James Brolin and Barbra Streisand had a bad day Monday. Deputy District Attorney Martin Herscovitz, head of the Malibu office, declined to file a criminal complaint against Wendell Ivar Wall, 28, a photographer and neighbor of the Brolins on Point Dume, who had been arrested over the weekend and initially charged with violation of the Penal Code 646.9 (stalking).

Bail, originally set at $150,000, was raised by the bail commissioner to $1 million, but, after review, the district attorney’s spokesperson said no case would be filed.

“There is lack of evidence of a credible threat, so we’re rejecting the case on the grounds of insufficient evidence,” it was reported. The D.A.’s rejection also indicated Streisand and Brolin were not desirous of prosecution of the case.

The initial police report, immediately following the incident, describes Wall as allegedly following Brolin and his wife frequently and indicates the Brolins felt the situation was getting more and more threatening.

According to the police report, the Brolins left a car dealership in Thousand Oaks, noticed they were being followed and attempted to evade the follower. They exited the freeway at Liberty Canyon and headed for the sheriff’s station. They said the pursuing vehicle turned away. They later saw Wall on PCH and flagged down a patrol car.

Gene Wall, the father of Wendell Wall, who lives with his son near the Brolins, said, in an interview at the City Council meeting Sunday night, his son is a photojournalist and never accosted the Brolins. He charged the Sheriff’s Department was overzealous and had a vendetta against him and his son because of a case several years ago in which he obtained a $600,000-plus judgment against the county because of some improper conduct by the Sheriff’s Department.

Later that day, the City Council continued to Feb. 28 its decision on an appeal of a Planning Commission vote approving a proposed demolition and construction project of the Brolins’ home.

To make it easier for people to know how to use their property, and to avoid confrontations like the firestorm over Barbra Streisand’s plans to enlarge her home, the Malibu Planning Commission Saturday started finalizing the city’s 6-year-old “Interim” Zoning Ordinance.

In other action, the commission decided to allocate money in the city’s two-year budget to hire planning consultants Crawford, Multari & Clark to draft the final ordinance. Handing the commissioners a booklet and memo on current zoning districts, lot development criteria and permitted standards, Planning Director Craig Ewing said the commission’s decisions on the residential, commercial and institutional zones would be the first step in finalizing the ordinance.

The commissioners took about an hour to refine permission standards for residential neighborhoods. In the process of deciding whether people violate restrictions because they don’t know about them (as Commissioner Charleen Kabrin said) or whether people circumvent the system (as Ewing said), the commissioners found out from local landscape architect Bruce Meeks that homeowners are grading hillsides for vineyards.

In what Vice Chair Ed Lipnick described as rejection of the “Napa-nization of Malibu,” the commissioners noted crops such as grapes may be grown in backyards, subject to neighborhood standards and planning director review.

Commissioners were divided on how much to include in the ordinance.

“One of the advantages of a fuzzy definition is that if you don’t specify it, it becomes a nuisance issue,” said Ewing, referring to whether a boa constrictor or a ferret should be defined as a domestic animal. “Animals continue to be an issue in this town, especially barking dogs, roosters and wild peacocks. We want to be clear what our values are. Whether animals are a nuisance is something we could play with.”

“If it’s left over from county days, then leave it,” said Andrew Stern “I want to be sure you are not taking the country out of the city.”

“That means, we’ll have to come down on every issue,” said Kabrin.

Chairman Ken Kearsley wanted to know how to deal with the issue of vineyards in single-family zones. “Do we want to allow it when the Coastal Act doesn’t?” he asked.

“People come out here for their independence,” said Stern. “I suspect 50 percent will be in violation with the vineyards.”

“Are they destroying environmentally sensitive habitats to do it?” retorted Kearsley.

“It’s already happening, people are grading hillsides and removing coastal vegetation,” said Meeks.

“We are in a conflict,” said Kabrin. “There’s an increasing interest in vineyards. I don’t think anyone realizes you need a coastal permit to do it.”

The commissioners’ conflicts illustrated what two Malibu architects say about the dangers inherent in having politicians without the appropriate education make design and engineering decisions. Ed Niles, who sits on the newly created Architects and Engineers Committee, and Ron Goldman, who served on the task force that created the city’s General Plan, told The Malibu Times the immense amount of discretion ultimately given to the city is a two-edged sword.

“People don’t understand how this ordinance affects their lives,” said Niles. A buyer finds out that he or she can’t do anything without involving property owners within 500-1000 feet who receive notice of property improvement plans. This planning notification is not required in coastal cities like Santa Monica or San Diego, Niles added.

The process obviously has political overtones because it gives the ability to capture the vote of existing landowners rather than new ones, Niles continued. People moved here to be free of restrictions. It’s a problem that should be solved by property owners, not used as a political weapon by government to satisfy those who presently live here, he said.

Facing its worst budget crisis in decades, the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education last Thursday approved two recommendations they hope will trim its budget-year shortfall by half.

By cutting more than $300,000 for personnel positions that have not been filled for the current fiscal year, and by voting to “actively” recruit students to bring in more state funding, the board estimates it will reduce its budget shortfall to $2 million-$2.5 million for the 2000-2001 year. In a series of meetings through June (see timeline), and hoping Gov. Gray Davis will include more general school funding in the state’s budget, the board will decide what other items to cut.

One of the meetings will be held at Malibu High School Feb. 15., 4-7 p.m.

“It’s downright embarrassing for any school district to say we can’t afford these programs, especially in a booming economy,” Webster Elementary School Principal Phil Cott told The Malibu Times before the meeting. He was referring to the list of 65 options for cutting the budget presented to the board last month. Many cuts target library, nursing and physical education personnel, as well as after-hours programs; clubs and activities; middle and high school counselors, and special and bilingual education.

In addition, one principal would be assigned to administer both the Juan Cabrillo and Point Dume Marine Science Elementary schools; the supplies budget would be cut by 30 percent.

Elementary school instrumental music teachers were toward the bottom of the list of cuts and, along with special education, were targeted for reorganization.

“I can’t even function with what I’m given now,” said Pat Cairns, principal of Juan Cabrillo Elementary School, of the supplies cut. “I have to raise money to keep our school going. As it is now, principals have to be fund-raisers. Making cuts means we have to be even bigger fund-raisers than we are. We are lucky to be in this wonderful, supportive community, but parents and principals can only do so much.”

Cynthia Gray, principal of Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, said she would comment on the cuts at the Feb. 15 public hearing.

According to Cott, losing library personnel, the nurse and physical education coaches would be critical and would unfairly burden the rest of the staff.

Malibu High student Nathan Ziv, who sits on the board, told them, “The kids are very upset about the budget cuts. The library aides offer so much. They tutor, they help with computer training. The kids are there early to meet with them. There are not enough volunteers to offset them.”

The library coordinator teaches students how to use the library, and maintains the library and textbook inventory. The nurse does health screening and first aid, classroom and education. The physical education teachers free other teachers for lesson planning and parent conferences, Cott said.

“It’s not fair to ask a 62-year-old teacher to play with a fifth-grader,” he added. “The cuts mean more responsibilities for fewer people.”

Referring to the governor’s education proposals outlined last week, district Superintendent Neil Schmidt told The Malibu Times, “I’ll wait to see the budget but I am extremely disappointed. It is all special targeting. It doesn’t address the general underfunding of schools.”

To contact the SM-MUSD, write to 1651-16th St., Santa Monica, CA 90404, Attn: Neil Schmidt, Superintendent; tel. 450.8338; fax 581-1138.

The Malibu Planning Commission, under the gun to come up with budget priorities by the end of the month, and hearing only one speaker during public comment at Monday’s meeting, postponed deciding on project priorities until a Saturday meeting on the zoning ordinance.

Saturday’s public workshop, noticed as a “comprehensive update” on the zoning ordinance, is scheduled for 10 a.m. at City Hall. Planners have been under pressure for months to finalize the “interim” ordinance. It has been under review for grammar and consistency between standards, said Associate Planner Drew Purvis in an interview after the meeting.

At the same time, the commission must tell City Manager Harry Peacock by Jan. 28 what it would like to see the city accomplish in the next two fiscal years, ending June 30, 2002.

Monday’s speaker, Carol Bird, said she would like to see a policy on fencing and landscaping for vacant land under half an acre. A loophole in the zoning ordinance allowed a neighbor to block her views, Bird said.

Bird, who owns a vacant lot on Broad Beach Road, claims her neighbor first placed boxed specimen trees and then purchased an immediately adjacent parcel and built a six-foot solid fence. “I have no view at all,” she said.

Bird sees a gap between the city’s General Plan and its Interim Zoning Ordinance. The plan refers to a fair balance between the rights of privacy and unreasonable loss of public and private views, she said. The ordinance appears to permit solid fencing on property less than half acre regardless of any visual impacts on adjacent property.

Other items on the wish list of the four planning commissioners at the meeting Monday were as follows:

Chairman Ken Kearsley asked for computer assisted design to help the city prepare a geographic information mapping system.

According to Purvis, the mapping system is a high priority of the entire city staff. It would map boundaries of environmentally sensitive areas, archeological sites, landslides, zoning and flooding.

Vice Chair Ed Lipnick asked for the Local Coastal Plan (LCP).

Andrew Stern asked for the Zoning Ordinance, LCP and geographic mapping system.

Charleen Kabrin would like consideration of basements separate from the hillside ordinance.

In other business in the lightning-fast, half-hour meeting, commissioners voted unanimously to approve the grading variance requested by Jeff Green in building a beachfront home on Malibu Road. The variance was needed so Green could install an “alternative” sand filtration septic system as far away from the ocean as feasible. Commissioners, who had already heard a staff report at last month’s meeting, were effusive in their praise of the plans. “It is an exemplary project, particularly since it pushes the bulkhead towards the road like the Coastal Commission wants,” said Kearsley. Said Stern, “I hope it would be approved, in light of Third World conditions reported in other parts of the city.”