David Visher’s letter criticizing our city’s brave defense of the citizen’s Referendum of the Coastal Commission’s LCP contains at least one accurate statement-“The right of Referendum is a fundamental right that should not be perverted.” The rest of his analysis, however, reflects a lack of factual knowledge of the history of this case and is a parroting of the lower court judge’s tortured arguments denying the Referendum.
The judge’s decision contains several conclusions based upon flawed assumptions and errors of fact. The judge writes, “The Legislature intended that the LCP for Malibu shall be adopted by the commission and that the City shall administer it – and that there shall be no referendum on adoption of the LCP.” Judge Goodman offers no proof for this claim and skirts the issue raised by the city that the Legislature in AB 988 expressly denied the Coastal Commission authority to write the city’s 320 pages of local ordinances, which the Commission wrote anyway, in turn pushing aside the city and abusing its power.
On the invalidity of AB 988 which singled out Malibu for special treatment in comparison to the other 30 coastal zone communities which lack a certified LCP, Goodman writes: “The equal protection clauses of both federal and state constitutions protect rights of individuals and corporations, not of political entities. The city is suing as a General Law city, a municipal corporation of the state of California. As a political subdivision of the state, the City lacks standing to assert a claim of denial of equal protection of the laws.” The judge’s conclusion that a municipality’s authority is but a fantasy in our collective minds and that the state can take over city government whenever and wherever it sees fit is an unlikely proposition.
The arguments put forth by Judge Goodman that the environmental impacts of land use-only in Malibu-affect the people of the entire state, also fail to hold water. The judge offers no evidence that a homeowner’s decision to plant an avocado tree in Malibu in place of a native shrub is a matter of “compelling statewide interest” but if the homeowner happens to live a few miles up the Coast in Ventura-it is not. I encourage everyone to read the Referendum decision and draw your own conclusions. But many of us agree with our city attorney, that the decision stands a very good chance of being overturned on appeal.
Judy Newman-Weedman