I hate to bring some common sense, rational thought and logic to the “Malibu Local Coastal Plan Process,” but here goes.
Each City on the Coast is mandated by law to create a growth plan that complies with the “California Coast Act” or with a version that the Coastal staff and other political power will agree that conforms with the Coastal Act.
In 1983 I served as land use chairman for the Malibu Board of Realtors and represented our committee’s views to the Los Angeles County who created a Coastal Plan that was certified by the Coastal Commission as in compliance with the Coastal Act.
The plan created by the County of Los Angeles was a balanced one that took into consideration the needs of the community and those of the environment with a down zone of most of the developable land (95%) of it. This plan was in place when we became a City in 1991.
I spoke before the new City ouncil at that time and urged them to adopt the same plan as the County since it complied with state law. The fine tuning of the plan could be done with the ordinances that implemented the plan. Thus the city could have a plan at little expense by using Envicom Inc. to re-write the plan that they wrote for the County of Los Angeles.
The “Keller Gang” who hated anything that said no! They had and still have their own agenda. So nothing happened, period. They refused for many years to even come up with anything reasonable, they appointed the most unknowledgable individuals to the various commissions and they failed miserably.
There are two opposing groups of thought at this time. One is the eco-socialist group headed by Sara Wan who has maneuvered the current crisis through the extremist John Burton and Peter Douglas. They want “pubic access” to the wealthy Malibu community. They have total disregard to the rights of the members of this community to live in peace with normal neighborhoods and our rural way of life. Sara should recuse herself because of her public stand for public access and not act as a biased activist as president of the Coastal Commission.
Malibu can’t get a fair shake with the current political situation. Malibu must adopt the old Los Angeles County Coastal Plan! The reason why is that it has been certified and as certified can’t be modified to the detriment of our community. We have a plan, a form from which to carefully craft our own way of life and not those of an out-of-control president of the Coastal Commision.
Tom Bates, Land Use chairman (1981-1986)
Malibu Association of Realtors