There is a 60 percent prediction of rain tonight. For most of us, rain is good news. It means not having to water the plants, putting a log in the fireplace to get cozy, or making special accommodations so the dog, who doesn’t like getting wet, doesn’t soil the carpet.

For others, however, including our own Malibu residents without shelter, it means soaked belongings and damp clothing all day long. It means borrowing trash bags from the Labor Exchange to use as a raincoat.

For those of us involved in the Malibu Emergency Shelter Project it has meant close to two weeks in a row of nighttime shelter activation in our retrofitted school bus and providing a hot meal to our dampened friends. We’re glad we’re here for them. But the bad news is we have already run out of funds for this year and must think of next winter. This is strictly a local project that does not receive any government funds.

Our annual cost to provide this modest service for local homeless is about $6,000 per year to provide approximately 300 dry person nights. The major expense is to insure the shelter bus. Other money is needed to purchase food when it is not donated and to pay the nighttime monitors and the shelter manager.

The bottom line is we need a little rainy day assistance. If you would consider helping, please write a check to “MCLE/Shelter,” P.O. Box 2273, Malibu, CA 90265. Or if you would like to volunteer to bring food on a rainy night or donate washable blankets or sleeping bags, or have questions regarding the project, you may call Pamela Shatsky, shelter manager, at 457.2151 and leave a message. Thank you.

Dan Wallace

Malibu Emergency Shelter chairperson

Malibu Community Labor Exchange

… As a resident of Point Dume I, like many in the community, have been following the exchange between the Brolins and the Jacobsons with concern. And when Barbra offered to open her plans up to the inspection of her neighbors, I took her up on her offer.

What I found is that through the haze of misinformation that has been surrounding this issue they are plans for a home that comply with every single one of the municipal building codes. In fact, I learned that the Brolins have not asked for one variance from the city. The plans call for a home that is 5,900 square feet. Which is significantly smaller than other homes in the immediate area. And while I was concerned by the rumors about the basement having an adverse effect on the bluff, I reviewed the geological study which shows that the basement construction will actually have a positive effect on the bluff. The Brolins also showed me the numerous concessions they are making for their neighbor to accommodate their neighbors concerns. I have a neighbor building a 6,600-square-foot house that will stand 26 feet high behind my property. I only wish that my neighbors extended me the courtesy and concessions that the Brolins have extended to their neighbor. And while I am not thrilled about the fact that my neighbor is building a house, and while I don’t care for the design of that property, I do respect their right to build a home that conforms to the building codes of this community. What concerns me is that it seems that the Brolins have been singled out. Why if their proposed home conforms to city code, is smaller than homes in the neighborhood, is designed in a manner that is charming and completely consistent with the character of Malibu, and has farther set backs from the bluff than other homes in the area, why is it still being harassed? Why did no one from the City Council express the same degree of concern over my neighbor’s building plans? Their construction will put a 26-foot-high building right between my home and my view over the Santa Monica Mountains. Why wasn’t there the same level of public outcry? I guess I should have taken those singing lessons anyway. It does beg the question however, that the Brolins are being singled out and that is really why I am putting my thoughts to your readers. The Brolins in spite of their celebrity, their political views, and how you may or may not feel about them, do have a right to build a home as long as it conforms to the code of the land and is in character with the community. They have more than satisfied these requirements. In fact they have been held to a much higher standard than the law requires. They’ve also given numerous concessions to their neighbors the Jacobsons by reducing the footprint of their house and the height in addition to having studies of sun and view impacts. The rich and famous should not get preferential treatment before the council, but neither should they be discriminated against.

Lucas Donat

I would like to commend the workers who labored around the clock March 2 and 3, 2000, in order to repair the leak in the water spur or main at Westward Beach Road and Pacific Coach Highway.

Not only did they work swiftly and competently, but they were extremely patient with questions which I (an affected homeowner without water during the crisis) asked frequently about the progress of the repair.

The citizens of the area often praise the sheriff deputies and the firefighters for their efforts in Malibu’s better known catastrophes. Having lived through two periods without water in Malibu during the last six months, I would like public recognition for the superb work of men in Water District 29, whose names I was unable to learn.

Ronald E. E. Stackler

“Wealth without virtue is no harmless neighbor.” (Sappho, circa 600 B.C., Greece)

We must be able to recognize when we have lost. We must know what we have lost. We must be able to acknowledge it to self and to others. And we must know that some losses are irrevocable.

We must know the difference between sitting down at the negotiating table with something left to negotiate, as opposed to kneeling at the guillotine.

Malibu has already been lost. She has been lost as habitat to wildlife. The ignorant laugh and jeer when monarch butterfly habitat is mentioned. Have they never known a coal miner and a canary? Can they not make a connection?

Loss is one thing. Treachery is another.

The Malibu Bay Company and Mr. Perenchio offer a ball field for Malibu — and Joan House and Tom Hasse do not rise up and stride to the sea to proclaim the outrage?

They call it “an honorable exchange.”

Please let us take honorable defeat. And call it what it is — rape.

And we all stood nobly by — and nodded, “Well, we did our best. You can’t fight the bottom line, money talks, property rights and the little kids need a ball field. Nay, they are “entitled” to a ball field — just like the little kids in Indianapolis. Which is one huge, flat ball field — but without one square foot of ocean.

If you don’t realize what you have — how can you protect it?

Loss of the land, loss of open space, lost of wildlife is irrevocable. Once gone, it can no more be resurrected.

Don’t take blood- money. Don’t deal with the devil. Do not crown their victory with a monument. Remember what we have lost and what we are about to lose. That, and that alone, should make us brave enough to risk saying, “No deal.” “Not one more square foot of further development in Malibu.” “It cannot be sustained.” “There is nothing to negotiate.”

Trish Van Devere Scott

Playwright Susan Yankowitz has bravely written a two-act play about loss of speech. The Odyssey Theatre Ensemble has even more bravely taken it on, offering it up in a visually exquisite production and casting a miracle in its leading role.

“Night Sky” follows an astronomer, at the height of her career, who suffers a head injury resulting in aphasia — a loss of power of speech.

As the play begins, Anna (Kimberly King) is lecturing (simply enough for the nonscientist to understand) on matters celestial. “What we see represents 10 percent and possibly 1 percent of what exists,” she tells us.

At home, Anna relentlessly pushes her struggling-singer boyfriend Daniel (Robert Lee Jacobs in a multifaceted portrayal), nagging him to rehearse, then scolding him to be quiet. She also offers a less-than-motherly shoulder to her daughter, Jennifer (Kimberly Rose Wolter).

The metaphors fly. Daniel tells Anna she has stars in her eyes, her head in the stars. Anna’s daughter, Jennifer, is studying French — the future tense — and doesn’t know it. “Who does?” Anna asks, also telling Jennifer the world does not revolve around her, despite Copernicus. Daniel gives Anna a necklace — a river of stars, also a metaphor that later reappears.

Anna and Daniel fight, she runs out and is hit by a car. She suffers aphasia, a condition of the brain affecting vocabulary, syntax, and understanding of abstractions such as time and space.

At first, Anna speaks gibberish, but she enjoys the flowers Daniel brings and the opera on his headphones.

Her colleague, Bill (James Gale), meanwhile, lectures his class on the theoretical explosion of the universe — and life began again.

Anna struggles to relearn the difference between yes and no. Words are scattered over her brain the way stars are scattered in the sky, we are told, the way light is trapped inside a black hole.

Daniel doesn’t understand her at first, then becomes her interpreter, then her spokesman. As they grapple with the changing balance in their relationship, he tells her they are puppet and puppeteer. But which is which?

The metaphors hang heavily over the first third of the play, but happily the style turns away from pretentious. By the play’s end, the neatly crafted human relationships are its more affecting element.

Directed by Hope Alexander, the play seems seamless and timeless. King squeezes more power and interest out of Anna’s struggling speech than many can from the wordiest characters.

Jeanette Schwaba Vigne is sympathetic but firm as the speech therapist, then comical as a salesperson or well-meaning friend. Steven Amato plays an aphasic patient, journalist and young suitor with equal facility.

With scenic design by Lawrence Miller, Anna’s home is round like the sky, and “space-shaped” screens reflect urban and celestial life, in conjunction with imaginative lighting by Kathi O’Donohue. Music and sound by Max Kimberg parallel Anna’s struggles and help propel the story.

“Night Sky” plays Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., matinees March 23 and 26 only, through April 9, at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Tel. 477.2055.

The surprisingly hummable songs, a nifty story-telling device and the knockout cast take the audience for a terrific ride in “Merrily We Roll Along” at West Coast Ensemble. Even the poignancy of the story can’t take away from this triumph of art over life.

With music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth, the musical looks with warmth and insight upon our past and the past of three friends, now professionally successful, less so in their personal lives.

The play happily has neither great surprises nor clichd outcomes. It merely shows the passing of life — moving backward in time.

We meet the three best friends, a composer, a lyricist and a writer, at a Bel Air party in 1976, and follow their lives backwards until their meeting, on a New York rooftop, as Sputnik is proclaiming a new era in 1957.

Directed by Jules Aaron, with musical staging by Larry Sousa, and musical direction by Darryl Archibald and Brian Murphy, the wit and wisdom of Sondheim finds its match.

Anthony Paul Meindl and Richard Israel play Franklin and Charlie, the composer and lyricist. Their friendship is mediated by the faithful Mary, whose perpetual heartbreak is played tenderly by Lisa Picotte.

Jan Sheldrick (Gussie), Stephen Einsphar (Joe), Michael Henry (Frank Jr.), Melanie Wingert (Beth), Paul Cady, Valerie Doran, Jennie Fahn, David Kaufman, Kyle Kulish, Jan Powell and Beth Robbins add warmth, style and humor, as well as their delicious voices, to the production.

Costumer Diana Eden has a crafty eye for eras while flattering the actors. Particularly delightful are the women’s early ’60s outfits. We think they cast a chubby Mary (and such a pretty face) until Picotte loses the layers of padding.

Set designer Don Gruber creates a minor miracle. Using sliding, frosted-glass doors, he covers a small stage with endless rooms. The actors manipulate the set with clockwork precision. Lighting by J. Kent Inasy, from psychedelic ’60s to a misty greenhouse, enhances this stylish, entrancing production.

The burning, behind-the-scenes combo of Manlon Moore, Dennis Kaye, John Flitcraft and John Harvey are conducted with humor and precision by pianist Brian Murphy.

“Merrily We Roll Along” plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 3 p.m., through June 11, at West Coast Ensemble, 522 N. La Brea Ave, Los Angeles. Tel. 323.525.0022.

In reference to two letters which appeared recently in the Surfside News, Ms. Scott wrote an impassioned letter regarding the confiscation of the Malibu Bay Company’s property rights. In reaction I am reminded of an esteemed planner who described Malibu residents as ones who “think globally and act selfishly.” Even with the general plan and interim zoning ordinance being developed by a “limited growth” citizen committee, the documents do allow for reasonable property rights and limited development. I suggest we consider a citywide assessment district to purchase Civic Center property along with public parks, and equestrian and beach trails rather than asking Ms. Scott, whose property I believe is also in the broader creek flood plane, or the Malibu Bay Company to donate their respective property rights.

In reaction to Douglas Kmiec’s letter regarding “privacy in private property,” our city fathers intentionally created a code which is substantially discretionary and has the end result of pitting neighbor against neighbor. May I suggest here we change both the code and the council members who created these relentless confrontations.

Ron Goldman

At the Feb. 28 City Council meeting, there was a lot of misinformation from the appellant and his supporters who are trying to block the proposed Barbra Streisand/James Brolin home. Left unchallenged, those false allegations can assume the apparency of fact. I feel it is necessary to correct two of the most egregiously untrue and ridiculous of those charges, especially since one plainly defames a respected city official.

1. As to the charge that Ms. Streisand has “optioned” a fourth property on Zumirez, that is simply untrue. It is a fabrication.

2. Both Malibu papers repeated, without checking the facts, the appellant’s allegation that the city biologist, Marti Witter, had redefined the bluff of the Brolins’ property only on the basis of the submissions of the Brolins’ geologist. In fact, the city biologist arrived at her conclusion based upon her own personal onsite inspection and on the two adjacent bluff properties. Ms. Witter is highly regarded in the city of Malibu and surrounding areas for her independence and expertise. Someone’s self-serving fiction to the contrary cannot go uncorrected.

Also, in the face of the appellant’s continued complaint about the substantial ESHA setback to which the Brolins have agreed and which the Planning Commission approved, it, in truth, would constitute the largest setback of any of the bluff properties in the neighborhood. In fact it would be three times deeper than some existing nearby setbacks.

Robert Shachtman,

Architect AIA