I just wanted to take this time to write to you, and to thank the Malibu community for all of its hard work and caring and love this holiday season, to help the homeless and at-risk children and families we care for throughout the year.

Christmas was made brighter for L.A.’s homeless and at-risk children by friends and volunteers of the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation, who along with Malibu friends John and Ellen Poyer, Joe and Pam Wirht, the Malibu Kiwanis Club, Bob and Nancy Salka, Dynasty Fashions and Topson-Downs of California (and their wonderful co-workers), held amazing holiday parties at Juan Cabrillo Elementary School. We were thrilled to have all of these friends as both sponsors and very energetic volunteers. Alexandria May of Alexandria’s Topiaries sponsored the art project by making beautiful holiday frames for the children’s Polaroids with Santa, Lisa and Bill Curtis of Malibu bought wonderful gifts for special Adopt-A-Family children, and some very special Angels sponsored families through our Adopt-A-Family Program. DreamWorks’ employees, local Malibu families, Pastor Eric Schaeffer of Pacific Palisades Presbyterian Church and his youth group also volunteered. Additional parties were sponsored by CLF friends from Tarzana the Weinsteins and Mike Rosen of California Supply, and the Michaels Family of Kayo of California.

Mrs. Abrahams’ fourth-grade class at Webster adopted five families this Christmas, buying them every single request on their list! The children were a huge help this Christmas to our Adopt-A-Family Program. Deborah Granoff’s class at Webster School made beautiful personalized Christmas cards for the gift bags and a beautiful poster for the children.

Over 600 children were treated to these spectacular Holiday events, complete with beautiful decorations, Santa Claus himself, a live deejay and raffles, and a personalized gift bag, filled with seven to eight wrapped gifts of new clothes, new shoes, candy and toys. The children and families of Juan Cabrillo School, Malibu High, Point Dume Elementary School, Children’s Creative Workshop, Webster School, Wonder Years Daycare and friends at Toy Crazy ran wonderful toy drives that were fantastic. The whole community rallied together, including 98% Angel, who donated some lovely children’s clothes, and Bernard at Clarisse Beauty, who donated bags full of women’s toiletries and cosmetics, to volunteer their efforts to make this the best holiday ever for these very deserving children, who would not have received any gifts this Christmas Day. A wonderful time was had by all, and over 7,000 gifts were collected.

On Christmas Day, volunteers and friends of the CLF gathered at the Venice Pavilion to give out brand new clothing, toys, shoes and toiletries. The clothing was donated by Topson-Downs and Kayo of California, shoes by Reebok, Int’l., toiletries by Aware Products and hair accessories by Scunci, and a U-Haul filled with toys donated by Aardman Films, Disney, DreamWorks, Hasbro, Mattel and Warner Brothers. DreamWorks volunteers and Malibu locals Walter and Ellen Young also participated. Gerry Engel, Sandra Black and Rosalie Fagelson from Supercare Drugs, who also generously donated money, volunteered their time as well. It was a wonderful day, where hundreds of homeless children and their families gathered to enjoy their gifts from us, and a free meal from the Bible Tabernacle Mission.

Other wonderful friends who were a huge help and support this season were Malibuites Norm and Shirlee Klein, and official photographer Lois Globnik; Mark Kramer, Tamara Montana and family, Janine McEuen, Janna Pekkanen, David Silverstein, Marcy Smith and family, Stacey Thompson and family, and wonderful actors John and Cathy Cygan and Jack McGee. KTLA Channel 5 Charities made a wonderful holiday donation, as did several other very loving angels.

We thank you all for your great love and support, and for making our work such a joy this holiday season. We couldn’t have done it without you! Our very special thanks goes out to all of our wonderful sponsors, who continue to sponsor these lovely holiday parties each year. I hope the year 2000 brings you all the joy, happiness and prosperity that you deserve.

You may call the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation at 310.457.6166 if you are interested in adopting a homeless family for the New Year.

Our sincerest gratitude, thanks and love,

Maria D’Angelo, president

The Children’s Lifesaving Foundation

We all want to believe that the game is fair. That the system is not rigged. That the same laws apply to all of us, and no one gets a free pass because they’re celebrated, or famous or rich or better connected.

At the same time, most of us don’t really believe it. Even if we believe the game isn’t totally rigged, most of us instinctively feel the level playing field we’ve heard about may definitely be tilted.

We’re pragmatic. We’ve all had the experience of trying to get a seat in a hot Beverly Hills restaurant, on a Saturday night, without a movie doing big box office. Truly humbling.

Truth be told, most of us who live here would certainly try to tilt that playing field in our own favor if we wanted something. To that end, we lobby the City Council and the Planning Commission to find in our favor, or find some rationale as to why we’re really an exception to the rule.

But fundamentally, we also want to think there are some basic rules in place and that they’re applied uniformly. The one thing guaranteed to make us nuts is the thought that there are special rules for special people and the rest of us suckers are just that, suckers!

On Monday, we’re going to get a primo test of whether there are special rules for special people and how much that playing field really is tilted. On Monday, Mr. James Brolin and Mrs. James Brolin, aka Barbra Streisand, are before the City Council because some of their neighbors have appealed the Planning Commission’s decision to allow them to tear down an older, smaller house and replace it with a newer, larger house.

The Brolins, who live on Point Dume, want to tear down a 3,463-square-foot, single-family home with a 735-square-foot garage and replace it with a new, two-story, 6,795-square-foot, single-family home with a detached garage, a 4,092-square-foot, main structure basement and another 399-square-foot basement. Their new construction will be in the neighborhood of 11,000 square feet total.

What make this an interest test of the system is something we call the application of the “neighborhood standard.” In the past, we’ve had a few people build monster houses, and out of that utter and reasonable dismay, and the desire to prevent mansionization, we created the neighborhood standard rule. The rule is applied, generally, by taking the measure of all homes within 500 feet of where the new house is to be built, giving a neighborhood standard in terms of square footage.

Were that rule followed in the case of the Brolins, it wouldn’t be anything close to an 11,000-square-foot house. I’ve been told using the standard within 500 feet would have meant more like a 2,700-square-foot house.

So the Planning Commission came up with a whole new definition of neighborhood. Apparently, the Brolins’ neighborhood does not include their neighbors across the street because those are smaller houses, which would mean the neighborhood standard would be a smaller house. Instead, the commission defined that neighborhood as all the houses on the bluffside, facing the ocean. Then, the commission went right around the outside of Point Dume and counted all the big houses and ignored many of the smaller houses across the street. Even then, I’ve been told, the average is more like 6,000 square feet.

Now, I can’t really fault the Brolins. They want a bigger house, and if the planning director and the Planning Commission are prepared to roll over, why shouldn’t the Brolins try.

But I can fault a planning director who invents new rules, or creates an exception so large I could drive a truck through it, and supposedly “No Growth” planning commissioners who somehow seems to find it within in their power to turn down applications for the flimsiest of reasons, unless of course it happens to be their friends. And she certainly is one of their friends and very tight with Gil Segel, and that means Carolyn Van Horn and also Walt Keller.

So what will the council do Monday? Perhaps the Brolins will stand up and eloquently explain and defend their position and the council will agree. Perhaps my skepticism is unjustified and is really sort of a reverse snobbery. So tune in Monday and hear what they have to say, and how the planning director and the Planning Commission could decide how a 500-foot radius could somehow be construed to mean homes on a bluff, in some cases more than a mile away.

I have been a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations since 1981. In 1992, I was elected president of the commission and I served in that capacity for one year, and for the last 18 years on the commission my record for equal rights for all speaks for itself.

At its Nov. 15 meeting, only eight of the 15 commission members were present when the vote was taken to recommend that the board oppose Proposition 22, the “Limit on Marriage Initiative.” There is one vacancy on the commission. And for the record, the vote was 5 to 3 to go on record to oppose this initiative.

Although I write this letter as a private citizen, I am also authorized to speak on behalf of the other two commissioners who voted the same way that I did.

For the record, it is my feeling that the system should establish a legitimate process in order to give everyone living in a domestic partnership capacity the right of survivorship and insurance protection. I am puzzled as to how anybody could imply that a proposition that simply states that only the marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California causes discrimination against anyone. There is nothing homophobic about desiring to maintain traditional family values. I also do not believe that the presence on the ballot of Proposition 22 has proven to be extremely divisive and provocative of intolerance discrimination and hostility. And I know many people that feel the way I do and say nothing in order to be politically correct.

I noted that on the list of people against Proposition 22 was the name of Vice President Gore, but he also stated that the definition of marriage should not be changed to include a homosexual union.

Political correctness aside, for religious and moral reasons I cannot deem same sex marriage acceptable and for all those reasons I did vote at the meeting of the Human Relations Commission on November 15 against the motion. And I intend to vote for Proposition 22 at the next election.

And in closing let me remind everyone that the downfall of the Roman Empire was when they started to lose their morality.

Vito Cannella

To the Malibu City Council:

All I know is what I read in the paper, and from what I read in the paper I am 1) strongly supportive of Jacobson’s desire to protect the present character of the neighborhood, 2) strongly opposed to Streisand’s desire to erect an out-of-character “my house is bigger than your house” structure on an unbuildable lot and 3) deeply disappointed in the people we have in both the Planning Department and the Planning Commission. Either they are honest people who just fail to realize the inappropriateness (euphemism for stupidity) of the logic they are using to make their decisions, or they are just honestly star struck and overwhelmed by some of the names they can then drop in conversations. In either case, they are just not doing the job of maintaining the character of Malibu.

The foregoing can be said with complete assurance that the developers, the moneyed mansion aspirers and the “property rights” folks will rise up in righteous fury in defense of these planning people. But using the Streisand/Zumirez Drive fiasco as an example of the decision making capability of the planning people, let’s look at what they said and what they did.

The planning director has stated that his role is to enforce a zoning code, but he apparently fails to recognize or realize that every time a variance to code has been granted, a new code has been established. And the same failure is evidenced by the members of the Malibu Planning Commission. When the chairman of the commission wanted to build a house that was not allowed by the code, the code was changed for his benefit — that is, a variance was granted based on: “All I’m asking for is the right to build to the neighborhood standards,” and, “It would be punitive for the commission to reject these plans when it had approved the similar project next door.”

The planning staff and commission do not enforce the code, they are constantly revising the code.

With reference to the Streisand affair, when the planning director says, “If you say no to the 28 feet, you have to identify why that is adverse.” He is wrong. You don’t have to identify anything other than it is not allowed by code.

And his threat that, “You are at risk if you treat her differently than someone else,” also makes me wonder what he really thinks his job to be. If no variances are granted and she is constrained to build to code, where does the risk arise? Of course, I deduce from the articles in the paper that “no variances” would mean that setbacks from the bluff edge and from the lot boundaries would make the lot unbuildable. And if that is true, again, where does the risk arise? When one buys real estate, the purchase does not carry with it an automatic variance to any or all code requirements. It is not the responsibility of either the planning department or the planning commission to revise the code as necessary to allow her to build as she wishes or to allow her to build at all if she cannot build to code.

E. C. Spevak

Your Dec. 23 article [“City gets wetlands package in exchange for warehouse variance”] reporting on the City Council’s proposed 10 percent parking tax on beach lots was inaccurate.

First, while I did join my four colleagues in voting to place the measure on the April 11, 2000 ballot, I stated at the time I was not endorsing the measure itself.

Second, the council did not designate me to write the argument in favor of the measure, especially given my comment stated above. Nor did the council designate me to write the argument in favor of how such parking tax revenue should be used if passed by the voters.

Thank you for the opportunity to correct the record.

Tom Hasse,

city councilmember

This year, my niece and nephew-in-law and their 6-month-old baby traveled from France to join the California part of the family for the holidays. After talking with them about everything from what is perceived here as French fanaticism about food to socialized medicine, I realized there are some huge misconceptions here concerning French culture.

The French, who piqued the Clinton administration by refusing to import our genetically altered foods and dairy products produced with bovine growth hormone and antibiotics, have a whole different idea about food than we do.

To the average French person, eating food is the way of celebrating every event. It’s at the heart of who they are. They have higher expectations than Jacques dans la Boite.

In Paris, they go into Mac Donahlde primarily to use the restrooms (deemed more commodious than those in the average French bistro). Meals, even quick lunches, are not bought through a window or eaten in cars. The supermarche sells organic fruits and vegetables packaged in plastic (there’s an anomaly here), but the greengrocers proudly sell peaches arranged in rows, front row for today, back row for tomorrow.

Farmers are using fewer chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and the result is safer produce and cleaner water. “We see now fish are sensitive to that,” my nephew, Dominique, says. “In the Seine, some species we thought were extinct have come back.”

France, which decades ago had a severe paper shortage, has learned to conserve le papier. Public toilettes have electric blowers (nuclear power has replaced fossil fuels) to dry the hands and tiny slivers of papier de la toilette similar to that found in this country only in rural gas stations.

There are no French tree huggers because les forts are well managed. No need to call on the spotted owl to protect them. For every tree harvested, dozens are planted. Greenpeace is active there but concerns itself more with fishing and ocean protection.

To Americans, who are lucky to get a two-week vacation, the French seem to be toujours en vacance. Erin, my niece, who studied in France during her sophomore year at Notre Dame, then returned years later to marry the son of the family with whom she had lived in Angiers, explained, “I arrived with my Puritan work ethic intact, and now it’s gone. I thought they were lazy, always talking about their five-week vacations. Then I realized what’s going on. It’s not negative, it’s positive. That’s family time. In all the years I was growing up here, we only had one family vacation. The French pack up and go off as a family somewhere every year. It’s the opportunity to get away from work responsibilities and get back to their real values. That’s a luxury that can’t be replaced. That’s why the family ties are so strong.”

France developed its socialized medicine without the divisive debate that sunk Hillary Clinton’s more modest proposal. The doctors are not controlled by HMO efficiency and profit motives. There is no problem about doctors limiting time spent with patients. There is no French phrase like the almighty franc. “Erin’s prenatal care and delivery was so incredibly humane,” her mother says. The average hospital stay is five days. Erin had a private room and the baby was in the room most of the time. “They won’t let you go home until the baby is gaining weight, nursing properly and everything is fine.” Tell that to our ill-prepared teen mothers who are kicked out the day after delivery, ready or not. And it has already been decided that in the coming year everyone, regardless of whether they have a job or not, will be covered under their social security program.

Have the French given up any freedoms for all these benefits? Dominique, a Paris policeman, says, “Non.” They have the right to bear arms, but “Only hunters and criminals have them.” All guns are registered. People may use them for hunting and at shooting clubs, target, skeet etc. People do not keep arms for self-protection. The police carry guns but have no more right to use them than the average citizen. The law says you can only shoot someone who is threatening you with a gun. Police cannot shoot a fleeing suspect. There is no French equivalent for “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

While our Supreme Court prepares to revisit the Miranda decision, the French, in the land of libert, egalit, fraternit, have no such protection. You will not hear French TV cops spouting, “You have the right to remain silent … .” Dominique says, “We present ourselves as police officers and our reason for arresting them. “Mettez les mains en l’air” — the French equivalent of “Stick ’em up” — is used only for dangerous suspects. Livre de garde vue is as close as they come to, “Book em, Danno.”

At the police station, the perp is given a written document of his rights by the Officer Police Judiciary, a sort of liaison between the police and the district attorney. The perp may be detained for 20 hours without an attorney, whose job is only to see the prisoner is fed and cared for properly, not to protect him from incriminating himself during interrogation.

For all of that, Erin says, the streets and le metro are safe. “There’s pickpockets and purse snatchers, and sometimes people on the trains doing drugs, but I’ve never feared for my person.” That is because there is very little gratuitous violence. They want your money, but they don’t want to hurt you.

There are no drive-by shootings, although in some quarters, Dominique says, groups of young teens sometimes burn cars.

And morality is viewed differently. Erin said at first she was shocked by what she saw on TV. “They use naked ladies to sell yogurt.” Dominique explains it’s a difference in culture. “Bare breasts do not shock a Frenchman.” Women sunbathe au naturel on their balconies, on the beaches, and no one is offended. In Malibu, you would be arrested. Allez les mains! Book ’em, Danno.