As a practicing attorney for the past 25 years here in Malibu, as a “baseball” dad, local surfer and former City Council candidate (two times), and contrary to the political propaganda being perpetrated against “P” by Jerry Perenchio’s foreign corporation, the City Council and some local lawyers, I feel compelled to point out that:
(1) Measure P will be legally presumed to be constitutional if passed by the electorate and the courts will use “every intendment in its favor” and will not easily overturn it;
(2) The Permit Streamlining Act, calling for automatic approval of permit applications for delays by governmental agencies, has no relation or application to P because the measure is for electoral approval and not for administrative approval;
(3) The Bay Company’s scare tactic of “don’t let the Courts decide” is obviously based upon the Company’s previous litigation to challenge the “legality” of Malibu’s IZO so they could overdevelop and they lost big time (no wonder they want to stay away from objective judicial review); and,
(4) The Bay Company’s deal itself, if approved, will result in major litigation because of its basic flaws and misrepresentations regarding the purported “donation” and its creation of significant additional contamination and pollution of already polluted creek, lagoon, and ocean in violation of state and federal regulations;
Anyone can sue anyone if they pay the $187 filing fee and the papers are in the proper format, so fearing being sued is not a good enough reason to abandon valuable principles protecting our town — defending those principles is what is most valuable.
The city’s defense of P after it passes will result in tremendous benefits that major developers are now unwilling to deliver. The realization by developers, their attorneys, and our City
Council of the presumptive constitutionality of Measure P and every court’s reluctance to overturn the citizens’ mandate to protect our health, safety and general welfare will ensure more responsible development and more benefits to the community than without it.
The advertising campaign of fear against P is false and misleading. Perenchio power? No, it reveals the developers’ desperation about what was borne from citizens’ inspiration, dedication, perspiration, and imagination. P is for People Power. Yes for P.
Sam Birenbaum