There is an old political adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Apparently, it’s as true today as whenever the author first wrote that phrase.

Exhibit A is the California Coastal Commission and its version of the City of Malibu Local Coastal Program Land Use Plan it just put together for Malibu. To call it a plan is really a misnomer. It’s not a plan; it’s a mandate. It’s the mandate of Peter Douglas, the executive director of the commission, his staff and also, I suspect, a majority of the Coastal Commission led by Malibu’s own Sara Wan.

I suspect the pitch they gave the governor, Speaker Robert M. Hertzberg and Sen. John Burton, to get the original legislation passed was that Malibu would never pass an LCP on their own. The Coastal Commission would have to spend the next century refereeing battles between neighbors in Malibu, which the leaders were very sick of hearing about.

So foolishly, perhaps naively, perhaps cynically, they went along and said, OK. The bill that passed gave the Coastal Commission the power to write the Malibu LCP.

One of the things our leaders were told (I heard this from several sources) was that the Coastal Commission would consult with the city, and essentially hammer out a consensus, which the city allegedly was incapable of doing by itself.

Last Friday, the Coastal Commission presented its draft LCP for Malibu to the city. If there is one thing that everyone agrees on (except, I’m sure, the Coastal Commission), it is that the city had zero, nothing, nada, ne rien to say about anything in the LCP. What they got was Peter Douglas’ vision.

How is Douglas’ vision different than Malibu’s vision?

Well, some feel he wants to turn Malibu into Coney Island. The truth is, I like Coney Island, but I think it’s best left in Brooklyn. Those who make the Coney Island charge are probably overstating the case a bit. However, it would be fairer to say what Douglas wants is another Laguna Beach. If this plan becomes law, that’s what he’ll get, plus a bit of an opportunity to get even with Malibu, which has been a pain in his anatomy for some time.

Here’s a brief overview of what Douglas has in mind.

• There will probably be some hotels, motels and low-cost accommodations. If you don’t like the low cost, “no problem,” just kick into the special government-approved slush fund.

• One of those hotels is going to be up at Bluffs Park, so any deal to retain or replace those ball fields up there can be kissed off.

• There will be a lot more public beach access. It The LCP indicates there will be one about every 1,000 feet, (every 20 houses or so). To go along with the increased access, the commission wants street parking just about everywhere, and particularly up on Point Dume.

• For new buildings, including renovations of more than 10 percent of original square footage, a toll–maybe an exchange of land, or granting beach access, or maybe just money–will be charged, because without it, permits will simply not be issued.

In other words, the commission has put back in everything it ever had to give up in a court fight or as a compromise.

I’m sorry to say that the governor, the speaker and the president pro tem, in seeking to rid themselves of a recurring sticky problem, instead, succeeded in starting a battle.

About 90 percent of matters the Malibu City Council deals with concerns land use. This Coastal Commission-mandated LCP pretty much takes all the control away from our elected representatives and turns it over to Douglas, the consummate bureaucrat. The council is frothing, and pretty much justifiably so. It is ready to do battle, and lawyers are gleefully cranking up their meters. But there are some genuine legal questions.

Can the Legislature just write a special law for one town, namely Malibu, and exempt the rest of the state?

Can it take the power over land use planning away from an elected body and turn it over to an unelected body, namely the Coastal Commissio?

There is a case before the Court of Appeals right now about whether the Coastal Commission is an illegal delegation of executive power to a legislative/administrative body.

I think Malibu is going to want to file an amicus brief, and I’m guessing it is not going to be alone. This move by the Coastal Commission is going to scare the stuffing out of a bunch of other coastal cities and counties, that just might be persuaded to join in asking the court to abolish the Coastal Commission as currently constituted.

But there is another much more dangerous consequence, and that is telephone government. It seems a very powerful and prominent individual, building a house on the beach in Malibu, was required to put in a view shed, which is a space in the middle of the building so people driving by could see through to the ocean. That opening was then covered with clouded glass or plastic so it was impossible to see through. A very highly placed Coastal Commission executive director-type personally called the city just to let it know this was perfectly OK with the Coastal Commission and the city needn’t worry about it.

So take heart, because the system does work, provided of course you’re very tight with some very powerful executive director type people. But if you happen to be just a lowly millionaire, or, God forbid, just merely affluent, you probably can look forward to a vigorous enforcement of all the Coastal Commission rules. Unless you’re willing to pay into the official sanctioned slush fund, or whatever the commission decides to call it.

P.S. What’s happening to Malibu is an application of the law of unintended consequences, which happens all the time in politics. The reason the Coastal Commission is so brazen is that its environmental coffers are full. When we pass bond acts, one of the things it does is earmark money for specific piggy banks, controlled directly and indirectly by certain agencies and entities. These entities, therefore, no longer have to compete for budgets with other agencies, so the oversight drops off. These agencies and entities can then do whatever they want without fear of consequences.

We have recently voted for some monumentally large state bonds and a lot of what they do is good. However, we have also created a Frankenstein of easy money and for just this reason, I, for one, intend to look long and hard at all these allegedly good guy bonds coming up on future ballots.

I have written recently to the Islamic Center of Southern California in support of all peace loving peoples, especially those of the Islamic faith. We are all now experiencing tremendous pain, an agonizing sense of loss, and deep mourning. I hope Islamic people know that in spite of recent hate crimes, that sensible people in our communities do not hold one’s religious faith responsible for terrorism.

I feel in my heart that the vast majority of Islamic peoples condemn terrorism and I know that the Koran condemns killing and especially the killing of innocents. I hope all of our national leaders keep this in mind as we seek justice for the abominable acts visited on the people of New York, Washington, D.C., and indeed the whole nation.

In order for humanity to survive, we must continue to work toward peace and understanding and to condemn crimes of hate that are ultimately the result of ignorance and denial of our common humanity.

Mona Loo

Four miles up Encinal Canyon, away from the noisiness of PCH, lies more than 500 acres of wilderness in the Santa Monica Mountains, where, on a sunny afternoon, the only sounds heard are made by the birds and the bees.

This is Charmlee Wilderness Park.

“Generally, I think people are not that well-aware of what Malibu has,” said historian Glen Howell, a docent at Charmlee. “[Charmlee is] rare in the sense that it’s been set aside as a wilderness area. It lets people know that, regardless of how Malibu moves in terms of development, Charmlee will always be there.”

In its history, the park land has been subject to several disputes, including how it could be used to serve the public–as a passive recreational area, meaning no camping, no organized sports, etc., or as an active recreational area, where sport fields could be placed or Girl and Boy Scouts could camp. Hiking is about the only activity allowed at the park.

Before it was known as Charmlee, the property was a ranch of an accumulated 300 acres owned and operated by Frederick and May Rindge.

Their surrounding neighbors were unhappy because the Rindges would not allow a public access road to be built through their property. To quiet the complaints, the Rindges simply bought out everyone. All except for one: the property that belonged to Ernest Decker, which sat at the end of a road that would later be known as Decker Canyon.

In 1903, the Rindge home was destroyed in a fire. The family moved to their townhouse in Santa Monica, on the corner of Ocean Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, across the street from what is now the Fairmont Miramar Hotel.

Sometime in the 1940s, May Rindge and her Marblehead Land Company went bankrupt.

There was a long succession of Charmlee owners after that. One of the owners was the legacy of the park’s name-a woman by the name of Charmian and her husband Leon Schwartz, both part-time actors, part-time real estate investors. The couple went by the nicknames of Charm and Lee and, by combining the two names, came up with the title for their ranch.

After the Schwartz’s lost their home in the infamous Christmas fire of 1956 they relocated, selling Charmlee Ranch to a developer with the Sky Company. The new owner wanted to turn Charmlee into a golf course and a residential area, but he ran into problems with regards to easements and costs. Lack of water and limited partnership prompted him to sell. In the 1960s, 10 years after the Schwartz’s had left, the county of Los Angeles bought Charmlee.

The county solved the easement problem by purchasing the three large parcels of land around Charmlee, which would be enough to hook the property to the main road. When the county put the properties together to create a park, it chose to keep the name of Charmlee.

The county’s intentions were to turn Charmlee into an active recreation park, complete with a golf course, overnight camping and a variety of other activities.

Its efforts were thwarted by geology. In the mid-70s, county engineer John Lambie detected an ancient landslide in the meadow area and felt that, in terms of putting a golf course there, it would risk reactivating the landslide. Too much water would be needed to maintain the golf course therefore, over-lubricating the hills.

“[Lambie] made a very strong case,” said Gifford Hitz, director of The Charmlee Foundation. “He said that there were areas that were very good and areas that were very bad. He would not support going ahead with the golf course program, but said that [Charmlee] would be good to have as a natural area.”

No development would take place. Nearly two decades later, in 1991, Malibu became a city. The county agreed to lease out Charmlee to Malibu a few years after that.

“Then, in 1998, the county was going through a budget crunch,” said city Councilmember Tom Hasse, “or they wanted to unload some of their property.”

There was a difference of opinion among the then city councilmembers as to how to use the property. “It was the old dynamic between usefulness and beauty,” said Howell.

Some of the members felt the need to get some use out of the property, while others felt it was unique and should be kept natural. Hasse was of the latter opinion.

“I voted to [keep Charmlee] passive because I respected the wishes of the neighbors in that area,” he said.

Two of those neighbors, Paul and Sandy Russell, were very active in the community and lived just above Charmlee, in Lechusa Highlands. They spent time with the City Council and with lawyer Frank Angel, proposing that Charmlee stay passively recreational.

“They were well-known in the city government,” said Howell. “They had a lot of clout.”

Many people feel, for better or for worse, the Russell couple is responsible for the deed that protects the park from ever becoming actively recreational. Paul remained very active politically in terms of legal matters. Sandy was a naturalist who was in charge of the park’s docent-training program.

However, not everyone is pleased with the results brought about by the Russells and Frank Angel.

“To think,” said Laurene Sills, a commissioner for Malibu Parks and Recreation, “that a lawyer can come into Malibu and make it so that the only park the city owns has handcuffs on it, is disturbing and disgusting to me.”

Being a passive recreation park, Charmlee’s rules do not permit biking, camping or too many other physical activities that go beyond walking.

“They couldn’t even put a hoop up there,” said Sills.

While Sills feels, as a parent, her three children should be able to use Charmlee actively, Hasse strongly disagrees.

“I don’t think Charmlee Park is a prime location for sports fields,” he stated, “given its remote location in far western Malibu. I think that active recreation, specifically sports fields, have to be more centrally located.”

While people may never agree on how Charmlee Park should be used (or not used), it is, for the time being, a wilderness park where hikers can visit the ruins of the Charmlee ranch house and the grave of Leon Schwartz, whose son, Lee Jr., sprinkled his ashes on the foundation.

Nearing the end of the trek, hikers can find Charmlee’s 70-year-old fireproof Ping-Pong table, nestled in the midst of ancient oaks.

“Charmlee is one of the few places left where you can have this peace and quiet and natural beauty,” said Howell.

I sat all weekend trying to write a column about what happened in New York and Washington, D.C. I couldn’t do it. It’s not that I didn’t know what to say. I simply had to much to say and it’s all going in opposite directions. One moment I would send missiles flying to obliterate the Arab world and the next I would try to negotiate a political solution. In other words, like most of you, I’m completely unsure and harboring very contradictory feelings, with a lot of anger and emotional intensity.

It’s hard to think, or to sleep or to concentrate on anything else. So I decided to wait a week to try and let the ambiguities settle down, and instead, run some things done by other writers e-mailed to me by friends.

First is a column written by Leonard Pitts Jr. in the Miami Herald the day after the bombing. It is a profoundly elegant statement of who we are as a people and what America stands for. The second is a previously aired editorial from a radio broadcast by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian Television commentator, for which all Americans should be indebted. In times of trial it’s good to hear from your friends. Lastly, is a personal account written by Jerry Derloshon, director of Public Information at Pepperdine, about one of their graduates who died in the Pittsburgh crash. All three letters touched me, and I’m sure they will do the same to you.

A failed cause

We’ll go forward from this moment It’s my job to have something to say.

They pay me to provide words that help make sense of that which troubles the American soul. But in this moment of airless shock when hot tears sting disbelieving eyes, the only thing I can find to say, the only words that seem to fit, must be addressed to the unknown author of this suffering.

You monster. You beast. You unspeakable bastard.

What lesson did you hope to teach us by your coward’s attack on our World Trade Center, our Pentagon, us? What was it you hoped we would learn? Whatever it was, please know that you failed.

Did you want us to respect your cause? You just damned your cause. Did you want to make us fear? You just steeled our resolve. Did you want to tear us apart? You just brought us together.

Let me tell you about my people. We are a vast and quarrelsome family, a family rent by racial, social, political and class division, but a family nonetheless. We’re frivolous, yes, capable of expending tremendous emotional energy on pop cultural minutiae-a singer’s revealing dress, a ball team’s misfortune, a cartoon mouse. We’re wealthy, too, spoiled by the ready availability of trinkets and material goods, and maybe because of that, we walk through life with a certain sense of blithe entitlement. We are fundamentally decent, though-peace-loving and compassionate. We struggle to know the right thing and to do it. And we are, the overwhelming majority of us, people of faith, believers in a just and loving God.

Some people-you, perhaps-think that any or all of this makes us weak. You’re mistaken. We are not weak. Indeed, we are strong in ways that cannot be measured by arsenals.

Yes, we’re in pain now. We are in mourning and we are in shock. We’re still grappling with the unreality of the awful thing you did, still working to make ourselves understand that this isn’t a special effect from some Hollywood blockbuster, isn’t the plot development from a Tom Clancy novel. Both in terms of the awful scope of their ambition and the probable final death toll, your attacks are likely to go down as the worst acts of terrorism in the history of the United States and, probably, the history of the world. You’ve bloodied us as we have never been bloodied before.

But there’s a gulf of difference between making us bloody and making us fall. This is the lesson Japan was taught to its bitter sorrow the last time anyone hit us this hard, the last time anyone brought us such abrupt and monumental pain. When roused, we are righteous in our outrage, terrible in our force. When provoked by this level of barbarism, we will bear any suffering, pay any cost, go to any length, in the pursuit of justice.

I tell you this without fear of contradiction. I know my people, as you, I think, do not. What I know reassures me. It also causes me to tremble with dread of the future.

In the days to come, there will be recrimination and accusation, fingers pointing to determine whose failure allowed this to happen and what can be done to prevent it from happening again. There will be heightened security, misguided talk of revoking basic freedoms. We’ll go forward from this moment sobered, chastened, sad. But determined, too. Unimaginably determined.

You see, the steel in us is not always readily apparent. That aspect of our character is seldom understood by people who don’t know us well. On this day, the family’s bickering is put on hold.

As Americans we will weep, as Americans we will mourn, and as Americans, we will rise in defense of all that we cherish.

So I ask again: What was it you hoped to teach us? It occurs to me that maybe you just wanted us to know the depths of your hatred. If that’s the case, consider the message received. And take this message in exchange: You don’t know my people. You don’t know what we’re capable of. You don’t know what you just started.

But you’re about to learn.

Leonard Pitts Jr.

Miami Herald

Tribute from Canada

Widespread but only partial news coverage was given recently to a remarkable editorial broadcast from Toronto by Gordon Sinclair, a Canadian television commentator [which was previously aired but not in response to last week’s events]. What follows is the full text of his trenchant remarks as printed in the Congressional Record:

“This Canadian thinks it is time to speak up for the Americans as the most generous and possibly the least appreciated people on all the earth. Germany, Japan and, to a lesser extent, Britain and Italy were lifted out of the debris of war by the Americans who poured in billions of dollars and forgave other billions in debts. None of these countries is today paying even the interest on its remaining debts to the United States.

“When France was in danger of collapsing in 1956, it was the Americans who propped it up, and their reward was to be insulted and swindled on the streets of Paris. I was there. I saw it.

“When earthquakes hit distant cities, it is the United States that hurries in to help. This spring, 59 American communities were flattened by tornadoes. Nobody helped.

“The Marshall Plan and the Truman Policy pumped billions of dollars into discouraged countries. Now newspapers in those countries are writing about the decadent, warmongering Americans.

“I’d like to see just one of those countries that is gloating over the erosion of the United States dollar build its own airplane. Does any other country in the world have a plane to equal the Boeing Jumbo Jet, the Lockheed Tri-Star, or the Douglas DC10? If so, why don’t they fly them? Why do all the International lines except Russia fly American planes?

Why does no other land on earth even consider putting a man or woman on the moon? You talk about Japanese technocracy, and you get radios. You talk about German technocracy, and you get automobiles.

“You talk about American technocracy, and you find men on the moon not once, but several times – and safely home again. You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at. Even their draft-dodgers are not pursued and hounded. They are here on our streets, and most of them, unless they are breaking Canadian laws, are getting American dollars from ma and pa at home to spend here.

“When the railways of France, Germany and India were breaking down, through age, it was the Americans who rebuilt them. When the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central went broke, nobody loaned them an old caboose. Both are still broke.

“I can name you 5000 times when the Americans raced to the help of other people in trouble. Can you name me even one time when someone else raced to the Americans in trouble? I don’t think there was outside help even during the San Francisco earthquake.

“Our neighbors have faced it alone, and I’m one Canadian who is damned tired of hearing them get kicked around. They will come out of this thing with their flag high. And when they do, they are entitled to thumb their nose at the lands that are gloating over their present troubles. I hope Canada is not one of those.” Stand proud, America!

Gordon Sinclair

Alumnus hailed as hero

Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it.” -Helen Keller

Businessman Thomas E. Burnett, Jr., 38, boarded a morning flight in Newark, New Jersey on September 11, bound for his home in San Ramon, outside San Francisco. Leaving the East Coast early meant he wouldn’t lose an entire day to travel. A 1992 President/Key Executive (PKE) graduate of Pepperdine’s Graziadio School of Business and Management, Burnett was a doer, someone who liked to make things happen. As senior vice president and chief operating officer of Thoratec Corp., his job was to make things happen.

There is no way he could have known that United Flight 93 was to end in a fiery crash outside Pittsburgh, killing all 45 passengers and crew members. There was no way he could have known that what he would say and make happen in the final hour of his life, would come to be heralded as nothing short of heroism.

Commandeered by radical terrorists on a suicide mission, Flight 93 was forcefully diverted from its westward heading and a course was set for Washington, D.C. It was to be the last of four “airline missiles” whose combined effect would culminate in the most vulgar expression of inhumanity the nation had ever experienced. Already three such missiles had abruptly ended several thousand lives striking the twin 110-story World Trade Center Towers in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington.

In cell phone conversations with his wife, Deena, who was at home serving breakfast to their three children, Burnett learned of the tragedies in New York and Washington. In several subsequent calls to Deena, placed while huddling with other passengers in the rear section of the plane, Burnett revealed that he and several co-passengers were plotting to thwart the hijackers’ plans to wreak further terror upon the nation’s capital, possibly preventing a direct strike on the White House or Capitol Hill itself.

During Burnett’s fourth call to Deena, he told her a group of passengers was going to try to do something. It was the last time the couple spoke.

No one can ever know for sure what transpired aboard Flight 93. The plane lost altitude rapidly; its last radar blip appearing at 10:03 a.m., 25 minutes before its projected arrival in the skies above Washington. Flight 93 crashed in a sparsely populated area, killing no one on the ground.

Quoted in a Los Angeles Times article two days later on September 13, Deena Burnett said she is confident that her husband, Tom, and the others, foiled the terrorists’ plans. “We may never know how many people helped him or what

they did,” she said. “But I know without a doubt that plane was bound for some landmark and they saved many, many more lives than were lost on that plane.”

Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.), agrees. Murtha said he was convinced there was a struggle aboard Flight 93. “The target was the Capitol, the White House, the Pentagon, something significant,” he said. “Somebody made a heroic effort to keep this plane from hitting a populated area.”

In the aftermath of the tragedy, Thoratec President D. Keith Grossman called Burnett “an exceptionally bright man” who had a love of competition, a keen wit and a “very strong sense of right and wrong.”

In addition to his wife, Deena, Burnett is survived by three daughters-a 3-year-old, and twins who are 5. Their father didn’t set out to be a hero on September 11, 2001. But a hero is how he will always be remembered.

Jerry Derloshon

Director

Public Relations

Pepperdine University

SPIRITED EXCHANGE

Granita’s Jennifer Naylor and Wolfgang Puck whipped up a sumptuous feast for the American Cancer Society at this year’s Cal Spirit Gala. The local tastemakers put their talents to the test alongside the top chefs in town, giving more than 800 foodies a first-class treat. The alfresco garden party took place at the Ken Roberts Ranch, where Puck and co-host Sherry Lansing of Paramount Pictures made the rounds pressing the flesh and personally greeting their guests.

Naylor was hard at work assembling mounds of heirloom tomatoes, grilled eggplant and creamy mozzarella along with fried calamari, spicy gazpacho, white peach sangria shaved ice and green apple granitas.

After sampling the fresh Mediterranean fare, food fans checked out the rest of the spread, which featured everything from Sushi Roko’s tuna sashimi to Angelini’s spaghetti with lobster sauce and even good ol’fashioned macaroni and cheese.

Once everyone had worked up an appetite, it was time to loosen the purse strings. The afternoon’s charity auction included a prized NBA basketball signed by Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, deluxe travel packages to hot spots like Venice, Paris and London and grandstand seats to the 2002 Rose Bowl Parade.

A cuddly yellow retriever and an 8-week-old bichon fris were also auctioned off to the highest bidders. The lucky Lab went home with KNBC’s Paul Moyer. Puck took the other pup as a present for his 11-year-old son, Kyle.

Still, the top dog at this event was Bruce Johansen, president and chief executive of the National Association of Television Program Executives. Mr. J. was hailed for his efforts to increase gender and ethnic diversity in the media, as well as his involvement in the American Cancer Society, the Los Angeles Opera, the Salvation Army and AIDS Project Los Angeles. The celebrity chef program helped raise a whopping $650,000.

But wait, there’s more.

This Saturday, Puck takes his pots and pans to Universal Studios for another gastronomic get together, this time to help the Santa Monica-Malibu Meals on Wheels program, among others. His annual food and wine festival is expected to draw more than 1,500 country folk and city slickers for a great American cook-off and homestyle hoe down. YEE-HA!

CRIMES OF FASHION

Nicole Kidman captures the golden age of glam, Sarah Jessica Parker sizzles in the sexiest of styles and Catherine Zeta Jones is a designer’s dream. They got a big thumbs up from People Magazine as Hollywood’s best dressed beauties.

Malibu also made the list, not for dos, but for don’ts. Among the findings…

Pamela Anderson is a dud in denim, Cher should say good-bye to Goth, Whoopie Goldberg must give that mu-mu a miss and Leonardo DiCaprio is a Titanic mess.

Is Malibu style all washed up? Keep your eyes open and report violators to the fashion police.