The proposed development agreement with the Malibu Bay Company (MBC) provides the next City Council with the following options:

Option 1: To proceed in good faith with MBC in negotiating the details of the proposed agreement including “public benefits” through public hearings.

Option 2: Allow MBC to have the increased square footage over Option 1, that the city zoning law allows without “public benefits.”

Option 3. Acquire the undeveloped properties of MBC and other civic center properties for “public benefits” (wetlands/recreation).

The reason I support Option 1 is it guarantees MBC certain rights in developing its own properties and, in return, secures for Malibu residents 25.5 acres of permanent open space, a 10-year building moratorium on the Chili Cook-off site, and a 19-acre parcel in Point Dume where MBC will fund a new senior/teen community center, ball fields and related amenities.

Option 3 is not viable because to acquire the undeveloped MBC properties it requires a willing seller, and MBC, the major landowner has indicated it is not a willing seller.

This current proposal may not be all we want, but considering the alternative, we need council members who will act in good faith with the Bay Company and for all of the community in finalizing this proposal.

As a longtime resident, I share your concern to preserve Malibu’s fragile seaside-residential character. This agreement honors our concern by limiting MBC to only 122,000 square feet of new commercial development for the next 10 years, at the same time as it permanently eliminates more than 300,000 square feet allowable commercial building and associated traffic.

In spite of this, we are being asked to believe that a financial grant will be available from the state to fund the purchase of the MBC Civic Center properties. Since there existed no financial line item in state Propositions 12 or 13 for these properties, any such effort by the City Council will force MBC to proceed with their current application under Option 2.

We need to change the council thinking that has cost the city over $2 million to settle the original Mobile Home lawsuit; allowed 398 condominiums instead of three homes at Lunita/Bailard; a city council approved expenditure of approximately $400,000 for a specific Civic Center Plan that was subsequently rejected by the Council; and a Point Dume Headlands settlement that will cost the city $500,000 over 10 years. That’s $3 million which could have been used for “public benefits.”

Council members House and Hasse have provided the council and community a remarkable opportunity for our consideration. I hope you support this.

John Harlow,

former mayor and council member

This election Malibu residents are presented with an important opportunity: vote for a tax on the parking on the beach lots. This money will directly benefit the city which has so few revenue sources. Millions of beach visitors from all over L.A. County come here each year and leave little more than trash, traffic congestion and strained Municipal services. Most of us will never be impacted by this fee. It’s a small price to pay for cleaner, safer beaches. Please vote yes on Measure B!

Marshall Thompson

Tit for tat in bit by bat

Pepperdine University’s Fine Arts Division proves the old adage, “Revenge is a dish best served operatically,” last week offering a lavish buffet in “Die Fledermaus” (The Bat), the operetta by Johann Strauss the son.

Even opera aficionados must take secret delight in hearing such chestnuts sung in English — this version translated by Ruth & Thomas Martin — which provides the chance to understand not only the plot but its subtleties.

With the plot’s marital infidelities, conniving maids, swinging princes, dancing hussies and inebriated jailers, one must stop and ask, to paraphrase the immortal operatic analysis of Anna Russell, “Remember the bat?”

Mr. and Mrs. Von Eisenstein have a typically upper-class marriage — relatively loveless and relatively open. The eponymous maus is Von Eisenstein’s buddy, Dr. Falke. A while back, the two men had been at a costume party, Von Eisenstein dressed as a butterfly and the doctor dressed as a bat. Both having imbibed big-time, Von Eisenstein left his buddy spending the night on a park bench, where the doctor awakened to the unforgettable embarrassment of having morning walkers see him in his bat costume. He now seeks revenge. He invites the prankster to disguise himself and attend a party at the home of a Russian prince; and soon an invitation and disguise also arrive for Mrs. Von E.

Subplots include an upcoming, eight-day jail term for Von Eisenstein, a saucy maid who connives a night off, and an opera singer who compulsively serenades anyone with ears. Eisenstein theorizes he can be two places at one time — heading off to a party before turning himself in at the jail.

Plot or subplot, for major character or bit player, director Henry Price misses no opportunities. Someone is always doing or singing or saying something small but noteworthy — and comical. The whole is lively but not campy.

Maestro Thomas Osborne leads a tidy orchestra, particularly in its percussion and winds, from which the operetta’s familiar tunes billow happily. Scenic designer Kermit Heckert offers luxurious sets of mahogany, marble and miscellaneous Victoriana.

Still, Pepperdine Fine Arts Division students continue to inspire delight, with delicious acting abilities and voices well on their way to professional.

Shelli Fabiano is part stainless steel, part silk. Her strong but mellifluous voice combines with her astonishing power of characterization, and she is believable and mesmerizing as Rosalinda Von Eisenstein, whether being an insouciant wife or a Gabor sister. Joseph Ashby is comically pouty and put-upon as Von Eisenstein.

As the maid Adele, Caroline Carter’s silvery tone and petulant character light the stage. Remedios Loosli plays the lawyer with dust on his hair but clarity in his voice. Tabitha Laws creates the operatic equivalent of the “dumb blonde.”

As Alfred the opera singer, Eric Weigand plays moping suitor while ably humming snips of famous operas. Miguel Villahermosa’s mellow baritone fulfills the avenging Dr. Falke. Daniel Peretto gives his prison warden incipient humor, while his baritone voice shows power and expressiveness.

As the drunken jailer, Don Kidd seems an incarnation of Red Skelton. Act III offers the director much music to fill, which Price amply does by Vaudevillian bits of risky direction — overfilled teacups, cigar burns, hat tricks — done to perfection by Kidd and Peretto.

Angela Rasmussen triumphs over yet another trouser role, or in this case velvet breeches, as Russian Prince Orlovsky. As Ivan, Brian Speck sneaks in a guest appearance and his own aria.

The operetta’s always-anticipated “special guests” included alumna Jessica Rivera, dressed as a Valkyrie and singing a delightful “I Wish to be a Prima Donna” and John Raitt, looking dashing and singing “Largo al Factotum.”

The cast is so well-rehearsed, it can cover any small flubs. In the final tableau, champagne glasses crashed to the ground. Kidd grabbed his mop and swabbed the floor pathetically as the rest of the happy crowd drank a final toast.

In Act II, Von Eisenstein sings “How Energizing” about his newest indiscretion. It best summarizes this production.

A friend of mine died last week.

Like most guys, we never talked about being friends.

Once guys reach a certain age, they don’t think of themselves as making new friends. Women make friends and exchange confidences. Guys don’t do that kind of stuff. We just sort of hang out together, but we never really say we’re hanging out together. We just do it.

Harry Barovsky and I used to just hang out together, mostly on the telephone, occasionally at Guido’s restaurant, usually whenever there was a city event we were both at.

I’d call Harry, or he’d call me the morning after the council meeting and we’d compare notes. It’s nothing we agreed to do formally, we just sort of did it a few times a week.

Harry was always fun to talk to. He always knew what was going on, and he had — and I’m trying to find a clean way to say it — a pithy way of describing the events of the previous evening that was fully cognizant of human greed, stupidity and frailty, and then he’d get to the good stuff.

But behind Harry’s surface cynicism, he really cared, and we all knew he really cared. Harry was really a lover and a true believer. He tried not to appear that way, but we all saw through it and loved him for it.

He talked a familiar, tough, smart street jargon that was immediately recognizable because the streets of Pittsburgh, where he was raised, were not much different from the streets of Brooklyn, or L.A. for that matter.

There was also something about Harry that was so up, so full of life, so indestructible, that, when he died, somehow it was unbelievable.

When I heard about it I thought, why am I surprised?

I saw him toting around the oxygen bottle, I could hear his labored breathing on the phone, I knew he was slowly slipping downhill. Yet there was something so powerfully alive about Harry that I just ignored the obvious signs and assumed that, of course, he was going to get better.

The day before he died, they were making arrangements for him to come home from Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and they were going to hook him up by telephone from his home to the Monday evening council meeting, which Harry was determined to attend.

Harry never gave up, which was just like Harry. It was his body that gave up, after fighting this lung disease for 15 years. It just called it quits, and we all lost something special.

Sharon lost the man she loved.

His children lost a father.

His grandchildren lost a grandfather.

The community lost a leader.

And I lost a friend, and the saddest part is that I never had a chance to say,

“Hey, so long Harry, I’m sure going to miss you.”

A personage in the Topanga community who weekly reads The Malibu Times inquired of me why I point out tribulations with the city of Malibu government and provide no solutions. My answer to him is that, the rational man doesn’t give the right answers, the rational man poses the right questions.

Malibuites grow great by dreams. All men are dreamers. They see things in the soft haze of a spring day or in the red fire of a long winter’s evening. Some of us Malibuites let these great dreams die, but others nourish and protect them; nurse them through bad days till they bring them to the sunshine and light, which comes always to those who sincerely hope that their dreams will come true.

The Lily’s Coffee Shop 8 a.m. morning crowds are dreamers. They are anxiously awaiting the upcoming elections to exercise their right to vote. They are demanding their right to vote. They are expectant that their fellow Malibuites will investigate the ballot issues, candidates and make preparations to vote on Malibu Election Day. In the meantime, the Lily’s crowd sit, drink coffee and converse on where Malibu has been and where it is going. And that is all I have to say (sure).

Tom Fakehany

I’m just an average Malibu resident, who doesn’t pay attention to what is going on every day in city government. I mind my own business and go to work every day to make ends meet so I can continue to live in this beautiful place we call The Malibu. And, I never write letters.

However, after reading the lunatic and vicious political rantings of the Malibu Homeowners for Reform, ne Citizens for Fair Zoning, in newspaper ads and fliers published and distributed during the last couple of weeks that are obviously bogus, “manufactured” issues intended to enflame the masses, who they believe are either ignorant or stupid with regard to state health and safety codes, I felt compelled to write something in response.

Aren’t these people who are now demanding a relaxation of the Building and Safety Codes and Zoning Codes some of the very same people who were yelling and screaming about the city failing to enforce and prosecute a Building and Safety Code violation/citation when a balcony collapsed, killing two people and injuring 20 more?

Give me a break! These nasty, personal attacks on two of the council members running for re-election are the lowest form of demagoguery, but they ring a familiar bell. Their ravings sound very similar to those of a group called Fed Up, who were yelling and screaming a couple of elections ago about down-sizing and legal nonconforming, scaring Malibu residents into foolishly believing they were going to lose their homes, or have to tear them down after so many years, and they weren’t going to be able to get loans, and the entire residential real estate market was going to collapse, if they elected the candidates who wanted “slow growth.”

Well, that turned out to be just a pack of lies. In spite of down-zoning and lots being legal nonconforming, the real estate market is just fine, thank you! Read the glowing real estate sales statistics, if you don’t believe me.

This group talks about “special privileges” and “entitlements” being granted, but the only group I see getting any of these privileges or entitlements are the developers, namely the Malibu Bay Company in the settlement agreement. The “agreement” (as outlined in the newspapers) grants them the “entitlement” to more commercial development in return for “public benefit amenities.” However, when I looked at the “public benefits” they are giving, I didn’t see any benefits for me; I am not a senior citizen nor a teen, and I don’t have kids who need ballfields. So, what’s my benefit? All I see for me is more traffic on PCH to contend with while trying to get to work and back, and as we who work in town already know, the traffic is a nightmare now.

Additionally, we do not need any more residential or commercial development in western Malibu. We voters made this very clear to the City Council on numerous occasions over the last nine years, and this is reflected in the General Plan document. The Trancas market/shopping center has a restaurant/shop space that’s been vacant for the past three or four years now, so why would the city allow an increase in development there? To sit ugly and vacant for more years? I hope not.

Wake up, you Malibu residents. Don’t be fooled again by ridiculous ads that are nothing but vicious political rhetoric targeted at those they consider “thimble-brains.”

Julie Steinberg