New credit cards have been issued in the Malibu area by a local bank because of possible fraudulent activity.

A Wells Fargo customer said his card was “eaten” by an ATM machine at a local branch in the Cross Creek shopping center. A bank manager told him there was concern of fraudulent use of Malibu account holders’ credit cards.

A bank official said he was not at liberty to speak about the issue because of a possible pending case, but did say that cards “were terminated as [a means of] prevention from other use occurring, affecting accounts in Malibu.”

Secret Service, which handles credit card fraud, said it could not confirm whether there is a case under investigation, as it would jeopardize the case if there were.

Since November 1990, the Secret Service has had concurrent jurisdiction with the Department of Justice to investigate fraud, both civil and criminal, against any federally insured financial institution.

Two major types of fraud in the banking industry today are fraudulent production of negotiable instruments (checks, bonds etc.) using computers, and “access device” fraud, which involves the counterfeiting and fraudulent use of ATM debit cards, credit cards, computer passwords, personal identification numbers (PINs), which are used to access ATMs, credit or debt card account numbers, long distance access codes and computer chips in cellular phones that assign billing.

An agent with the FBI, which also investigates certain types of fraud, said a common way criminals obtain credit information is to place a camera above an area where a card would be used, such as a gas station pump. Not only is the card number recorded, but also the pin number entered by the victim.

The simplest way that account information or actual bank cards is obtained is through postal theft. According to a report on the FBI Web site, sophisticated theft organizations will create portfolios of fictitious identification, including drivers licenses, social security cards, and other materials, in order to use the cards. “Runners” from the groups use the cards until they are reported stolen or are confiscated. These organized groups also take advantage of contacts within credit bureaus to obtain bankcard account information for counterfeiting or telephone order purchasing.

See accompanying box for information on how to protect yourself against fraud.

The City Council got a surprise visit from Joyce Parker Monday night, and her testimony moved the debate over Malibu’s new Local Coastal Plan (LCP) to a higher level.

Parker is a former planning director for Malibu and is now helping the California Coastal Commission write the state’s version of an LCP for the city. Until now there has been no input from the Coastal Commission as to what its plan will say. Meanwhile, the city has been racing to revise and rewrite its previous LCP draft in hopes of having its own voice included in any LCP certified by the Coastal Commission.

Asked if the city’s new LCP draft could be the basis for the commission’s plan, Parker said, “No … it would be too hard to back up and use your draft as a starting point.”

The Coastal Commission was mandated to write Malibu’s LCP according to state legislation passed last year (AB 988).

“Coastal staff,” Parker said, “is essentially following AB 988. They didn’t write AB 988, they’re not particularly fond of AB 988. This is the first time they’ve ever been in this situation where they’ve had to write a city’s LCP and they would much rather have it the other way around.”

The normal process is for an LCP to be generated at the local level and passed upward for review and revisions. But Malibu’s first attempted LCP, the so-called administrative draft of last year, was stillborn at the Coastal Commission. It was never acted upon. No reason was given, but accusations within the Malibu community have flown back and forth.

Some have charged that city staff called the Coastal Commission and killed the draft. And Parker, in her presentation to the city, said her belief is that someone from Coastal called and asked that the city’s first draft LCP be shelved.

However, after the council meeting city staff pulled out the minutes of the Architects and Engineers Committee meeting of March 16, 2000, in which senior coastal staff came to speak. According to the minutes from that meeting, “Gary Tim (a senior coastal staff member) stated the draft as submitted was unacceptable. He indicated the draft would require a significant number of changes that Coastal did not have the resources available to review it on a word by word basis.”

“They simply said it was a mess and they weren’t going to waste their time on it,” charged Councilmember Sharon Barovsky.

Ozzie Silna, who was on the committee that wrote the original LCP, said he was told the city–with a new city council taking office–never pursued the LCP despite efforts by the Coastal Commission to start discussions.

After a week that included input from many citizens at an ad hoc session, nearly all agreed at Monday night’s council meeting that the city needed to move forward with its own LCP. But there was still debate over how to reconcile the two city versions.

The original LCP emphasized low-impact, “passive” usage of the coastline. It calls for “maintaining the natural rather than adding to the built recreational environment,” and states that “recreational uses shall be low-intensity and in keeping with the character of existing uses in the coastal zone.”

The new LCP draft deletes those passages and others like it. Councilmembers say they agree with the intent, but that such language is a red flag to the Coastal Commission. Legislation passed by the state last month specifically calls for more “low-cost visitor and recreational facilities…”

Others, like Tom Bates, former land use chair of the Malibu Association of Realtors, argued that the language was justified by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservation Act and should be retained.

Parker urged the city to get an official draft of its LCP into the hands of Coastal’s staff as soon as possible. “You need to do an official submittal because they [Coastal staff] want to see what’s being written while we’re in the middle of writing our own,” she said.

But Parker could not say what Coastal staff would do with the city’s LCP. “It could be that our comments [on the city draft] are our draft,” she said. In other words, Coastal could use their version to recommend changes to the city’s draft.

In particular, she anticipated differences in policies on visitor-serving facilities and coastal access. Councilmembers agreed.

And that, perhaps, accounts for why the city’s new LCP seems to be trying to walk the line between no-growth stridency and uncontained growth.

Meanwhile, Parker offered some encouragement to the council. “You may be surprised at how little disagreement we’ll have in the end,” she told the council. The Coastal Commission, she said, “is not interested in turning Malibu into a coastal resort.”

The first Coastal LCP draft, Parker said, is to be ready for delivery to the city by mid-August. The city then has about three months to react to the draft. The Coastal Commission will hold public hearings on the draft in November and December.

AB 988 requires the Coastal Commission to “submit to the City of Malibu an initial draft of the land-use portion of the local coastal program” by Jan. 15, 2002. Then the plan must be adopted, after public hearings, by Sept. 15, 2002.

“And at that time,” Parker said, “I expect they will give us instructions to move ahead on implementation of the plan.”

In other business, the council:

• Approved a Cultural Resources amendment that simplifies the process for review of potential impacts of development projects on cultural resources and clarifies who can be a cultural resources monitor.

• Approved a Home Occupations amendment to the city code that says no permit is required for home occupations involving less than six employees or students and which meets certain requirements.

• Postponed adoption of 2001-2002 city budget until next council meeting.

• Approved increases in assessments for the Calle del Barco Landslide Abatement District, following a 26-10 vote in favor of new assessments by property owners in the area. The annual assessment for a single-family home increases to $1,539.10 in Zone A, and $769.55 in Zones B and C. Money is to be used to finance the construction of additional capital improvements and to operate, maintain and repair the entire landslide dewatering system in the Calle del Barco area.

Several Malibu High School construction projects will be stalled unless the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District finds alternatives to compensate for budget shortfalls predicted by officials.

Of four projects, a new gym and auditorium for the school will have to wait until additional funds are raised or reappropriated.

Mike Matthews, MHS principal, said preliminary estimates have shown that current funds are going to be insufficient to complete the projects. “But a number of things go along with that,” he explained.

The primary reason for the funding shortage is that projects have gone up in cost because a high number of school districts in the state received funds to build and renovate schools. Original project estimates from 1998 are lower than current bids are.

“The massive demand, within a short period of time, for contractors to come and do the work has created a limited number of suppliers,” explained Matthews. “So when demand goes up and supplies are limited, prices go up and districts throughout the state have experienced that.”

But Matthews is determined to see that all construction projects are completed, no matter what.

“We promised voters four things: a new classroom building, a new track and field facility, a renovated auditorium and a new gym,” he said. “No matter what, we will make the projects happen now.

“We have many options and the board has options they can use to help us out as well,” he said.

Recently, at an Open House at the school, Matthews spoke to parents and the community about possibly raising extra funds privately.

In 1998, Proposition X, the $42 million funding proposal to improve and maintain learning facilities within the SMMUSD, was easily approved by more than two-thirds of voters.

Furthermore, Prop. X got an extra boost when a state school facility bond (Prop 1A) also passed, which complimented Prop. X.

The district decided to divide the funds in a percentage formula based on a pro-rating of the number of students throughout the district. Malibu schools received 27 percent of the funds.

Two estimates were ordered as a comparison on what the projects would cost. Both estimates came up the same, and “they showed that we are $1 million to $1.5 million short,” said Mike Jordan, school board member.

However, this shortage does not necessarily spell doom for the construction projects that were planned, said Jordan.

“Here is why I am saying strongly, ‘Don’t panic yet,’ ” emphasized Jordan. “There are leaders in this district, including me, who are committed to completing the projects.”

Art Cohen, assistant superintendent in the areas of fiscal and business, echoed Jordan’s comments. “It’s not that definitive,” he said.

Currently, a 12-classroom building and a track and field are already under construction. New bids are out for construction of an auditorium and gym.

Some of the projects at Malibu High are already under way, said Cohen. As for the auditorium and the gym, “We are in the process of getting bids,” which are expected in early July.

“State funds will be predominantly used to convert the auditorium, so that is not a problem,” said Cohen. The state will fund 80 percent and Prop. X 20 percent.

Ralph Erickson, a Malibu representative on the Prop. X oversight committee, said, “Most of the projects are being completed within the timeline that was established early on. However, there have been some shortcomings.

“At Webster Elementary things were inadequately done,” said Erickson, but these were supervisory and workmanship problems.

Jeff Kramer, a former Malibu mayor who was on the committee that promoted the proposition in the community, said he is disappointed with priorities that have been established by the district board so far.

“Things like gyms and auditoriums also have community uses,” said Kramer. “I was upset by the fact that they left things that, in my view, were the biggest enticement to taxpayers to the very end.

“They managed to give the voters the lima beans, but not the cake and the ice cream,” said Kramer, as he spoke about the completion of the new MHS classroom building, while the auditorium and gym have not been done.

Other possible solutions to the financial shortfall have been suggested, including using some of the Prop. X money that was dedicated to building a new transportation facility for the district’s buses.

“We could perhaps takes some of that money,” said Jordan, who at the same time indicated that the transportation facility was in desperate need of repair. “We could re-prioritize.”

Another possible option is the use of a Certificate of Participation (COP), explained the board member. The city could decide that they wanted to enter into a COP agreement to fund a $1 million bond–over 20 years–or the district itself could participate in a COP, acting like a loan that would be paid back.

At first, Brian Wolf thought he had just stepped on a big hose. But when he felt something shaped like a nail going into his foot, he jumped high in the air.

“That’s when I thought I might have stepped on a snake,” Wolf recalled Monday. “Then I heard a rattle and I knew what I had done.”

Hiking high up in Topanga Canyon May 6, Wolf and his girlfriend, Ali, were suddenly in a race against time.

“Right then we realized we had to get off the trail as soon as possible,” Wolf said.

Wolf, an experienced hiker, was unaware that he was ignoring expert advice by continuing down the trail.

“In hindsight, it was probably a mistake. The experts say that the more you pump your heart, the more you spread the venom,” Wolf said. “So the normal advice is to sit and wait for help. But this was a pretty steep area and my only thought was to get out of there as fast as I could.”

Within three minutes, however, Wolf could feel a tingling in his face from the snake’s venom. Then he started to stumble down the trail like a drunk leaving a party on New Year’s Eve. Soon he couldn’t even walk.

“Within 15 minutes, I was in total paralysis,” Wolf said. “I was scared, but I wasn’t yelling or screaming. Thank God Ali kept a clear head.”

Wolf, a 35-year-old Manhattan Beach resident who works as a digital artist for a visual effects company, was unable to summon help on his cell phone. He said he probably would have died right there on the trail if he hadn’t come across a fellow hiker.

“I was collapsed on the trail, and I told Ali she had to find a pay phone at the trail head, so she split off from us,” Wolf said.

Then came a heroic effort from the Good Samaritan he encountered on the trail.

“I weigh 200 pounds, while he was only about 175,” Wolf said. “But he got a big adrenaline boost, put me on his shoulders and carried me down the trail.”

By the time they got to the bottom of the trail, Ali’s call had produced several emergency medical technicians who were waiting to give Wolf oxygen and stabilize his heart. Then he was airlifted out via helicopter to a local hospital.

“From the time of the bite to arrival at the hospital took just about an hour,” Wolf said. “A lot of lucky things had to happen along the way for me to get there that quickly.”

After talking with the doctors, Wolf realized just how lucky he really was.

“If that guy hadn’t been there on the trail, at the very least I would have lost my foot,” Wolf said. “The doctors said I was really lucky to find him there and get off the trail as soon as possible.”

In fact, Wolf said, the doctors told him he probably would have died if he hadn’t received medical attention within two hours of the bite.

Recovering at home, Wolf said he wants to warn other hikers to be aware of the dangers of snakes.

“Be careful where you walk,” he said. “Always hike with somebody, know where you are and never jump over bushes without looking to see where you’re going to land.”

The papers from speakers piled up in front of each city council member like so many wood chips being gathered for a bonfire. Then, one after another, the speakers rose to spark a conflagration over the city’s draft of a new Local Coastal Plan (LCP) at last week’s council meeting.

Chief among them was attorney Frank Angel, representing the Malibu Township Committee. Saying he was “appalled at the mockery this council and its interim city manager [Christi Hogin] are making of the democratic public review process,” Angel warned of court action against the council, including a writ citing possible violations against the California Coastal Act.

Moments later Councilmember Sharon Barovsky looked Angel in the eye and said, “You go ahead and file your writ, and you know what? We’ll file our own writ and this whole thing will end up in court. Is that what your clients really want?”

Angel urged that Malibu defer to the California Coastal Commission in regards to an LCP. He called the city’s new LCP an “ill-advised attempt” to stop the commission from writing its own coastal plan. He said he had called state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton’s office to say that the Coastal Commission should write the LCP “because this council does not represent the city.”

And the war was on.

What the critics of the plan wanted was not all that apparent, although they were clearly miffed that public debate on the LCP came barely 72 hours after it was made available to the public at the start of the Memorial Day weekend, at a cost of $26.57 per copy.

Opponents had more to say in the days following the council meeting.

Jo Ruggles, former city planning commissioner and a veteran of the coastal planning wars for many years, is one of the most outspoken critics of the new LCP. She chaired the city’s LCP Advisory Committee that spent four years drafting Malibu’s first city-generated coastal plan, which was brushed aside by the California Coastal Commission. Known as the 2000 Administrative Draft, it was presented to the Coastal Commission in March of last year. But the commission has never formally responded to that draft.

“We were told that it was dead-on-arrival, that it didn’t live up to the spirit of the Coastal Act,” said Barovsky.

Ruggles contended that the new LCP isn’t likely to fare any better. “In my opinion,” she said, “based on directions that the LCP committee was given by Coastal … I would imagine this one will also be dead-on-arrival.”

However, Councilmember Ken Kearsley said the new LCP “took out all the awkwardness and redundancies–things that were superfluous” from the first draft, which, he said, “was unreadable and made us look like a bunch of amateurs.”

Councilmember Tom Hasse said the new draft was “put into a format more acceptable to the Coastal Commission.”

A key potential sticking point in both plans is how to control the growth of visitor-serving facilities along the coast. Coastal Act Policy states, “Lower cost visitor and recreational facilities shall be protected, encouraged, and, where feasible, provided. Developments providing public recreational opportunities are preferred.”

Ruggles acknowledged that the Coastal Commission staff had made it clear that so-called “active” recreational facilities would be a problem, “and that those would be issues that would be debated and discussed and compromised…”

Both sides agreed that beach access and sewage disposal policies would need to be debated with the Coastal Commission. But with its first LCP at a stalemate and its second proposal threatened by litigation, prospects for Malibu’s control of its own destiny appear shaky.

Melanie Goudsward, who served briefly on the LCP Advisory Committee, said, “I think the committee had a huge stigma to overcome, that we were all viewed as elitists who want to shut the door and not let anyone in.”

The specter is that the Coastal Commission will simply write its own plan and ignore input from the city, as it was empowered to do by state legislation last year (AB 988).

“That means more hotels, hot dog stands and multifamily housing without any input from us,” said Kearsley.

The critics’ objections focused on their contention that the new LCP took out many substantial portions of the first LCP draft and that the City Council simply “trashed” it without fighting for it. But City Attorney Christi Hogin, who as interim city manager drafted the new LCP, said, “There aren’t a lot of substantive differences, really.”

Both LCPs, Hogin said, are based on the county’s 1986 Land Use Plan for the coast. What’s different? “I think, to the extent that there were policies that may have been in conflict with the Coastal Act, we’ve tried to remove that, to simplify it a little.”

And the argument goes on. But the underlying issue appears to be the evil that dare not speak its name: Politics.

Since the Coastal Commission has never officially responded to the first draft, there is nothing on record as to what its objections were. There is lots of speculation, though.

Art London of the Malibu Township Council expressed one popular theory at the council meeting:

“Although no one seems to be willing or able to explain just how, after the April 2000 election, word seems to have got out that Malibu’s reconstituted City Council determined to disown and dump the previous council’s LCP.” He suggested that the newly elected council sabotaged the plan. “It is simply not believable that Coastal or any governmental agency would, without an express request from the sender, act to reject or otherwise withhold comment on a document submitted for agency comment.”

The rhetoric cooled down some at an ad hoc hearing conducted by Barovsky and Hasse on Monday, six days after the council blowout. Sentiment among the 20 or so who attended was about evenly divided for and against the new LCP. With the exception of a few strident voices, compromise appeared to be in the air.

Jay Liebig of the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) said, “I’m not rolling over for anybody.” He urged the council to “take a chance on litigation.” But fellow MCLC member Sarah Dixon said of the meeting, “I think this is a very good exercise, and I’m glad we’re doing it.”

Meanwhile, the City Council will try to move forward with two more public hearings on June 11 and June 13.

“If everything proceeds in an orderly way, it should be this month that the document is transmitted up there [to the Coastal Commission],” said Hogin, “unless something comes up that requires more hearings.”

As to the plan being written by the Coastal Commission, Coastal Commission SaraWan said only, “I know nothing about that at this point.”