Malibuites recently voiced their concerns about trail usage conflicts among hikers, equestrians and mountain bikes, and had an opportunity to share ideas about how their side of the Santa Monica Mountains will be managed in the future at a recent meeting with the National Parks Service (NPS).

The NPS is working on a new General Management Plan (GMP) for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area (SMMNRA).

“There are different strategies to accommodate them all and the plan hopes to address and mitigate these issues,” said Arthur E. Eck, Superintendent of the SMMNRA, of residents’ concerns.

The three agencies responsible for the area, NPS, the California State Parks and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, have drafted a new plan that offers a combination of preferred alternatives. These alternatives combine five approaches to manage the SMMNRA recreation area throughout the next 15 to 20 years.

Several meetings took place recently in various areas near the Santa Monica Mountains to receive comments from the public on the plan, which NPS drafted based on information acquired over three years.

“It’s a broad road map to the future for how we will manage the SMMNRA,” said Ray Sauvagot, chief of planning for NPS.

“By and large, everyone at the Malibu meeting gave constructive input,” said Eck, of the Feb. 8 meeting at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School.

Residents also said they would prefer that the beaches west of Zuma and as far as Point Mugu be identified and managed for lower intensity use rather than more. These beaches tend to be wild and parks should try to keep them undeveloped, said residents.

Some people also urged that there be more land acquisition. It is a suggestion that is already on the agenda, said Eck.

The priority for acquisition is based on wildlife needs, cultural resources, scenic matters and people resources, he said.

When discussing potential Malibu acquisitions, Eck said the department has a policy not to discuss specifics about certain properties they hope to acquire in the future.

“I hope we will be able to make some announcements in a few months,” he said.

However, Eck did confirm that funding exists and that there is land in the mountains above Malibu that need protection. Eck also explained that funding for acquisitions comes from federal oil lease revenues.

“A lot of oil comes from land owned by the American people and this is a way the department has found to give back to the general public,” he said.

Generally, general plan recommendations are primarily related to experiences people will have when they visit the mountains, said Sauvagot.

“We are trying to cover a wide area around the mountains to get input.”

Certain areas are better suited for lower use, which primarily involve hiking, biking and horseback riding, while other areas can have low impact usage that includes camping and a more intense use of resources. The higher intense uses can include parking lots, restrooms and visitor facilities, such as a visitor center or a small indigenous museum, like the one at Malibu Creek State Park.

Historically, the SMMNRA is one of the world’s largest urban recreation areas. It is home to significant archeological and cultural sites, and provides a haven for more than 450 animal species, including 50 that are endangered. In 1978, Congress created the SMMNRA and granted authority to the National Park Service to manage it.

The area’s first General Management Plan was completed in 1982. NPS is revising the plan because the population growth in nearby Los Angeles has changed dramatically and environmental impacts must be re-examined.

The draft plan states: “The purpose of the General Management Plan is to plot a course into the future; one that ensures the SMMNRA is preserved for all people for all times.”

And managing the Santa Monica Mountains can be a tricky task because so many organizations have an interest in them. From the Coastal Commission to the Mountain Restoration Trust, 65 to 70 organizations have a stake in the mountains.

While the department works on the plan’s details, those who are interested can have a look at what is already drafted, and give more input until May 1, on the NPS Web site at www.nationalparks.org.

“We do what we can to ensure that if we don’t use these views in this particular plan, we keep them for later on,” said Eck.

The City Council met hurriedly at 8 a.m. last Thursday morning to discuss a proposed $15 million bond issue for the June 5, 2001 ballot. The meeting had been called on short notice because the council was up against a deadline. Although the council has not made a final decision on the bond issue, if it was ultimately decided that it wanted to go ahead and get the measure onto the June ballot, the bond had to be introduced first as an ordinance, no later than Feb. 17, or, legally, the council couldn’t put it onto the ballot.

Equally touchy is the law requiring a two-thirds voter approval of the bond issue, which led some insiders to speculate that, if the various factions were split and couldn’t get together on the issue, the bond had little chance of passage. In a poll conducted for the city some time ago, only 58 percent to 59 percent of the electorate polled said they would vote for a $15 million bond issue. This meant the bond campaign would, under the best of circumstances, probably be very tight to get the two-thirds approval.

At the regular Monday night council meeting on Feb. 12, it appeared there was a split as to whether or not an early election date in June was a good or bad idea. More fundamentally, the concern was, if it passed, what was the bond money going to be used for — ballfields, wetlands or something else. It was apparent there were two or even three separate factions with different agendas that wanted the bond issue, but weren’t clear what they wanted the money for. Playing fields, land for a community center, open space and wetlands all had been suggested in earlier discussions.

But, apparently, between the first council meeting and the emergency meeting, the group, or rather, several groups that want the bond issue, had met again. They told the council that, after discussing it, they had come to a consensus that the better plan would be to wait until November. This way they could take their time, meet with all interested groups and see if they can build a community consensus on how much money people would be willing to vote for and how it would be used.

Several on the council looked visibly relieved that they weren’t going to have to make a quick decision, one in which a number of their supporters might have been on different sides of the question.

The two most apparent factions were the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy (MCLC) group, which includes Gil Segal, Steve Uhring, Tami Clark, Patt Healy, and the other group, which includes Laureen Sills, Deirdre Roney, Mona Loo, Georgianna McBurney, Carl and Carol Randall, and a number of others. In the last election, many had backed different candidates, but there didn’t seem to be any rancor in front of the council on Feb. 15, which, for an issue as potentially explosive as this, was highly unusual.

The message that several of the speakers, including Loo, Sills, and Roney, delivered to the council was decidedly upbeat. They said the group had a very frank and fruitful meeting the night before, talked openly about some of their differences and found some common ground. They felt they needed more facts and more time to work together.

The council suggested they remain as an independent group, but that they should also keep their process as open and public as possible and announce their meetings in the newspapers. And then, ultimately, they should come before the council and tell what the group or groups want in the bond issue.

In the interim, which is between now and November, several members of the council indicated there could be no development deal approved because anything that the council agreed on would still have to go through an Environmental Impact Review process. This process couldn’t be completed before November, because, as Interim City Manager Christi Hogin indicated, any EIR has to include summer traffic counts.

Mayor Pro Tem Joan House cautioned that we’re only going to get one shot at this bond issue so we had better get it right.

The new citizens ad hoc bond group, which has not yet chosen a name for itself, has set the next meeting for March 1, 6 p.m. at Serra Retreat, which is the large religious facility at the top of Serra Road.

A walk into Solstice Canyon, off Corral Canyon near the Beaurivage restaurant on Pacific Coast Highway, may reveal deer, quail and bobcats to hikers along the stream that runs throughout the canyon.

But missing is the southern steelhead trout, which was declared endangered more than three years ago by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). Efforts are underway to restore southern steelhead to Solstice Canyon, and although the project may signal clear water today, it soon may come to connote turbulent times as property rights advocates foresee potentially serious threats to landowners.

While the species was spotted there in the early 1970s, biologists say it hasn’t been since the 1940s that the fish actually had a healthy, sustaining population.

Solstice is the first of a number of Malibu area creeks where multi-million-dollar political and environmental decisions are being made by federal, state, and local agencies. While these are on-the-record decisions ostensibly made to preserve the newly endangered fish, they also are decisions that may have a variety of much further-reaching effects over roads, bridges, land-use, housing and lifestyles.

In a series of stories, The Malibu Times will examine efforts to bring back the Southern California steelhead and how this could affect the lives of Malibu flora and fauna, as well as the people who also have come to be a part of the canyon habitat for more than 100 years.

Solstice Canyon is among the many Malibu creeks that were historic homes of the southern steelhead, a species unique in Southern California and southward. It has been a long time since anyone actually has seen a steelhead in the Solstice area pools that trickle into the sea, but some previous residents, such as Ron Rindge, still remember seeing steelhead as they played in the streams and shallow ponds years ago.

Truly, Solstice Canyon is among many of Malibu’s delightful glens and glades. So who could argue with an attempt to restore these special fish to their native breeding grounds?

“There is an intrinsic value to have this species here,” said Ray Sauvajot, chief of Planning, Science and Resource Management with the U.S. National Park Service. “The presence of steelhead tells us that our ecosystem is in good shape and humans depend on this ecosystem.”

Property rights advocates, however, are among those who point out that although the initial impact may seem minimal, these efforts are a harbinger to future, more severe restrictions.

For example, the California Department of Parks and Recreation already is spearheading a project to examine how steelhead can be introduced further upstream along Malibu Creek. Under discussion is the potential removal of the 100-by 80-foot Rindge Dam, erected in 1929 two miles into Malibu Creek, an endeavor that could cost more than $40 million.

Also, in previous years, after the 1993 fires and the destruction of the bridge on PCH over Malibu Creek, rebuilding efforts were stymied because of the endangered tidewater goby. The governor had to sign emergency waivers and decrees to enable the reconstruction of the bridge.

And because steelhead have been sighted in other local streams, hundreds of homes in or near the streams’ watershed areas could be subjected to Environmental Protection Act regulations. Malibu Creek is the single largest watershed within the Santa Monica Mountain range with thousands of residences nearby. Yet, Environmental Protection Act regulations say that once an animal is declared endangered, virtually nothing can be done to disturb the animal or its critical habitat.

Because action has only begun to occur in Malibu, enforcement situations have not yet developed. But in Oregon and Washington State, property rights organizations are well familiar with consequences.

Tim Harris, counsel for Pacific Legal Foundation in Bellevue, Washington, explains that since the coho salmon was declared endangered, restrictions have been placed on local residents including prohibitions of lighting over a bridge that could disturb salmon and spawning.

“But the terms ‘disturbing’ or ‘harming’ could apply to a number of things,” Harris continued. “The building of a structure near the watershed, driving across a river, playing in a creek, fertilizing lawns, using gopher poison, termiting a house, washing a car, . . .”

NMFS officials say they are not planning to be in the business of serving as “carwash police;” however, the agency has been flexing its muscles in Oregon and Washington to protect coho and chinook salmon.

Last September, the Wall Street Journal told how NMFS veto power halted $6 billion in construction work on I-405 following the expenditure of $6 million in plans to come up with four different proposals that would accommodate an expected 250 percent increase in traffic over the next 20 years. NMFS rejected all the plans.

In a North Macadam urban renewal district, the City of Portland had planned to bring jobs and housing into a 130-acre parcel along the Willamette River. However, when NMFS ordered 200 foot buffers along the river instead of the 100-foot setbacks anticipated by the city, developers said the stricter regulations would make the project only “marginally feasible.”

And in Clackamas County, construction of a bridge over Clackamas Town Center was halted because of concern that a portion of the bridge construction, which went into Mount Scott Creek (a tributary of the Willamette where endangered Willamette River steelhead live), might cause rushing water to churn up sediments that would choke protected runs of the fish.

Although biologists from a variety of federal, wildlife, and environmental organizations point out that some small populations of southern steelhead can still be found in Malibu Creek and other local streambeds, Sauvajot says that the southern steelhead has essentially disappeared from almost all of its historic range from Point Conception to Baja California.

“It would take a lot to get the fish to the point where it was not considered endangered anymore,” says Sauvajot. “There are only a handful of streams that could realistically function to provide habitat for this species.”

Yet, most biologists and environmentalists agree that Solstice creek is an ideal place to start bringing back the fish. For one thing, Solstice would require little more than a few minor environmental assessments before steps could be taken to restore the fish.

Sauvajot is confident these environmental reports would not hold up the eventual project.

Secondly, most of the land surrounding Solstice is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, which is governed by the National Park Service. With few immediate neighbors to the stream, there would be little initial reaction from residents worried about how their lifestyles, activities, property maintenance or expansion decisions might harm the fish.

And estimates to restore the relatively pristine stream to a condition that would foster steelhead are relatively low at approximately $300,000. The work would be conducted in collaboration with Caltrans on behalf of the City of Malibu, with permitting from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and would involve refurbishing a metal culvert channeling stream water under Pacific Coast Highway, building two bridges over roads currently crossing the streambed, and removing several stone obstacles within the stream itself.

Today’s steelhead trout, which is commonly found from the Monterey area northward through Alaska, is a migratory form of the rainbow trout, hatching in a stream or river, then swimming to the ocean, where it lives, feeds, and grows, then returns back to its original river to spawn. But unlike Pacific salmon, some steelhead may make a return to their spawning grounds several times in a lifetime. The fish gets its name from the cold, steel-blue coloring of its back the first time it enters a river to spawn.

Some biologists, such as researcher Jennifer Neilson, believe Malibu’s southern steelhead species is especially interesting because it was a biological forerunner to those that populate the Pacific Northwest.

Efforts to protect endangered fish can occur in any stream where the fish might be expected to be present, and already local environmentalists and biologists say that steelhead are not limited to Solstice and Malibu Creek.

They have been seen in Ventura’s Santa Clara River and the Arroyo Sequit. And Margo Murman, executive director of the California state Resource Conservation District’s Division 9, explains that when a fish is restored in one creek, the species often turn up in other streams as well.

“A steelhead project would be promising because they have done some migration southward already,” she said. “They’re already in Topanga Creek. It’s a natural phenomenon.”

Next: A look at efforts underway to restore steelhead to Malibu Creek.

After a long debate, the City Council, in an unusually expeditious governmental move, agreed Monday to an emergency meeting for Feb. 15, 8 a.m., at City Hall. The council will consider introducing a $15 million bond measure to put on a ballot in a special June election. The reason for the hasty meeting is that an ordinance has to be introduced before Saturday to get a bond issue onto the June ballot. However, the actual decision as to when it will go onto the ballot will be made at the next council meeting.

The measure would make it possible for the city to purchase open space for parks, ballfields and a community center. The bond measure follows the November approval of advisory bond Measure O.

The proposed bond measure has the support from community activists who were divided over land use issues in the past. Ozzie Silna, Steve Uhring, Laureen Sills, Deirdre Roney, Georgianna McBurney and others met recently at the home of Silna to discuss the bond.

The council and community members could not decide whether it is best to put the measure on a June or November Ballot. Some thought November would bring too many distractions from the measure, while others were concerned about moving too quickly and making irreparable mistakes.

“We need to buy the land or we’re gonna be forever held hostage to a development agreement,” said Laureen Sills, a proponent of the measure. “The bond issue empowers our city and levels the playing field.”

“We need to define sacred spaces,” concurred Georgiana McBurney, who campaigned for measure N in the fall.

“There is a momentum that has built up in this community, let’s not let this opportunity pass by,” said Silna, a community activist who spent more than $25,000 supporting measure P in November.

However, the council was cautious about deciding on the timing of when the bond will be presented to the voters because this is a one-time shot.

Some councilmembers were concerned that, without a clear objective, the bond measure will fail to get the required two-thirds vote.

In other matters, although a few councilmembers were a bit hesitant, the council approved a $50,000 matching fund grant for the Malibu Stage Company. The company had met a prerequirement to raise $50,000 in matching funds.

The council looked favorably on the company’s proposal to enter into a joint-operating agreement with the Point Dume Community Services District, also known as the Malibu Community Center, for the rental and operation of the Stage Company’s theater facility at 29243 Pacific Coast Highway.

The Malibu Community Center would serve as the Malibu Stage Company’s exclusive rental agent in the booking of its theater. This will provide an opportunity for the company to improve the utilization of its facility, while providing the Malibu Community Center the ability to continue with its programs since the facility the center previously used has become unavailable.

Beverly Hammond, president of the Point Dume Community Service District, urged the council to rule favorably since the endeavor would benefit the community culturally.

Jacky Bridgeman, president emeritus and board member of Malibu Stage, is happy about the outcome. “The money will be used to pay the rent, pay bills and for the production of plays,” said Bridgeman.

Richard Carrigan, chairman of the Malibu Stage Company until March 2000, indicated that, although there was hostility within the organization in the past, the company has grown older and wiser now, and it will provide a necessary cultural entity to Malibu as a whole.

During the public speaker’s segment of Monday’s council meeting, Jennifer MacColm, who operates the Pacific Palisades Farmers’ Market, came in force with farmers, cooks, community members from neighboring towns, vendors and the like, hoping to get a favorable response from the council for a second market in Malibu.

But council suggested that two farmers’ markets would not be in the city’s best interest. It favored the idea of the nonprofit Cornucopia operation, which, despite its flaws, serves the community well.

“We do need fine-tuning like any new organization,” said a supporter of Cornucopia.

Debra Bianco, president of Cornucopia, said the market was founded by residents, for residents. The organization has worked for two-and-a-half years to get it going and the market will get a fresh start in the spring.

Council also discussed commission assignments and procedures.

Some city commission members were frustrated because they lack direction from council, but when council gave them an outline prioritizing their tasks, some commissioners thought it was too restrictive.

The purpose of the outline is to minimize impact on staff resources, which are limited. Council indicated that commissioners cannot require staff time for objectives that are not assigned at the moment, but the commissioners can work on them independently if they wish.

In other matters Council:

• Appointed Councilmembers Jeff Jennings and Sharon Barovsky to serve as an Ad Hoc Committee to meet with Santa Monica City councilmembers and school board members to explore ways to improve relations among the agencies and improve funding for the schools.

• Adopted a housing element plan that includes the provision of 14 new affordable housing units.

• Approved a proposal to fly Planning Commissioners and planning staff over Malibu at a cost of $1,000.

• Selected Digital Map Products for Phase 1 of a GIS program.

The City of Malibu is suffering a horse trail gap. In the past, the city, particularly on the west end, was horse country. There were many trails all over Point Dume and Malibu Park and deep into the hills. Some were legal trails, some just established by custom over time. Then, when residents built their homes, they often built a fence on the lot line, thereby leaving no spaces in between lots for trails. Many of those that moved in over the past 20 years were not horse people and were not amenable to voluntarily giving up part of their land for horse trails.

The Trails Committee, many members of which are horse people, presented a draft proposal for a citywide Trail Master Plan system to the City Council in December to help mitigate conflicts between landowners and trail users.

After reviewing the plans in January, the Land-Use Subcommittee decided to begin with a pilot program.

“The problem is that the city was laid out and subdivided years ago and no provision was made for any kind of trails,” said Jeff Jennings, councilmember and Land-use Subcommittee member.

In an effort to solve this problem, the subcommittee discussed the possibility of encouraging homeowners to make space for pathways by offering incentives such as development rights and setback allowances.

The Land-Use Subcommittee also placed a priority on school children. The committee plans to start working on trails and pathways near schools, expanding them with time so that kids can get to school via the trails, as was once possible in Malibu.

Another concern about the trails was the compatibility of multiusage. The limited numbers of trails are in demand from mountain bikers, horseback riders and hikers and sometimes they have a hard time sharing the pathways.

In an earlier interview, Jennings, who owns a horse, said, “The argument is that it’s difficult to have multiuse on some trails when horses are involved because horses react when something scares them.”

Fast approaching bikes can also be a hazard to pedestrians on slopes and in blind curves.

However, sharing multiuse trails is possible, said Jennings, if users keep in mind a few simple steps, starting with common courtesy and respect for the environment. Recreation groups put an emphasis on cooperation and advise that both hikers and bicyclists yield to equestrians as bicyclists should yield to hikers.

The International Mountain Biking Association says bikers should yield to horses and hikers. On narrow trails, they are asked to move their bikes off the trail while the equestrian or hiker passes.

The organization suggests speed limits be observed as well so that riders are able to travel at a speed slow enough to control and stop at any moment.

Still, even with all the rules of courtesy, there are often conflicts with the shrinking number of trails.