The most contentious issue has been the city’s handling of the Chili Cook-Off site acquisition.
By Jonathan Friedman / Assistant Editor
After several months of campaigning, the five candidates vying for the two available spots on the City Council will learn their fate Tuesday as Malibu voters head to the polls.
The incumbents, Mayor Andy Stern and Councilmember Sharon Barovsky, have endorsed each other’s campaigns, but there has been no organized opposition as was the case in past years. Challengers John Mazza, Ryan Embree and Ed Gillespie have run independent campaigns in their attempt to win the council seats.
Barovsky served on the council since 2000 and Stern has held his seat since 2002. Embree is a member of the Public Safety Commission and Mazza is involved in several community associations while also attending nearly every government meeting, usually speaking out in opposition to city officials. Gillespie is new to the political scene, and his city involvement prior to the campaign was limited to his position as a member of the Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.
The major issue in this year’s campaign has been the acquisition of the Chili Cook-Off site, the 20-acre property that stretches along Pacific Coast Highway from Cross Creek Road to Webb Way. The city purchased the land from the Malibu Bay Co. for $25 million last week. No candidate is opposed to the purchase, which guarantees there will be no commercial development on the property and that it could be part of a proposed wastewater/storm water treatment program. But there is a dispute over how the city handled the acquisition.
Malibu raised some of the money it needed for the purchase through a public fundraising campaign, a grant from Santa Monica College Measure S bond money and the city’s General Fund. But most of the money, $17.4 million, was acquired through the selling of certificates of participation, which are similar to bonds but do not require approval from the voters. The city will pay off its debt over the next 30 years through the rent money it generates from the three structures on the Chili Cook-Off site.
Although the incumbents say this was the best plan, the challengers say the city could have made its debt much smaller had city officials done a better job with acquiring grants.
Last fall, the city received several grant guarantees from various state agencies to go toward the purchase. But it soon lost $8 million worth because of a conflict with the state over the appraisal process. Although the city could have attempted to do another appraisal, city officials said they were no longer interested because of the state’s request for easements on the property. To make up for the loss, the city increased the amount of certificates of participation it issued by nearly $10 million.
“I was not going to go back to the community and say, ‘I know you guys gave $2.5 million [toward the purchase], you stepped up to the plate. But guess what, we have nothing to say about what goes on the park or the design in the park,” Barovsky said at a debate hosted by the Point Dume Community Association last week. “You can call that a spin, but that’s exactly what the conservation easement would have meant.”
But the opponents say they do not buy the incumbents argument and say the city officials should have tried to resolve the appraisal dispute so that the city could get the grant money. The opponents note that Malibu Bay already put severe restrictions on the property before agreeing to sell it to the city, including that it “shall not be used for picnic facilities or for athletic fields or facilities for sporting activities of any kind, including but not limited to jogging, soccer, baseball, football, tennis or basketball.” Because of this, the opponents say the fear of the state controlling the property is just an excuse city officials made up after they lost the grant money due to an inability to conduct the appraisal properly.
“That’s [Councilmember] Sharon’s [Barovsky] legacy right there,” Embree said last month. “She’s burdened this city and future generations with extra debt plus interest. This is money that could have been used for purchasing other vacant lands and for emergency preparedness.”
Mazza added his criticism at the Point Dume debate, saying, “They blew the grants… this is the way the city is run. I think you need to believe there is a better way.”
Although the opponents have promoted the Chili Cook-Off site acquisition as proof of what’s wrong with the current government, the incumbents have used it in their campaigns as their biggest success story.
Another land acquisition the incumbents have been promoting is the one of Bluffs Park. The city has sent $2 million to the state to purchase the 10 acres of the property containing the ball fields and the Michael Landon Center, and Malibu is expected to become the official owner of the property soon. Stern and Barovsky say that deal became a reality after months of negotiation among city and state officials. But Embree and Mazza say Malibu Little League should be credited for the agreement, and the current council just happens to be in power as a two-decade dispute comes to an end.
Another contentious issue has been the Point Dume Safe Routes to School program. The proposal to create a trail system along the streets of Point Dume for students to use to walk to the elementary school has sparked praise from some residents, while others have expressed anger about a proposal they say is being rushed while little information is being revealed to the public. Others are upset the program does not address safety issues such as speeding.
Stern and Barovsky are advocates of the program, which is expected to go into development this summer. Gillespie says he also supports it. But Mazza and Embree say in its current form, the program fails to address too many issues, including the results of a 2002 Point Dume traffic study.
Also disputed in this year’s campaign has been how to deal with the constant city staff turnover. Malibu has had four planning managers/directors and two interim planning heads since 2002. Numerous city planners have come and gone, with many only staying for a few months.
“If our budget increases, I’m hoping perhaps we can raise some of these salaries,” Barovsky said last month. “But until then, people are going to take jobs for more money closer to home. That’s just a fact of life.”
But Mazza and Embree have said the problem lies with a lack of leadership in the city. They say the planning staff was weakened in 2003 when the Planning Department became a division of the Environmental and Community Development Department. They say this means the planning manager is not in charge and is unable to be a strong leader who can motivate staff members to stay.
“We need to upgrade the Planning Department to where it belongs,” Mazza said last month.
Stern and Barovsky say they are opposed to recreating a Planning Department, because with the current system the head of planning does not have to be a department head, and is able to devote his time to planning rather than personnel matters.
This year’s City Council election campaign began with a bang when a citizens group led by former Planning Commissioner Richard Carrigan sued the city to prevent Councilmember Sharon Barovsky from getting on the ballot. The group said Barovsky was ineligible to run because she was illegally seeking a third term, as they counted her partial term from 2000 to 2002 as her first term.
A trial court judge agreed with the citizens group, but an appellate court overturned the ruling. The case was closed when the Supreme Court declined to hear the matter.
But since that legal dispute reached a conclusion in early March, the campaign has been absent of any major controversies or allegations, a striking difference from all the other council races in this city’s short history.