rosenthal and Lou La Monte suddenly has people talking. Although potential candidates have until Aug. 10 to pull papers for the open spots, there are already four people who have indicated to us a serious intention to run. The four are Planning Commissioner Mikke Pierson, school activist and former AMPS President Karen Farrer, former Malibu Times Assistant Editor Olivia Damavandi Ayreh and Public Works Commissioner Jim Palmer.
Several things have happened lately in Malibu that appear to have stoked the interest in local politics. Joe Edmiston, the executive director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, has upped his game; lately, he has been very aggressive in his campaign to open up our canyon communities to the general public, even though most have private roads maintained by the residents of the canyons. What Joe’s been doing is buying up cheap scrap land where he can and then maintaining that he, as a private owner like all the other private owners in the canyon, has a right to invite in guests. However, in Joe’s case, the guests he wants to invite include the entire general public of Los Angeles. Winding Way, for example, gets an estimated 1,000 visitors on a nice weekend, and the sheer volume of visitors causes havoc and creates sanitation problems due to lack of restrooms as well as expensive cleanup problems after the weekends are over. Many public trailheads exit into private communities and conflicts are inevitable. The areas impacted include Puerco Canyon, Latigo Canyon, Latigo Shore Drive, Big Rock Drive, Sycamore Park and potentially a number of others. A nose-to-nose confrontation recently occurred in Sycamore Park, where Joe and his armed ranger got into a heated argument with some of the Malibu locals, which left many people feeling angry and frightened. Joe recently declared his lot in Sycamore a public park and added tables. He then got cited and sued by the City of Malibu, which charged that he failed to get the necessary city permit. Joe countered and filed a lawsuit using one of his government attorneys against several owners in Sycamore Park, demanding $15 million or so in damages from each. Now, the homeowners have to lawyer up at their private expense to try and fight Joe, who is coasting on the government dime. This is no small matter. If the government can sue you for money damages because you don’t go along with what it wants, you’ve effectively lost your right to petition the government.
The homeowners in several neighborhoods and canyons are beginning to join together in a group they are calling—for now—“Coalition of the Willing.” More details will be available in the weeks to come.
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But Joe, with the SMMC, isn’t the only governmental agency on the prowl. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has been doing shoreline studies up and down the California coast as well as in other parts of the country. It is about to issue shoreline maps for Malibu that are substantially at variance with what many local coastal scientists are saying. The problem is that FEMA measured our coast with mile markers and assumed that everything within a half mile in either direction of the marker is the same. We all know that’s not necessarily the case—houses next to each other may have totally different wave, bulkhead or erosion problems. The reason this is important is that if you’re a beachfront homeowner, it may affect your right to rebuild after a major storm or fire, and it will certainly impact your flood insurance rates.
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Inevitably, when the local citizenry gets into battles with other government agencies like the SMMC or FEMA, they look to their own city to be their champion. The problem is that city council and city staff have to work with many of these same agencies and find themselves in a difficult conflict. Early in the beginnings of Malibu, we had a reputation for being difficult to get along and work with. In many respects, the reputation was well earned, and it took the city many years to get back into a more collegial relationship with many federal, state, county and local agencies. But being collegial is sometimes not enough, and I’m beginning to hear people complaining that the city is not aggressive enough in our defense. I haven’t made up my mind as to whether it’s true or not, but there is no question: we are under attack and we need their help. (“Their” meaning city council, city manager and staff.)