You just can’t imagine what a burden it is to a journalist to sit through endless council meetings, listening to the members reasonably debate important public issues and politely disagree with each other. Even after they vote, the sheer tedium of getting quotes like, “Well, I guess we just didn’t see it the same way” begins to wear on your nerves.

We long for the old days when they used to give us quotes like, “That dirty land-raping, condo-loving, citified pustule of corruption won’t be happy until the entire town is covered with concrete and ill-conceived projects, and destroys our way of life, poisons our water, maims our children, kills the dolphins –” Well, you get the idea.

But I’m happy to report that the good old days may be making a comeback.

It began innocently enough with a letter to the editor of an unnamed publication, by our old friend, mayor, and frequent opponent Walt Keller. Several people had told me they thought he had gone on to his greater reward, or that he was elder-hostelling his way around the globe and was no longer part of the local scene, which shows how little they know about Walt. My first thought on seeing the letter was, “Well, he’s just tired of sitting around the house, and he’s getting on Lucile’s nerves and looking for a little excitement” — forgetting recent history, when a letter to the editor by Walt usually announced the beginning of a political offensive.

Then this past Monday night at the City Council meeting, Herb Broking — a longtime, card-carrying member of the Walt Keller/Carolyn Van Horn axis, and formerly if not presently Van Horn’s No. 1 squeeze — rose during the public comment period to make a personal attack on Councilmember Sharon Barovsky. Barovsky, incidentally, has only a two-year term and is up for reelection in 2002.

Recently, the environmentalists have some new faces, like Ozzie Silna, Marcia Hanscom, and former council candidate Robert Roy Van de Hoek plus the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy with a reasonable, rational attitude–“Can’t we work together? Can we get a bond issue for open space?”

People were beginning to say, “Well, maybe Malibu is changing. Maybe it’s finally growing up. Maybe there really are some new ideas and new faces on the scene.”

But when Broking got up to speak, it looked like the old team of Keller and Van Horn, Jo Ruggles and Efrom Fader and several others wanted to come out of exile and retake their role in the Malibu pantheon of leaders, having nursed their wounds from their overwhelming 2-1 defeat in the election before last. Their manner was as ever — combative.

Barovsky’s apparent “crime” was related to the Keller/Van Horn side’s most hated of creatures, their personal Darth Vader: in their rather strangely warped perception, what they see as the all-powerful and Machiavellian — albeit diminutive — interim city manager, Christi Hogin, who in June will switch jobs and become city attorney again. Barovsky’s crime was that she wants to keep Hogin, which greatly displeased the old guard.

Last time around, they hated Hogin enough to try and harass her into quitting in disgust. When that didn’t work, they (Keller and Van Horn, with Hasse as the third vote) finally forked over $227,000 in city cash to get her to go. They did this upon the advice of their very expensive lawyer from Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, who I’m sure explained to them that when cities do sneaky, slimy, underhanded and cruel things to employees, it’s not called politics, it’s called harassment — which in a court of law can get very, very expensive, particularly when there’s a whole group of people eager to testify how nasty they’ve been. So they did the more prudent thing and paid her off and called it a voluntary leaving. Now Broking wants to call it a firing, but it’s hard to describe a parting that gives anyone two years’ salary as a firing.

The really interesting part of all this is that, if Keller and Van Horn are looking to make a comeback, it’s not so clear that the new crowd (led by the same old Gil Segal) is so anxious to see them return. The old gang comes with considerable baggage, and if the Green movement in Malibu is to take on a more reasonable face it obviously has to sit down at the table with those with whom it disagrees. But sitting down at the table with their opponents has never been Keller and Van Horn’s strong suit.

So the politics of Malibu are heating up again. It was sort of a two-party system before, and it may turn out to be more like a parliamentary system with all types of interests — school people, ballfield people, passive recreation people, wetlanders, greenies and developers making shifting alliances. It certainly promises to be interesting.

After the wild overnight storm let up Saturday, going out for a fabulous long sunny walk on the Point (with spaces for cars to park!) was great.

However, I was reminded yet again that I’ve wanted to write and point out how futile and dangerous it is to use the new woven plastic sandbags at the beach. There were at least five large khaki-green ones distributed amongst the rocks and down onto the shore. Since it’s a wild and unbuilt-upon public beach, they’d obviously floated, sand-filled and all, down from Broad Beach or wherever they’d been piled in the first place.

I’ve noticed this phenomenon at my own stretch of sand — enormous black ones looking like misshapen seals languishing at 5-foot intervals, unraveling white ones trapped under algae-covered stones. Besides the fact of their ineffectuality — watching your money bob down the seafoam instead of saving your land from a watery end must be vexing indeed — the biggest problem with them is their arrival in the ocean proper. Seals think they’re squid, eat them and die. As do plastic bags from the grocery store, their indigestible material clogs the digestive system and, without a surgical intervention, that’s the end of that mammal!

I would like to propose to the City Council that public works along the sea be banned from using them. Mountain roads are one thing, but creekbeds and stormdrains which lead to the open sea should be limited to practical burlap. And, please, residents: be aware that this is not a good use of petroleum products … demand that your contractors use the older hemp version.

Beate Nilsen,

a 40-year lover of the ‘Bu

The following letter was sent to the Malibu Planning Commission in lieu of public comment, which was not allowed at the April 2 meeting.

Subject: Civic Center Guidelines.

The Malibu Township Council urges the Commission to postpone further consideration of the guidelines proposed for discussion tonight, or any Civic Center development guidelines, pending completion and evaluation of a Cumulative Environmental Impact Analysis, as required by state law, encompassing all potential development in the Civic Center. MTC believes that a Cumulative Environmental Impact Analysis evaluating the capacity of the environment to absorb development, in conjuction with an EIR evaluating the impact of the development on the environment, will provide the information currently lacking that is necessary to prepare realistic and achievable guidelines.

With all constraints on development identified and evaluated, the planning process can commence prioritizing community needs for playing fields, parks, community building, wetlands, and other open space. After these paramount community needs have been addressed, the task of specifiying the extent and description of commercial development for each Civic Center property consistent with community needs, the capacity of the infrastructure and environment to sustain the impact, and the rural character of the community can be undertaken.

MTC reminds this Commission that although the City Attorney and staff claim these proposed guidelines have no legal effect, a draft ordinance following approval by this Commission and the City Council would have a legal effect leading to a change in the General Plan and IZO and require an EIR. Adopting at this time these seemingly development-friendly guidelines of shared wastewater treatment plants, city-provided roadway and intersection reconfiguration and improvements, easing of design standards, intensification of permitted uses, etc., would imply approval, and would act immediately to drive up the value of the Civic Center properties. The effect would significantly conflict with the efforts by bond measure, or other funding means, to acquire portions of the Civic Center land the community sorely needs for public purposes.

MTC is concerned that these guidelines will not guide the future and serve the needs of this environmentally blessed community that so overwhelmingly endorsed the values and spirit so strongly expressed in the General Plan Vision, “Malibu is a unique land and marine environment and residential community whose citizens have historically evidenced commitment to sacrifice urban and suburban conveniences in order to protect that environment and lifestyle,” and the General Plan Mission Statement, “Malibu will maintain its rural character by establishing programs and policies that avoid suburbanization and commercialization of its natural and cultural resources.”

In addition, from the Economic Plan prepared by Applied Development Economics in April 2000 and approved unanimously by the City Council, “A significant segment of Malibu’s citizens wanting the Civic Center area to remain as open space … [the] City should commission a study of all tools that can be used to protect the area as open space [i.e., down-zoning propery, acquisition, etc.] and implementing the study’s recommendations.”

It is quite a departure from these lofty ideals to be considering proposed guidelines tonight which appear to be designed to facilitate and support the addition of new, predominantly commercial development that almost quadruples the existing commercial development in the Civic Center, resulting in an astounding potential total build-out of about 1,200,000 square feet without due regard to known environmental constraints.

For these reasons MTC requests that the Planning Commission recommend to the City Council the following:

1. That it drop consideration of these excessive growth-inducing guidelines.

2. That it do nothing at this time which would conflict with efforts of Malibu citizens and others, by bond initiative or other means, to raise funds for acquisition of land for playing fields, parks, open space, or other community needs.

3. That guidelines for development in the Civic Center be considered only after completion of a Cumulative Environmental Impact Analysis of all properties in the Civic Center and a preliminary determination by the council of the extent of development which might be permitted each property owner.

Efrom Fader

President of MTC

Re: Faith-based charity. In this instance, the politicians are doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Charities are indeed, as history and experience have proven, the best safety net. As the publisher of this paper pointed out they are more efficient and caring. Government welfare is at best a destructive failure as the numerous destroyed families, multiple generations of children having children, people who know nothing better than a life of government dependency, special-interest leaders whose political and economic existence depends on the largesse of government money, and a parasitic bureaucracy that only wants to perpetuate itself, not actually solve any poverty. Where President Bush and the Republicans have it wrong is that government is not the one to fund such private charities. With government money comes government control and that naturally raises the specter of separation of church and state. Do we support the varied religions with state money? Would religions submit to government control to get government money? Does this violate the First Amendment: “Government shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion”? As we have seen throughout history, the best way to destroy freedom of religion is to have the government fund it.

The real point that is usually missed by voters is that politicians want to have control. I am a Libertarian and am well aware of this. As long as Washington controls the money whether by grants to faith-based charity or money put into welfare programs, politicians are the ones that you have to come to, if you want more money, changes in policy or power. They are not really concerned about the elimination of poverty or human suffering otherwise welfare programs as the failures they are would have been gone a long time ago. They only use these issues to retain power and stay in office. Bush wants to please the religious right by instituting charity as a safety net, all well and good, but he still retains power and control by using government money, in other words our tax dollars. It is a way of buying votes from his constituency like the liberal Democrats buy votes with the welfare programs for theirs and that is the bottom line for any of these politicians whether they are Republican or Democrat. Staying in office, staying in power, controlling the money and making sure that voters come to them, well that is the real reason behind all of this.

Charities are indeed the way to go, but Bush and also the Democrats will not do it the way it should be done. If the Republicans really wanted charities to do it, this is the way it would happen. The politicians would return tax money to the people, then take money out of their own wallets and give that money to the private charity or faith-based charity of their choice and encourage all Americans to do the same. That is the way a Libertarian would do it. As long as voters keep electing Republicans and Democrats the perversion of charitable giving and the destruction of freedoms written in the Constitution will continue and this society will suffer even more as a result.

Charles Black

State Senate candidate, Libertarian Party

It is clear we won’t be getting much in the way of leadership from our guv, Dithering Davis, whose management style could be described most kindly as glacial. In the nine months since the power price crunch hit San Diego, he has been in denial, apparently wedded to the if-I-do-nothing-it-won’t-be-my-fault theory of governing.

Did he really think this mess would go away on its own? Did he think he could save his political backside by reminding voters that his Republican predecessor signed deregulation into law? Not any more, sir.

An instant replay:

It’s December, and Davis blasts the feds for rejecting his bid for a regional price cap on wholesale rates in favor of a temporary cap while ordering an overhaul of the state’s wacky electricity market.

Then he spends about $3 billion buying electricity for the utilities, which say they are going belly up. Next he tries to broker a deal to buy the transmission lines to give utility companies enough money to pay the billions they owe to power generators. None of this solves the real problem. Californians use more power than they produce.

Obvious answer: Use less while you figure out how to produce more. Politicians can’t take this tack because it angers their big donors and frustrates voters.

The new power plants under construction belong to out-of-state companies. Hey, they know a good thing when they see it. The plants will use natural gas, also in short supply and getting costlier every day. Could it be these same guys own the natural gas wells?

Meanwhile, existing co-generation plants sit idle because they haven’t been paid for deliveries to the utilities since last fall. Wind generating plants in Tehachapi are often off production, not because the wind doesn’t blow, but because transmission lines aren’t adequate to handle the load. And negotiations to buy the existing lines have bogged down over whether the state can buy the land beneath them or just the lines.

All the while Davis swears he will not allow rate increases to consumers and businesses. When the state Public Utilities Commission orders a hefty hike March 27, our fearless leader leaves PUC President Loretta Lynch out to dry, “distancing himself” from the rate-hike decision. Puhleeze.

Davis spent billions of taxpayers’ money to shore up the state’s utilities, saying the state can’t allow the lights to go out. Why couldn’t he have spent the money buying back the power plants from the Texans and building new transmission lines? And maybe funding construction of new plants that use alternative energy sources. We seem to have more than enough wind in Sacramento to give the state power independence.

In his much heralded address to the state Thursday, with deer-in-the-headlights delivery, he reversed every position he had held until Wednesday. He says, with a straight face, rate hikes are now good, conservation is now good, out-of-state power generators are still bad and federal regulators are worse for not cracking down on those dirty price gougers. This is a plan? What does he expect? The feds work for Dubya. The power generators are Texans. Duh!

The next day debt-ridden PG&E files for bankruptcy, notwithstanding the $2.5 billion cash it has on hand, but not before paying its own managers more than $50 million in bonuses. Aren’t these the same folks who took the billions they got from selling their power plants a few years ago and paid it to the parent company’s shareholders? Is this whole thing a giant shell game? Whose money is it? Where is it? Better not wait for our guv to produce the answers.