November
• When it got to crunch time, the Santa Monica-Malibu School Board balked at the carefully developed plan achieved after months and months of fact-finding and negotiation by the six members of the MUNC negotiating group on how to split the district. Essentially, the majority of the board calculated the increases in the Malibu real estate values over the next 50 years and simply didn’t want to give up the dollars unless, as some suggested, we continue paying them alimony for another 50 years. The deal is not dead yet because there are other avenues for Malibu to pursue, but it becomes more difficult if the school board is opposed. Suddenly, there is another complication in that one member of the school board, Maria Leon-Vazquez, a strong opponent of the separation and married to SM City Council Member Tony Vazquez, is under investigation by the LA County District Attorney’s public integrity unit for possible criminal conflicts of interest… So everything is kind of on hold for a while and has been put over to 2018, to see what happens.
• An attempted burglary in Ventura County where shots were fired ended up in a car chase that crossed over into Malibu and ended up in two car crashes in the vicinity of Zuma Beach. The victim of the burglary was in hot pursuit of the suspect from Ventura to Malibu. Apparently the burglar picked the wrong victim.
• Due to a number of neighborhood complaints and a report of additional crimes, a program located at several Malibu churches to feed the homeless was put on hold at the suggestion or insistence of the city—it’s not clear which. The story went viral and there was an immediate national outcry and a slew of email and social media postings as well as very nasty threats to city officials. The city says they’re looking for a new location to feed the homeless.