The season of the political spinmeisters is in full bloom.
Recent letters to the editor aimed at Sharon Barovsky, Andy Stern, Christi Hogin, and the City Council are classic examples of misrepresentations and distortions and, if history repeats itself, we can expect much more of the same.
Opponents of Barovsky and Stern accuse them of “promoting commercial development on the Chili Cook-off property.” False. The converse is true. Their goal, shared by all members of the City Council, their predecessors and the overwhelming majority of the public, has been to acquire the Cook-Off site for park purposes and eliminate all potential commercial development on the site. That goal, with the imminent acquisition of the site by the city, is well on its way to fruition.
Contrary to the assertion that Barovsky and Stern refused to give credit to MCLC for its contribution to the fund for the acquisition of the Cook-Off site, Barovsky, Stern and the council at open public meetings thanked and expressed their gratitude for MCLC’s contribution and welcomed the addition of the names of their contributors to the list of donors.
The suggestion by their critics that Barovsky, Stern, the current City Council and City Attorney Christi Hogin conspired to deceive the voters with regard to the Malibu Term Limits Ordinance is pure fiction. None of the current members of the City Council or Christi Hogin were in office at the time the ordinance was enacted and played no part in its preparation or the preparation of the admittedly erroneous impartial analysis purporting to explain its meaning.
For lack of a legitimate issue about which to complain, opponents of Barovsky and Stern (and the City Council) invented one. They complain that the city lost millions of dollars of “free grant money from the state” for the acquisition of the Cook-Off site because of faulty paperwork. The fact is that although the city had negotiated for certain grants, the city turned them down when it concluded that the conditions the agencies sought to impose on the grants would deprive the city of local control over the development and usage of the Cook-Off site. Paperwork had nothing to do with it.
David Kagon