Abigail Luciano/Special to the Malibu Times

Although the folks at Elysium Fields clothing optional resort are moving, they don’t have to do a lot of packing. The resort, currently located at 814 Robinson Rd. in Topanga for 32 years, may be relocating just west to Malibu at a yet unrevealed location.

Fred Sands Realtors of Malibu is handling the sale of the new site, which is now in escrow. Members and Realtors are tight-lipped, at the request of the new and also unidentified buyer of where the exact location will be.

However, Elysium’s Website does state the new site is in the Santa Monica Mountains with a view of the Pacific Ocean.

Selling of the Topanga property began earlier this year. Its current owners, Dana and Lisa Lange, inherited it from their father, late set designer Ed Lange. The sisters resigned from the board of directors last year and decided to sell the parcel.

Earlier reports indicate an offer was made for the Topanga property from a group of physicians for a cancer patient retreat, but that offer was not confirmed.

Elysium members have also been said to have made an offer of $1.1 million for the property, which was $1.5 million under the asking price.

Lange’s goal was to open a resort for the unclothed to enjoy. When Lange died six years ago, his ashes were scattered there and longtime members say his presence is still felt.

Offering privacy, recreation and tranquillity to its 700 members and visitors, the 9-acre retreat opened in 1968.

Activities there include exercising, theme parties and sports with perks such as massages, poolside sunbathing and child care. The Website does post that adults and children do not have to take off their clothes.

Visitors and members are encouraged by the website to cast off inhibitions as well as respect each others’ privacy. Cell phones and pagers are amongst a list of items members and visitors are asked to leave at home in order to keep a relaxing, stress-free environment. On the list for what to bring, a lot of sun block and a smile.

There is a possibility of obtain ing an additional $450,000 in state funding to help solve Malibu’s flooding problems if the City Council approves a Flood Mitigation Plan before Dec. 1, according to Chuck Bergson, public works director.

The city already has received a $150,000 grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help with the mitigation process.

After finding that Malibu is second only to Sonoma County for repetitive flooding claims made to FEMA, the city created a Flood Mitigation Committee in the hopes of getting control of the flooding problem.

The committee reviewed the flood risk identification process for the first time Monday.

The purpose of the flood mitigation plan is to take measures to reduce and eliminate repetitive losses of property due to flooding. It will help identify areas of historic flooding and problem areas, determine existing hydrologic conditions in the watersheds, and develop goals and objectives for the flood mitigation plan.

The six-member committee is comprised of three members of the public, including John Wall, chair, Ed Lipnick, vice-chair, and Libby Sparks Lippman and three members of city staff, Barry Hogan, planning director, Bergson, and Vic Peterson, Environmental and Building Safety official. City Manager Marilyn Leuck was also present.

During this first meeting the committee reviewed the reasons for its existence, which is to have a plan to decrease the claims in the future.

Information provided by FEMA, which has collected data for the past 17 years, indicates that claims are clustered in the PCH area, which is suspected not to be sufficiently equipped with drainage. Consequently that canyon water pools up and runs over the highway causing traffic stoppage and property damage.

David Evans and Associates, a consulting firm contracted for the project, created a map showing the problem areas such as the Las Tuna section of PCH. The firm will discuss the draft goals and objectives of the plan, including possible mitigation measures, and receive public comment on the goals and solutions at a public meeting Aug. 24 at the HRL Laboratory Auditorium between 7 and 9 p.m.

Possible solutions can include elevating structure, putting up walls or moving properties at risk.

As the committee was discussing its schedule, they decided to expedite matters by meeting monthly, except for the month of October, so they can finalize a review before going to City Council in November.

After the meeting was adjourned, committee members looked at the map created by the consulting company. They could indeed see that repetitive flooding exists, noting that one property has made four claims in the past 17 years, while none of its neighbors have any at all.

The Malibu Pier was the main focus at the Business Roundtable Study Group meeting Friday.

Hayden Sohm, superintendent for the Malibu Sector of the Dept. of Parks and Recreation, reported the current status of the construction projects on the Malibu Pier.

“The bidding period for Phase 2 ended recently,” he reported.

The Roundtable is a group of business people who get together once a month to improve, overall, Malibu businesses and economic vitality through the cooperation of various city, business and community organizations.

According to Sohm, the pier should be completely remodeled, hopefully, by late Spring 2002. The bids for Phase 2 were recently opened and Meek Construction was approved to do the work, which is expected to begin in approximately two weeks. The construction company that won the $1.2 million contract has past experience with marine environment construction and it has successfully done similar work in the past, said Sohm.

Sohm said the 710 foot-long pier is currently open and available for public use while Phase 2 is in progress. However, intermittent closures may occur to accommodate the construction when necessary.

Phase 2 will include the completion of Phase I, which was not finished by the initial contractors. The state cut short the contractors work because of friction between the joint venture partners. The completion will include the replacement of pilings and bent caps. Other Phase 2 work will comprise the main stem of the pier, deck replacement and work to be done beneath the buildings at the end of the pier, as well as the completion of the railing and light fixtures. It will also include provisions to address the sewer system so impact to the environment is minimized. The food preparation building, adjacent to the former Alice’s Restaurant, will be torn down in Phase 2.

Cost issues involve hazardous materials because lead paint still exists on the pier.

The parking issue is still being debated because there is a concern about a shortage of spaces. Suggestions to lease a vacant lot across the street from the pier and making arrangements to use the Malibu Lagoon parking lot have been made by the Roundtable.

Phase 3 is expected to start in late Spring, 2001. The goal of Phase 3 is to work on the buildings so they can accommodate concessions. These concessions will be made available to bidders early next year, if the construction deadlines are met.

So far it appears that restaurants, sport fishing and other like businesses are what the public wishes to see on the pier.

A meeting for public input from potential stakeholders will take place Aug. 17, at 9:30 a.m. at Duke’s Restaurant.

Business and private interests are encouraged to attend, said Sohm.

New city manager tackles tasks

Marilyn Leuck, newly appointed city manager for Malibu, came to meet the Roundtable members. She answered questions about septic tank standards in recently introduced AB 885.

“Everyone agrees there needs to be standards,” “but the details still need to be worked out,” she said, referring to the bill making its way through the legislature.

“In a sense, Malibu is the smallest city I have managed with the largest problems,” she said jokingly.

Leuck said she has always worked in coastal cities; therefore, she is familiar with coastal city problems. She plans to stay and work for the City of Malibu for the next eight to 10 years, until she can retire.

Mary Lou Blackwood, Chamber of Commerce director, brought up an issue about the availability of city inspectors. She said the inspectors are often not available when someone comes to City Hall looking for their help. Blackwood suggested that a schedule be posted so people know when they will be at City Hall.

The Roundtable adjourned the meeting to the first Friday of September.

Before the Malibu Right to Vote on Development Initiative could make it onto the November 2000 ballot, it had to jump a few major political and legal hurdles. The largest of the obstacles was those pushing the initiative had to collect valid signatures from at least 15 percent of registered voters in Malibu.

There are 8,524 registered voters in Malibu, and that 15 percent requirement meant they had to collect at least 1,278 valid signatures to make the November ballot. When the L.A. County Registrar of Voters completed their check of the signatures collected, the tally was 1,741 valid signatures; therefore, they had enough signatures except for one last legal hurdle.

The last hurdle was that a California State Elections Law, presently on the books for many years, requires that the people who circulate initiatives be registered voters, and also that they be registered voters in the jurisdiction. This means that since this is purely a Malibu initiative, they would have to be voters from Malibu. Since Segel and others pushing the initiative used, in part, a professional company that circulates petitions to get the necessary signatures, and half those circulators came from outside Malibu, the City Council had a legal question. The question they asked the city attorney was: “Has the initiative met the legal requirements to get on the November ballot?”

The written answer, given by the city attorney in his opinion, was in classic lawyer language: “a probable maybe.”

It was a “probable maybe,” not because the city attorney couldn’t make up his mind, but because in 1999 the U.S. Supreme Court, in a similar but not identical case in the state of Colorado, struck down an ordinance that petition circulators must be voters and said that “the First Amendment requires strict scrutiny of any state imposed requirement on persons who seek to circulate ballot initiative petitions because such activity involves ‘core political speech.'”

The California attorney general concurred with the U.S. Supreme Court, but this is by no means an open-and-shut situation. Under the circumstances, the circumstances being the uncertainty, it was City Attorney Steven Amerikaner’s opinion that the more prudent legal course was to put the matter onto the November ballot since, generally speaking, the courts tend to find ways to sustain the peoples’ right to vote on the issue. That, of course, doesn’t mean that if it were to pass, it still might not be put under legal attack for the way the signatures were gathered.