It is important that we act together as a community in rejecting the Local Coastal Plan that the Coastal Commission has thrust upon us. There are so many objections to this document but in the overview there are perhaps seven key reasons to dump the LCP:
(1) It is a power grab. If upheld, it will vastly increase the power of the commission along the entire California coast. New precedent-setting provisions also make it the Full Empowerment Act for eco-extremists throughout the state at the expense of local governments.
(2) It is a social program concerned with the taking and redistribution of civil and personal rights. It is not the environmental protection program it pretends to be and its actions are clearly beyond the authority of the commission.
(3) It is based on a lie. The commission has used junk science (scientific findings created for financial or political gain) to categorize most areas of Malibu as environmentally sensitive thereby justifying unprecedented levels of control.
(4) It ignores the realities of Malibu. Our natural areas are significantly disturbed environments that will continue to be degraded by principally regional factors that will not go away. Local environments are not ESHAs and never can be.
(5) The LCP does not pass the test of justifying its actions. Their contorted justification is presented in this way: “You live in or near an ESHA; therefore, your private property needs public protection. As such, parts of your property are now ‘public natural resources’ that can be opened to the visiting public. Therefore, we now have unprecedented control over your property including what can be seen from our resource including the color of your house and whether or not you can have pets that might defile our resource.” Would any community in America endorse this logic?
(6) The LCP is most likely unconstitutional. As a power grab, the commission is trying to push the legal envelope and get away with it, however it runs contrary to definitive rulings of the U.S. Supreme Court on just such issues.
(7) It is clearly wrong. It is wrong for regulations to be written by non-residents and thrust upon us by vote of non-elected commissioners thereby throwing out the decisions of elected city councils over the past 11 years.
Our fight may be a long and costly process where resolution lies far beyond the insular California court system. At the moment we seem to be alone. Like it or not, Malibu is a town with an image that people across the political spectrum love to hate. Even our elected state representatives can not seem to get beyond the propaganda that this is somehow all about David Geffen and the Filthy Rich versus tearful children at the locked beach gate.
In reality the outcome of this matter will be far-reaching, affecting personal freedoms and the authority of local governments throughout the state. To our elected City Council, please know that I, for one, stand ready to reject this LCP and endorse a vote to incur indebtedness that may be required in the coming struggle.
Don Wilkins