lawsuits, settlements Council is criticized for private meetings with residents.
Meanwhile, it continues to deal with Coastal Commission ESHA designations and is criticized by many over settlement of a zoning case.
By Kevin Culwell/Special to the Malibu Times
The Malibu City Council Monday night got a refresher course in proper and improper meetings amid controversy surrounding the Brown Act, which requires public notice of open governmental meetings.
The controversy stems from a private meeting with several Malibu citizens attended by then-Mayor Pro Tem Jeffrey Jennings and then-Mayor Joan House, who were also the city’s Land Use Subcommittee.
A group calling itself Taxpayers for Livable Communities (TLC) filed a lawsuit against the city claiming it violated the Brown Act when the two members met privately in December to discuss the Coastal Commission’s Local Coastal Plan (LCP) with local residents.
TLC cited that the subcommittee members were conducting city government business by discussing the LCP and that all members of the public should have been invited.
At Monday’s council meeting, Marcia Hanscom, co-chair of the local chapter of the Sierra Club and chair of Wetlands Action Network, and a frequent council critic, took the council to task for its actions and charged it constituted an act against “open government.”
The city has maintained that the Land Use Subcommittee has no jurisdiction over the LCP, because the council handles that matter as a whole and it is not delegated to any committee.
“It makes no sense that a land-use subcommittee would have no authority over the Local Coastal Plan,” said Hanscom.
House said she is in favor of the Brown Act and disagrees with the notion that any wrongdoing came from the meeting late last year.
“I am somewhat disappointed when, in a small community where everybody knows everybody else, we can’t go about business in a friendlier way,” House said.
The matter was continued to the next council meeting for further discussion after Corin Kahn, the attorney representing plaintiff TLC, submitted a letter to the city Monday. The City Council said it needed time to consider the letter.
In other council discussion, City Manager Katie Lichtig reported that the discussion between the City of Malibu and the California Coastal Commission has continued “with little success” to try and work out a compromise on the Commission’s proposed Local Coastal Plan for Malibu. The principal issue is the Coastal Commission’s designation of most of Malibu as an Environmentally Sensitive Habitat Area (ESHA) about which the commission has remained adamant. The city has challenged the science the Coastal Commission’s biologist used to determine the ESHA designation and countered with its own biology reports.
Mayor Jeff Jennings said the Coastal Commission’s definition is an “enormous litigation time bomb” because residents will challenge it in court.
Don Schmitz, representing local homeowners, said the Coastal Commission’s designation is “onerous, illegal and unconstitutional.”
“The community is absolutely correct in being vehemently opposed to it,” he said.
The City Council will send a delegation, including Jennings, to meet the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Board (SMMC) at its scheduled meeting on Monday to explain the city’s position and to try and enlist its support against the proposed designation of most of Malibu land as an ESHA. The SMMC Board is in the process of determining what recommendations it wants to make to the Coastal Commission. Jennings also indicated in the last few weeks he has been traveling up and down the coast to meet with individual coastal commissioners to try and persuade them to the city’s position.
In another matter, the usual line of environmental activists lined up to berate the council and oppose the settlement of a Latigo Canyon property owner’s lawsuit against the city over a 125-acre property (known as the Rubens property) in the canyon. The city would rezone 125 acres from one house per 20 acres to one house per five acres as currently designated in the Malibu General Plan. The settlement, if ultimately approved, would end the lawsuit and would also include the property owner designating a portion of the parcel as open space. An earlier Walt Keller /Carolyn Van Horn council had down zoned the property and the owner sued.
Donald Kowalewsky, a geologist and local resident, who has previously worked for Malibu and for Los Angeles County, urged the council to turn the settlement down cold because he said it was pointless to even continue discussions as “development on the land would not meet any code” because it is an earthquake-induced landslide area.
Deborah Irvin, representing a large contingent from the Malibu Archery Club, which has an illustrious roster of archers that formerly included Errol Flynn and Bing Crosby, opposed the settlement. The club feared the down zoning would endanger its archery range and thus Malibu would “lose a historical operation.”
Despite the objections, the council voted 5-0 to set it for hearing, after which, if approved, it would then go first to the Planning Commission and then back to the council for further hearings.
The Trails Committee presented detailed maps of proposed trails to the city, on a horse trail that would extend through the hills the length of Malibu. Mayor Pro Tem Kenneth Kearsley said the Local Coastal Plan is “anti-horse,” and without a trail “we will lose our horse population in the city.”
“I consider Malibu a horse city,” Kearsley said.
Mayor Jennings said the loss of horse trails “has been one of the biggest disappointments of the last 30 years.”
Senior citizens approved, 5-0, the appointments to the newly formed Malibu Seniors Center Blue Ribbon Committee. The committee will make recommendations regarding design, furnishings and programming for the new Senior Citizen Center to be located in the new City Hall building on Stewart Ranch Road. The appointments included Carol Randall, Les Moss, Gene Harding, Pete Lippman, Jo Fogg, Judy Decker, Kay Ferguson, and three others to be announced. They are hoping for an August opening of the senior center.