Six weeks ago my wife brought home the most beautiful, bouncy puppy I’ve ever seen. We named her Pearl as she was all white with a brown patch over her left eye. Pearl brought such joy and happiness to our house. Pearl was from the animal shelter and from the moment she arrived she was so happy to be in a fenced yard with loving people and two big dogs that quickly adopted her for her playful ways. We could not have loved her more. But just tonight a stranger came to our door and said a little puppy was lying dead in the street. That street is Fernhill Drive. Our beloved puppy, which was a constant source of joy, had been killed, run over. She’d somehow gotten out of our fenced yard for just a couple of minutes. The driver didn’t stop. My wife, her son and I are utterly heart broken. How she got out of our fenced yard is not clear. We, of course, accept responsibility for her getting out but in my grief I know there is a larger issue.

For years, I have been outraged by the speeding in front of our house at Boniface and Fernhill and have spent hundreds of hours trying to get this city council, this police department and this public works department to do SOMETHING to stop the speeding. Three years ago, after being given a personal inspection of the successful and extensive speed hump program in Portland, Oregon, I created petitions and took them to every house on Fernhill and Dume Drive to attempt to install speed humps on these busy streets. I got over 65 percent of the residents on Fernhill to agree to speed humps and they even agreed to pay for them! A majority of Dume residents signed on as well.

The residents of any residential street should be able to decide on what is right for their street. It is past time for the residents of these two Point Dume streets to reclaim their RIGHT to equal safety and peace.

Speed humps and only speed humps make cars drive at 25 miles per hour. They are tested and they work. They work 24 hours a day, everyday. They work every hour you need them, not occasionally like a patrol car. A very vocal group decided they couldn’t tolerate the humps on this street. The majority of them didn’t live on these streets, they just didn’t want the inconvenience. Why in God’s name can’t we have 25 mile per hour speed limits in this residential neighborhood? Are the neighbors so busy they can’t slow down? Every day the cars race by our house. They go right over the double yellow lines and honk at us as we attempt to leave our driveway. Forty miles per hour all day and night. People view Fernhill and Dume as a county road not a residential street. This city has allowed that to happen. I am determined to change that.

I called Sergeant Mach just last week to request a police presence on this street. He’s our head policeman and he strongly favors the use of speed humps. He can only offer a couple of hour’s vigilance and speeding tickets per day out here. He’s only got six patrol cars at any given time for the whole of Malibu. I’ve called Chuck Bergson at public works for years about what he plans to do to slow the speeding. He keeps assuring me he’s got some plans that are being studied, considered, voted on. He’s well intentioned but he’s hamstrung by committees and several individuals on the public works that are flat out opposed to change.

My neighbors and I have put up signs begging people to slow down but they don’t’ and they won’t, unless we install those humps, put in roundabouts, narrow the streets, whatever it takes. We need full time enforcement. Cities across America use these measures. Why don’t we? Do I think the cops can stop the speeding with their total of six cars for all of Malibu? Not for a minute. I’ve been to the city council numerous times, left them information about speed humps and other traffic abatement methods, methods that work around the clock to slow traffic.

Have any of the council members come to observe at 8 a.m. as the SUV’s speed to the elementary school to drop off their children or when the commuters come flying down the street on their way to their quiet side streets somewhere on the Point or when the AA members race in to make their meetings? Never once! They only seemed truly committed to bringing more development to Malibu, more traffic. That is all they seem to really give a damn about. What about public safety for God’s sake?

I washed Pearl’s blood off the street tonight. She is gone. We will miss her terribly. We loved her. Do I harbor any prospects for the City Council to address the speeding on Point Dume? Only if the families on this Point decide that they want to impose sanity on these residential streets will that happen. If we can’t unite to accomplish something so basic as safe streets what can we achieve? Please don’t tell me a child has to die to finally get a grip on speeding on Fernhill and Dume Drives. Hell, this time it was only a precious, beautiful, little puppy.

Bob Carmichael

Foot and mouth disease may be on its way, but E. coli bacteria is already here – and it’s everywhere, from fast food restaurants and supermarket shelves to petting zoos and “barnyard exhibits.”

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) states that exposure to “barnyard exhibits” increases one’s chances of contracting E. coli infections, particularly for children, who commonly put their hands near their mouths after petting the animals. The CDC suggests that organizers of animal exhibits “provide more adequate hand-washing facilities and ban hand-to-mouth contact close to the animals.”

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) thinks that suggestion is all washed up! If you want to avoid E. coli, avoid the animals-dead or alive. Whether on your plate, or in the barn, cows, chickens, goats and other farm animals can be harmful to your health.

As more and more people adopt a vegetarian diet, our need for “farm” animals will diminish, as well as exhibits where we can gawk at them, therefore lessening the threat of E. coli contamination. Contact PETA at 1-888-VEG-FOOD for a free vegetarian starter kit.

Heather Moore

At last, a glimmer of reason has appeared in the Malibu Times. This well written and cogent article has put the blame where it belongs, on the environmentalists and their political lackeys who have literally run unchecked throughout this state for decades. This started with the hysteria over nuclear power plants and Governor Moonbeam and his “less is more” mentality. The economic costs of their meddling through coercive, unreasonable and unrealistic laws, contradictory and costly regulations and lawsuits are finally coming into the consciousness of the public. The economic crisis that we are having now is painfully instructing people that there is a cost benefit ratio that has to be considered for not only environmental protection but also for the welfare of the citizens. This cost in the form of endless lawsuits, idiotic government regulations, bureaucratic stupidity, decreased productivity and wasted resources has not been counted until now. The steep rise in gasoline, natural gas and the concomitant costs in electricity is finally making a long overdue impression on citizens. It is long past time for the radicals to admit that people are important too.

It is also long past time that politicians admit their culpability in this travesty also.

The blockage by environmentalists and their political allies of new or expanded power plants, oil exploration, refineries and gas production has certainly not improved the economic situation and this summer the fruits of environmental radical policies and the politicians genuflecting to this special interest group will be borne by the ordinary citizen. The abject failure of our dimbulb governor to acknowledge the causes of the problem and actually do something constructive should be obvious by now to everyone including this newspaper.

The pathetic best that our governor can do is threaten producers with confiscation or propose unsound buyout proposals. As if that will make entrepreneurs and developers of power flock to this state to invest their money in power plants. Like a typical Democrat Davis believes that all you have to do is appear tough, threaten the big bad corporations, or pass a badly written and incredibly stupid law and these kinds of economic and modern necessities will magically appear, cheaply and to be had in abundance by all. For example, the light bulb police checking to make sure businesses have their lights out at certain times. Or worse yet, the politicians will threaten that the government will take over the entire system. Well, folks, if you think the DMV is bad wait until a similar bureaucracy starts managing power plants or the electrical grid system. So this summer when you are at home, in the dark, stuck in traffic due to no traffic lights or, even worse, stuck in an elevator when a blackout hits remember that it was the Democratic politicians and the econuts that got you there.

Charles T. Black

Libertarian Party

Included in letters to the editor this week is one from a member of the Libertarian party congratulating us on a guest editorial that ran last week. Thank you for the kudos, but the editorial was not written by me. An attorney wrote it for the Pacific Legal Foundation and, in the main, I didn’t agree with his premise or the Foundation’s premise that the problem with our world is government.

I don’t share this almost child-like belief that if government would just leave the environmental problems and energy supply problems alone, the free market would work them out. It seems to me to be sort of Pollyannaish.

Being a very empirical person, I look at the energy crisis, and at a bunch of free enterprise utilities running to the government and whining about how they were forced into deregulation and about how they, therefore, should be bailed out, and I wonder whatever happened to the free enterprise system. If they made a dumb decision, should we just be saying “Tough”?

Now having said all this, and having spoken up to defend government, you might well wonder why it is that I truly believe the bad reputation enjoyed by government is frequently well-deserved and often the result of self-inflicted wounds.

I believe that people dislike government because governments consistently do some of the dumbest things imaginable. And just so you don’t think this is some philosophic discourse, I’m going to give you two very local examples that are happening as we speak.

Example # 1

This past weekend, the Malibu Farmers’ Market reopened in the City Hall parking lot after a winter hiatus. It’s no great secret that they’re struggling and they desperately need community support if they’re going to stay in business. To make it a more inviting event, they have food booths and fun things that will attract families with children, to try and create a comfortable friendly atmosphere. To make it work the city gives the space, and has given money directly to the Farmers’ Market.

So what happens? A sheriff’s department ticket giver, who drives around in a little white sheriffs car with a decal that says “community service officer,” which one could argue is a bit of a misnomer, decides to start ticketing cars that are parked at an angle alongside the Chili Cook-Off site.

I must admit that he got me, along with a bunch of others. The reason we parked at an angle was because the others before us parked that way. There was no sign that said you couldn’t, and it made space for more cars. It was apparent that whoever gives out tickets–and by the way these are frequently part-time, low-paid and minimally trained individuals, sometimes not even old enough to drink–is running around exercising some very poor governmental judgment.

Almost everyone I talked to thought the tickets were sheer idiocy and were prepared to go to court to fight them. I think if the sheriff’s department is able to squander its manpower in this sort of silliness, perhaps it simply has too much money in its budget and too much manpower.

I, for one, am going to take a much harder look at the department’s budget when it comes up again. I would like to see a public explanation about the entire so-called “community service officers” and who’s hired, how they’re trained, how they’re supervised, and perhaps a public discussion about whether or not we really need them.

Example # 2

The State of California and the California State Department of Parks want to buy the 1,600-plus acres in Lower Topanga Canyon from the Los Angeles Athletic Club holding company. A budget of $40 million has been allocated for the purpose. The goal is to make that land available to California as a public park.

However, State Parks won’t take it unless it is vacant and free of tenants because in past deals the department got burned–it took years to get rid of the tenants. So the state wants to throw out all the tenants, but also it doesn’t want to appear to be the heavy; it looks bad when the state uses its power to muscle citizens and small businesses that don’t have the finances to fight back.

So a deal is cut with an organization called the American Land Conservancy (ALC), which has a contract to buy the land. The ALC is now in the process of throwing everyone off the land and that includes the Malibu Feed Bin, Oasis Furniture, the Reel Inn, the Topanga Motel, the Topanga Ranch Market, Something Fishy Sushi Restaurant, Wylie’s Bait and Tackle Shop, Thai Beach Caf, an assorted group of other businesses and renters, some of whom have been there for 20 or 30 years.

In other words, the state proposes to tear down the only reasonably priced visitor-serving area in Malibu so it can make room for a new visitor-serving area. If a private developer attempted anything this heavy-handed, people would be laying down in front of the bulldozers. Apparently, this little cute deal has the support of the environmental community and our state legislators because they all want the acreage.

It my opinion the deal stinks, and when government goes into the tenant removal business and hides behind some shell environmental wheeler dealers, to me, it’s unconscionable. It can only make you wonder if the Libertarian may be right after all. Maybe government really can’t be trusted.

I have enjoyed the articles written by your reporter Ann Salisbury.

Over the last 50 years I have fished in the Malibu area. I have caught and released many steelhead in the creek. I’ve watched their numbers dwindle to almost zero due to poor water quality upstream, instream and downstream. It’s frightening. By the time decisions are made about what to do with the Rindge Dam, how to control the City of Malibu’s continuous pollution, and how to control the Tapia Water Treatment Plant, there won’t be any steelhead to save.

Realtor Louis Busch claims the fish have never gone above the dam, but others show pictures of braces of steelhead that appear to have been caught way up near Cornell in the early 1900s. I don’t know who is right. But I do know that when I heard Mr. Busch say at a public meeting that he didn’t care about the fish, and why don’t we just buy them in the grocery store, it makes me cringe that such ignorance has anything to do with real estate.

Keep writing those excellent articles Ms. Salisbury.

Michael Hart