After about 20 years of kicking the idea around, Malibu finally has its own farmers’ market. The inaugural event Sunday at Malibu City Hall hosted about a dozen vendors who offered merchandise varying from fresh produce to cut flowers, bonsai trees and pickled baby corn.

At the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Malibu City Council members presented a certificate of recognition from State Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl to Cornucopia Farms, the group responsible for organizing the market. Accepting the honor, Debra Bianco, president of Cornucopia Farms, described the school program that will be funded by revenue raised by the market.

Students will receive community credit by teaching other students about organic farming.

“Children teaching children,” Bianco said.

Part of the program will be to grow produce, which will be sold at future markets.

The vice president of Cornucopia Farms, Remy O’Neill, recounted a brief history of Bianco’s leadership.

“Two years ago in June, Debra told me she wanted to give something back to the community,” said O’Neill. “She proposed a market and a teaching program. It was a sweet thought, but I never thought she would carry it out. But she started gathering information, and by that August we had incorporated.”

That was the inception of Cornucopia Farms, a non-profit, community-based action group.

To give impetus to the market, Malibu City Council provided a $20,000 grant, Cornucopia which matched with donations from the community. There was a maze of agencies to be dealt with to get the market going, some of which were county health, agriculture, the sheriff, the city, the courts and the library.

Susan Nissman, senior field deputy for County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, provided “a magic wand to cut through the bureaucracy,” Bianco said.

For instance, Yaroslavsky’s office asked the county to waive the first six months rent on the market space while the market gets on its feet.

Vendors expressed satisfaction with the day’s business.

Jose Jaime, whose stand sells vegetable, represented his family’s business, Jaime Farms, from the City of Industry near L.A. He said that his farm was recruited at a Santa Monica Farmer’s Market in February.

“It was an extremely good day,” said Jaime who plans to return.

The Rosendahl fruit vendors came to Malibu from their farm near Fresno. Sisters Stephanie and Kathie Rosendahl said that Bianco recruited them by phone in Fresno. Their farm also does a Sunday market in Hollywood, and they said doing two locations is more work. They also indicated they would return.

Malibu City Mayor Tom Hasse said, “The hard work of Debra, Remy, and Denny (Denny Melle, past secretary-treasurer of Cornucopia Farms,) is now paying off. City Council finally did something universally popular.”

Despite coastal fog socking in PCH Saturday, the Webster School’s Jog-a-Thon, now in its 10th year, was predicted to successfully raise more than $30,000. according to its organizers.

The Webster school is a public grade school, part of the Santa Monica-Malibu School district.

As a fund-raiser, every year they schedule an annual Jog-A-Thon, where students run a chosen number of laps, earning pledges for each lap. There were two sessions Saturday where some students surpassed the 170 lap figure.

Paul Outen, 8, of Malibu, said he ran 170 laps, “but there were some who ran more.”

The moneys raised by the day’s activities all go to the school’s various activity funds, such as hiring a poet to come to the school to teach the children how to write poetry, or for art supplies and artists to come and show their techniques.

The Jog-a-Thon also featured a number of other activities, including painting, a hop, skip & jump game, a book sale and a silent auction. Each classroom made up it’s own gift basket along different themes, and the baskets were jam-packed with goodies. Most impressive was the “Barbie dream basket,” which must have had at least a dozen Barbies in it.

Local merchants contributed items for the auction, including Malibu Tile, with tiles featuring surfers and surfer wagons.

Two restaurants who pitched in to help were Allegria, an Italian restaurant, which furnished wonderful pasta and Domino’s Pizza.

For those who look for items from celebrities there were several autographed pictures to bid on and some framed posters from Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. Among other Hollywood memorabilia up for auction were movie scripts, with the highest bid on “The Cider House Rules” script at $35 during one point in the auction.

Among the books for sale was a beautiful copy of Yosemite photos by nature photographer Ansel Adams.

Several businesses offered services to bid on, such as a back massage, or various medical procedures like dental work, or a weekend trip such as one offered to Tahoe. A kayak rental, which normally sells for $98, was bid up to $125, but could have gone for more as the event went on.

Serving as testimony to the affection some Webster students have for their teachers, was a wallboard in which the students could bid for the chance to go out with their favorite teacher for breakfast or lunch. One teacher had no less than eight students registered with bids on the opportunity to break bread with her, with the bids going as high as $100.

Phil Cott, principal of Webster for 10 years, conducted the live-bidding part of the auction, the first time it’s been live instead of silent.

Two other schools in the district have a fund-raising activity that is similar–Cabrillo and Pt. Dume–but the Webster School’s event is well established and thriving and owes its success to the way the volunteers pitch in, with some individuals working hundreds of hours.

The Webster School is so desirable a grade school that there is a waiting list of students. There are currently about 500 students enrolled.

The school, established in 1949, is nestled in a valley below Pepperdine’s Malibu Campus, in a location not noticeable unless one is looking for it.

Ansen Williams, a 46-year-old film director, was at the Jog-a-Thon with his wife, an infant daughter and his 10-year -old daughter. He had much praise for the school.

“It’s been great for my daughter,” he said. “She has so many mentors in so many areas. In fact, I’d say this school is one good reason to live in Malibu.”

Colleen O’Beirnebrydon, past president of the PTA, said that “parents are involved in every way in this school.”

A usually dry report from the school district’s contractor turned controversial Thursday when he said upgrades to Malibu High Schools significantly were over budget.

Speaking to a sparse crowd at the Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, where the Santa Monica-Malibu Board of Education was meeting, Ken Brazzel of the Sverdrup construction firm said conversion of the cafeteria to an auditorium and performing arts studio “is not within the budget.” Plus several other overruns.

“We did not track the creep of growth,” Brazzel added. “We have to reduce the scope. We did not tell people you will not get all you see on the drawings. We must let people vent their anger and communicate what we really need.”

Brazzel refused to elaborate but Arthur Cohen, assistant school district superintendent, told The Malibu Times the overall project was $3 million over budget. According to his calculations, the auditorium project alone was expected to cost $1.5 million. He said the reasons for the higher costs was that the project was over-designed.

Board president Todd Hess, noting he was “troubled” by the report, never the less offered the board’s help in solving the problem.

“We explained our prior experience of a shortfall,” Hess said. “I am very disappointed this has occurred, because you had prior knowledge. You knew this concern from the beginning. We are in the same situation as the last process.

“We hired you to be good managers and paid you good money to avoid this very problem,” Hess continued. “We will be the ones to get the negative feedback. If this was a surprise, that’s one thing, but we told you about the problem of unreal expectations. I want to see results.

“We hope you apply all your company’s resources to solve the problem. If we need to get involved to make sure people understand we are doing everything we can to remedy the situation, we will.”

In other action, the board heard from assistant superintendent Cohen that Gov. Gray Davis’ “May revision” to the budget, which included an additional $1.84 billion for local school district discretionary spending, would mean a $4,015,514 budget surplus for the district.

“However, these projections do not include negotiations with employee groups next fall,” Cohen said.

Describing the district’s projected 2000-2001 budget as a “maintenance budget,” Cohen cautioned, “Be careful of that big amount of money. It can go away fast. If it is all spent, we will not have it for next year.”

He recommended reviewing programmatic enhancements after July 1.

The board also approved hiring a public information officer and related expenditures at a cost of $95,000, and hiring a special education consultant to report to the board by the end of June, at a cost of $20,000.

The board also heard that the projected enrollment target of 12,500 pupils was likely to be met. Enrollment is a significant basis of school funding.

Why did 44-year-old Mark Reynolds Hughes, the founder, chairman and chief executive of Herbalife International, Inc., die suddenly in bed at home in Malibu late Sunday morning?

According to spokesperson Scott Carrier of the Los Angeles County Department of the Coroner, the results of an autopsy Tuesday morning are inconclusive.

Testing of tissue samples will provide more answers in four to six weeks, he said.

Foul play is not suspected.

“There is no evidence of external trauma that might suggest criminal wrongdoing,” Carrier said.

The Coroner’s office conducted a routine exam, Carrier said, including testing for toxic drugs and alcohol.

“We have to wait for microscopic studies of tissues taken at the time of the autopsy,” he said.

The tissue studies, among the 65,000 performed annually by the Department of the Coroner, will take at least a month to complete, he said.

Tuesday afternoon doctors were filling out paperwork that would release Hughes’s body to his family for burial or cremation. The cause of death is legally “deferred,” and it will be added later to the death certificate as an amendment when the toxicology results come back.

As another matter of routine, the case was assigned to Sheriff’s homicide detectives. According to a Sheriff’s Department spokesperson, “everything is pending.”

Unless there is evidence that Hughes’ death was the result of causes other than natural ones, they will not be required to investigate.

Hughes’ wife found him Sunday morning “lifeless and unresponsive,” according to Carrier. She notified paramedics, who received the call at 11:15 a.m. They responded to Hughes’s home at 33064 Pacific Coast Highway.

The paramedics attempted CPR, but Hughes was pronounced dead at the scene.

Reports indicate that Hughes had no negative medical history, no life-threatening diseases and had not been under the care of a doctor, though Hughes is reported to have suffered from asthma.

The Hughes residence was built by Verna Harrah of the Harrah family of Reno, Nevada. Hughes, a newcomer to Malibu, had purchased the home for $25,000,000 less than six months ago.

A charismatic leader, Hughes founded the Herbalife empire of weight loss and nutritional products in 1980 at the age of 24, and initially sold his diet and health products out of the trunk of his car. The company, which is international, does business in 48 countries. It has 750 thousand sales people nationwide and does $1.7 billion in sales per year. With a formal educational lasting through only the 9th grade, he went on to become one of L.A. County’s highest paid executives, earning $17 million in 1998. He clashed with the Food and Drug Administration and the California Attorney General’s office over the way the company’s products were marketed. Regulators contended the company was making medicinal claims. Medicines are regulated by the FDA, while nutritional supplements are not.

Hughes defended his products against charges they were sold with false health claims.

Responding to a panel of Senate investigators in 1985, Hughes said, “If they’re such experts, then why are they fat? I’ve lost 16 pounds in the last few years.”

He said he went into the business because his mother tried constantly to lose weight. She died from a drug overdose when Hughes was 18.

Hughes made an unsuccessful bid to take his company private, bidding $510 million in September. The plan collapsed in April.

Herbalife International, Inc., a multilevel marketing company that relies on independent distributors to sell its products, named a new Chief Operating Officer Monday, Christopher Pair.

In a poignant commemoration of community service, outgoing planning commissioners Jo Ruggles and Andrew Stern were praised for their dedication to the city.

Commission chair Ed Lipnick presented Ruggles and Stern with awards of appreciation and gifts for their four years of service, and engineer/developer Norm Haynie used the public comment period to add his commendations.

“No one takes a back seat to her for defense of the environment and fierce loyalty to the city,” said Lipnick of Ruggles, who was appointed by Carolyn Van Horn.

Noting that Ruggles has also been “an advocate for nocturnal little critters, against intrusive lighting,” Lipnick speculated Ruggles might be one of them.

Of Stern, who was appointed by Walt Keller, Lipnick said, “Andrew has been a delight to sit nearby. His humor and intelligence has informed our decisions.”

Commissioner Charleen Kabrin, the other incumbent, praised Ruggles for her institutional memory.

Haynie, who said he has attended nearly all commission meetings since cityhood, said, “The amount of work commissioners put in should be acknowledged. They spend three to eight days month preparing for meetings to bring the vision statement of Malibu to reality.”

“Although I don’t always agree with their opinions, people vote for what they believe is best for the city,” added Haynie .

In other business, commissioners received a status report on the update of the Zoning Ordinance from consultant Paul Crawford.

Noting that the City Council would have jurisdiction over the Local Coastal Plan, Crawford said the ordinance was ready to be changed from an “administrative draft” to a “Planning Commission Review Draft.”

Lipnick suggested that after Crawford meets with new Planning Director Barry Hogan, Crawford should develop a work plan schedule and revise the ordinance format to refer to the source material. That would help people who are seeing the ordinance for the first time, Lipnick said.

“We will have a fresh team of horses in a couple of weeks,” said Lipnick, referring to Hogan and a commissioner to be appointed by City Councilman Jeff Jennings.