Measure K, the $15 million open-land bond, appeared to be going down to defeat with more than half the vote counted as of midnight on Tuesday.
The vote at press time was 942 to 642 in favor of the bond, with three of six precincts counted along with a sizable portion of the absentee ballot.
But that was only a 59 percent favorable vote. The measure requires a 67 percent vote to pass.
With more than half the precincts reporting, it would require a 74 percent yes vote from the other three precincts in order to reach the two-thirds vote mandate.
While not conceding defeat last night, city Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said, nonetheless, if the bond goes down, “I will be very, very sad.”
She also was critical of Councilmember Tom Hasse, the only councilmember to oppose the bond. “If it doesn’t pass, he’s responsible,” said Barovsky. “He defeated the bond and he should be ashamed. He has alienated every supporter he ever had in this town.”
The bond money was to be used to buy land for parks, playgrounds, ball fields, trails and a community center as well as to protect natural areas and wildlife. It allotted $12,775,000 for the purchase of land and $2,225,000–15 percent of the total-for improvements and construction on the land.
A major opponent of the bond measure was former city Councilmember John Harlow, who was also a member of the Lily’s Cafe steering committee, which led the opposition to the bond.
Its defeat, Harlow said, “Tells you Malibu voters read the arguments and are much more conservative than what people think they are. I think that’s especially true when it comes to spending even a dollar in taxes.”
The Lily’s group criticized the bond issue for promising too many things while limiting the amount of money that could be spent on building new ball fields and recreational facilities, thus leaving most of the land to be acquired as open space.
Harlow pointed out that Malibu demographics have changed over the past five or six years, with “young families moving in” who would be more interested in using land acquired for recreational purposes rather than open spaces.
Tom Fakehany, another leader of the Lily’s Cafe opposition group, said, “We hope that we can sit down with the City Council and the coalition group that drew up the bond issue to write a new one for the next election that would do what more people want it do.”
Fakehany said his group was never opposed to the idea of a bond; they just wanted it to be more specific about what it would do.
Mona Loo, chair of the citizens steering committee that helped draft the language of the measure, said, “If you can defeat something like this just on distrust and negativity, then we are a very sad community.”