For all you romantics out there, I’d like to wish you a Happy Valentine’s Day and a cautionary note not to come home empty-handed. I suspect when most of you think of Valentine’s Day, you think of love and romance. When I think of Valentine’s Day, I think of Tommy guns and a garage in Chicago, probably the result of too many late-night movies. Well, enough sentimentality. Let’s get to this week’s action.
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In our letters to the editor, you will find a letter from the chair of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (LA Water Board) chastising us, justifiably, for not quite getting it correctly when we said that the proposed Rancho Malibu Hotel was exempt from the Civic Center building prohibition. Apparently we left out the term “temporarily exempt,” so we humbly stand corrected.
But the most interesting part of the letter is the last paragraph, which is the one you should all read. In it, Mr. Stringer, chair of the RWQCB, explains to us that it’s not the LA Water Board that has placed a prohibition on Malibu, it’s really the choice of the City of Malibu.
All they’re doing is regulating water discharges, and that means that you either have to build a very expensive sewer system to meet their specs, or in 2015 they essentially close down all commercial properties in the Civic Center and in 2019 they essentially close down adjacent residential properties. Unless, of course, you’re just happy with a port-a-potty.
Back in school, we all had to read “Brave New World” and saw the bureaucratic speech that the government created: up was down and black was white, and similar phrases. I like to think of it as “Bureauspeak,” where you frequently need a decoder ring to figure out what they are really saying.
So I guess in the world of Bureauspeak the Water Board didn’t actually impose a prohibition on us, it was just a self-inflicted wound.
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The Charmlee Park/Bluffs Park land swap is in the works and the lawyers are hammering out the lease language. The city is going to lease part of Bluffs Park from the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy for five years and the Conservancy is going to lease Charmlee from the city for five years. We’re kind of getting temporarily engaged, and if it works out then we’ll end up swapping the land permanently.
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A couple of major Malibu players will be gone after this year. Rep. Henry Waxman is gone from Congress, as are several other longtime very senior California Congressmen. Many are committee chairs and the state is going to take a bit of hit because of it. Just about every major Democrat, including Pavley, Bloom and Yaroslavsky took a look at the Waxman seat but most decided to pass.
I’ve heard off the record that it’s not much fun to be in Congress these days. It’s probably a good thing that the locus of power is constantly shifting around the country geographically, but sometimes the transitions can be painful.
In LA County, Zev Yaroslavsky is termed out of the Board of Supervisors, which will be a major loss to us all when he leaves at the end of the year. Zev was always smart, knowledgeable, very budget savvy and he was the last word on the Santa Monica Mountains. Zev and his very able Malibu deputy Susan Nissman will be sorely missed.
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In Washington, the Republicans are beginning to show a partial return to sanity by deciding not to stop the government again or try and put silly restrictions on raising the debt ceiling.
The House couldn’t go quite as far as doing something about immigration, but I think the Republican leadership believes it has a reasonable shot at taking the Senate if the party can keep its wackos under control.
It’s unclear what would happen if the Republicans retake the Senate but also bring in a couple of new Tea Party Senators. Some of the Senators may find they have more in common with their Democratic colleagues across the aisle than they do with the possible new Tea Party crop.
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We’ll be announcing the Dolphin winners in next week’s newspaper. This has been a very difficult year to choose. We had many more nominees than spaces, and it meant cutting some very deserving people. Thank you all for your letters and emails and bringing our attention to a much broader pool of possible Dolphins. We’re also looking for some sponsors this year to help us offset the cost of the event. The Dolphin ceremony is kind of like putting on a wedding party once a year for 150-plus people. It gets kind of pricey. Anyone interested in being a sponsor send me an email at agyork@malibutimes.com.