My first effort to protect Malibu from harm was in 1963 when, as a new resident, I spearheaded a campaign against a proposed garbage dump in Pena Canyon.

The protest, with “Dump the Dump” slogan, resulted in the sound defeat of the ill-advised project. At the time, of course, we were dealing with the county.

Now, after all these years, we are still faced with those whose primary concern is profit and to hell with the environment and esthetic values. I am appalled at the idea of allowing a storage facility in the most prominent and environmentally sensitive area of Malibu. Even though we now have a different set of players, people are still trying to treat Malibu as a “dump” instead of the most picturesque and scenic coastal region which deserves better.

Has everyone gone mad? In town they relegate storage facilities to the back roads of the most industrial areas. Which brings me to ask, “What has happened to some of our council members and their campaign promises?” Every one of them pledged to “protect Malibu’s fragile environment” and to preserve “our way of life” and “scenic beauty.” Do they really believe they can say one thing and do another? They must assume the residents of Malibu are a bunch of morons who will tolerate every “Turncoat Tom, Dick or Harry” paying lip service to their promises. Promises which don’t make it past the inaugural party, after which those self-proclaimed environmentalists seem to develop galloping Alzheimers on this, and so many other, issues.

To those who are responsible for this travesty, I can only say: Before you become too enamored of your cleverness, remember not to count your chickens before they are hatched. The electorate may not move quickly and decisively, but we do wake up every once in a while and make our anger felt. Once Malibuites start to envision what it will be like to see a monstrous structure of this kind — and all the other proposed commercial development in the very heart of Malibu — they will be up in arms.

Remember, all we have to do is vote for those who haven’t disappointed us in the past. The valuable lesson we must learn is not to listen to those sanctimonious campaign promises, and not to be taken in by interminable smear campaigns. We simply have to check the record of each council member, and other candidates, running for office.

I, for one, will vote for someone who, as it turns out, may not be the most polished or eloquent speaker. I owe it to myself, Malibu, and the legacy we pass on to our children, to try to repudiate those who are conning us — and let their records speak for themselves.

We either make our will felt now — when it really counts — or forget about complaining when it is too late.

Dan Segal

After reading last week’s paper it has come to my attention that apparently some of the candidates for City Council are all of a sudden promoting top key issues in our community. Carolyn Van Horn must not remember that prior to cityhood incorporation we had three ball fields and because of her “Common Sense” role we lost one of our original ball fields! If she believes that her role in Malibu’s Bluffs Park is “Common Sense” (as she states), then we are all headed for never having any permanent sports facilities!

If Carolyn Van Horn believes her votes have personally “Maintained Malibu’s Beauty,” look at Lunita/Bailard (Trancas) condominium project, then take a look at what Carolyn Van Horn thinks is beautiful. These could have been six single-family homes on one acre parcels! Or if she had any brains it could have been purchased for $750,000 to be used as parks.

People have been crying for years to Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn to “Simplify the Permit Process.” If they want to really simplify and streamline the zoning and permitting process, one single act would be a great start. Remove their appointed planning commissioners. It is their planning commissioners that have been promoting the most intrusive new regulations ever seen in Malibu on single-family homes. They are now implementing restrictions on your house color, roof color and wattage of interior light bulbs. Even worse is this new hillside ordinance! If they call this streamlining then they don’t have a clue as to the permit process. John Wall too is simply a clone of Walter Keller destroying Malibu with regulatory pursuits. It is disgusting to see him use his name in his ad alongside Joan House and Ken Kearsley as a feeble attempt to show some kind of a positive association to them.

Members of my family have lived in Malibu since the early 1960s and we have been involved deeply in our community as volunteers on fund-raising and numerous events throughout Malibu. When has Walt Keller ever been to a major public or private function except when he is campaigning? After reviewing Walt Keller’s new campaign mailer it is clear on what he has not done for Malibu! He hasn’t claimed to have accomplished any these beautiful things on his flier. He can’t, he hasn’t done any of these, and he merely lists the top local action items of the week in an effort to appeal to the voters who may not be aware of his actual actions. Walt Keller and Carolyn Van Horn are shallow and empty people. They do not have regard for anyone else. To exist they need to be in control and receive adoration from their friends and followers. They are out of touch with the Malibu citizens and continue their personal attacks against us. This can be viewed almost weekly at City Council meetings when they exhibit stone faces and deaf ears on many public speakers’ cries for help.

It is hard to still live in this once friendly town and witness the lies and deceit that they continue to exhibit. You cannot trust their record. Please even if you supported them before don’t vote them back in and “Keep Malibu Malibu and Protect Our Quality of Life.” The destruction of our city and personal property rights has to stop now.

Val Fish

These days driving around Malibu brings to mind an old song, “Sign, sign, everywhere a sign, blockin’ out the scenery. . .” Indeed, everywhere one turns these days there is a sign endorsing one candidate or another. Luckily, these signs are only temporary — the scenery may be blocked for now, but the signs will soon disappear. If more building and development is allowed to happen, our scenery, our views, our spectacular vistas will be forever erased.

Election time is, once again, upon us. However, the most important thing for each and everyone one of us to know is what is behind the names on those signs and it is our responsibility to find out — if we care about our community.

I have lived in Malibu for over 20 years and have seen a great many changes and not all for the good. Yes, I’m talking about growth, construction, environmental damage, traffic and all the negatives that come with it. And, frankly, Malibu cannot bear as much change in the next 20 years and it has in the last 20.

Now is the time for all those who live here and care about Malibu to vote and let their voices be heard. Do not be fooled by those who are looking to get elected under the guise of false campaign rhetoric. This letter is not the forum to name names, but there are candidates out there who do not have Malibu’s best interests at heart. Do the research; ask the questions; so that we have elected representatives who will maintain the integrity of Malibu, and not give way to the wishes of developers and the like who don’t care about the city where we all live.

Catherine Torrey

Driving home following the candidates’ forum at PDMS last week my neighbor and I compared notes and impressions. We were at first incredulous and then amused by the answers from our present council members regarding Malibu’s serious budget shortfall this year. For anyone not acquainted with this problem (most of us) it seems that our law enforcement agency wants a 45 percent increase in their contract. Our transportation licensing fees are diminishing by $700,000. FEMA still questions owing us $2 million; and who knows what the city’s continual litigation will cost. The council has yet to pass a parking tax at Zuma ($500,000) but they have unofficially agreed to supply $150,000 in emergency funds, that they don’t have, for our schools. The only candidate who spoke directly to Malibu’s improving its dismal revenues was Jeff Jennings, who answered a question about the 146-room Adamson Hotel Project that would have enriched our coffers by some $900,000 annually. Mrs. House replied that the extra 40 disallowed rooms could have endangered some of our coastal sage. Who knew? This brings us to our point. We begrudging believe Malibu must develop long-term economic independence through slow growth and compromise.

Ms. Van Horn suggested and her co-members agreed that Malibu needs to go to Sacramento and Washington, DC., hat in hand, and beg as our poor little city can barely support itself. (Yes, all California schools need a huge transfusion of state money into their general funds.) But our imaginations ran with the laughable implications of this fiscal supplication….

And the state answered, “And why have you such low revenues, Malibu? Couldn’t you have predicted these costs?”

“Well, we don’t like any growth and we don’t like change. More businesses like retail shops, a hotel, restaurants, office buildings, condos or apartments would ruin what is special here. They’d encourage more young families and tourists. The beachgoers might spend more time and money here. People shouldn’t come to Malibu to be convenienced or to find moderate-income housing. We want to remain rugged, isolated, nature lovers, untouched, especially by traffic. We always wanted our citizens to do without. Our kids shouldn’t need playing fields or a teen center when they have the mountains and the beach and vacant land! Unfortunately, times are changing and the community wants its City Council to support it. But we’re a bit short. Can you slip us some cash?”

“But Malibu, don’t you have an enormous distribution of empty land to develop as well as thousands of acres of protected parklands and beaches? Surely only a tiny portion would need be sacrificed for economic independence. A tasteful limited development plan will not turn you into Calabasas. Southern California will grow to 20 million people in a few years. Most cities will have no space at all and real economic needs. Grow up, Malibu. You have the opportunity to support your city with only slight modification to your “way of life.” The state is not interested in doling out money to a group of the luckiest people in California because their City Council belatedly acknowledged the changing needs of its citizens. Or should the state subsidize you so you can discourage an influx of new citizens through maintaining your minuscule density? We think not. You need to help yourselves, develop some moderation. And you are going to need to learn to share your space.”

Seriously, how embarrassing it would be with all our natural riches, open land, and demands for independence and isolation, to entreat Sacramento to support our civic responsibilities. (Some council members and activists believe the city has few responsibilities beyond maintaining the status quo; but that’s another story.) As my neighbor and I agreed, it’s laughable.

Candy Sindell

It is a scene much like other urban landscapes, with streets providing perspective, rooflines merging with trees. But what is that in the sky? Is that smog? An artist who paints smog?

“His paintings are quintessentially Californian, in that they celebrate the light and the open space of the region,” says Michael Zakian, Ph.D., director of the Weisman Museum of Art at Pepperdine University.

He speaks of the late John Register, a nationally renowned and longtime Point Dume artist, the subject of a retrospective at the Weisman. Curated by the San Jose Museum of Art to tour nationally, after San Jose it traveled to Seattle and Palm Springs before arriving at the Weisman. “Not only did I select the show because he was a Malibu artist but I think the art speaks to our community,” says Zakian.

He hung the exhibit chronologically, and he offers bits of explanatory biography while discussing each canvas.

Register was born in New York in 1939 and came to California to attend art school. “But he came to study advertising art, not fine art,” Zakian emphasizes. Register then became an art director at a successful advertising firm in New York. “He was good at it, but he found something lacking in that work.”

One day, in the middle of a meeting, Register stood up and announced he had a dental appointment. The married-with-children Register walked out of the meeting and never came back to work.

“I get the sense he was someone who took control of his life as much as he could,” Zakian says.

So Zakian begins his tour with the canvas titled, “Parking Lot by Ocean.” The viewer overlooks a parking lot facing the ocean. On the right is a Cadillac. Next to the driver’s side is a beach chair, but all we see of its occupant is a pair of legs. A symbol of wealth and a symbol of the rejection of wealth meet in this serene, yet humorous, oceanscape. He didn’t paint another human being until years later.

“His biography says he was an avid race-car driver, surfer, swimmer, runner and tennis player,” says Zakian. “But when he was in his 30s, he suffered from kidney disease.” Register was on dialysis when he began painting, and he later underwent two kidney transplants. “The perspective of wanting to embrace life but being trapped in a failing body strongly influenced his world view — which was as an observer.”

The painting titled “Mustang Cafe” shows the front end of a Ford Mustang, circa early, seen through the window of a coffee shop. Known as California’s Edward Hopper, Register seems to focus on empty places — rooms recently vacated by people. “Both [Hopper and Register] used emptiness as a poignant comment on life itself.”

“Bunker Hill” interprets the downtown L.A. site as an ancient ruin. “It’s a hot, smoggy July day. You get a great sense of the type of day in a particular city by showing almost no detail.”

Zakian tries not to focus on the smog, but there it is, for future generations to observe of our time, much like we marvel at the clothing in a Rembrandt.

“John also had a strong feeling for nostalgia. He loved the old, mythic L.A. and the Raymond Chandler stories of the 1940s. In his paintings, he often yearns for a return to a quieter, simpler place.”

His paintings don’t tell stories. Rather, they subtly encourage the viewers to imagine our own. Many canvasses show empty chairs in public spaces — Laundromats, barbershops, hotel lobbies, a Greyhound Bus station.

“The places are public, and transient,” says Zakian. “That’s their poignancy, the emotional charge. He enlivens them with explicit contrasts of warm and cold colors, light and dark boundaries. He keeps the eye stimulated.”

In “Waiting Room,” Register depicts a Long Island barbershop — empty, of course. Its interior is ornate, the landscape in the distance loosely rendered. “Sometimes the most detailed parts are in the mirror’s reflections, more complex than the reality it is reflecting.”

Even “Times Square” looks isolating. Its background is filled and busy, and in shadow. The foreground, in light, is primarily empty, and the human figures walk out of the painting. “Loneliness and solitariness are not negative qualities in these paintings,” Zakian emphasizes.

Upstairs at the gallery, Zakian has hung Register’s 1990s works. In the ’80s, says Zakian, Register’s diagonal lines give a sense of space, but strong horizon lines create an overall sense of tranquillity.

In the ’90s, says Zakian, Register uses an exaggerated perspective, giving an unsettled sense of space — a rushing back. Did he see his life rushing by, Zakian asks? The paintings depict beds and bedrooms, the artist coming home. One of the last is a self-portrait, a meditative work in which Register is seated on his bed.

He died in 1996, but locals remember him and honored him by attending the opening reception. Surf-shop owners and tennis players mixed with the art crowd. His widow, Cathy, still lives on Point Dume.

“I’m sorry I didn’t know him,” says Zakian.

“John Register: A Retrospective” shows through April 2 at the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art, Pepperdine University, Tuesdays through Sundays, 11 a.m. through 5 p.m., closed Mondays, no admission fee. Tel. 317.7257.

It’s obviously election time because Mr. London has started his usual barrage of letters to the editor. He has described Fed Up as an organization of fear mongers. We were not fear mongers. As everyone knows Fed Up was fearful of the government’s taking of property rights — including grandfathering.

London and his council candidates are already painting everyone who does not agree with their no-growth philosophy as developers.

We have candidates this time who are only for sensible growth. If one wishes to build a home or remodel, they should have the right to do so without having to suffer so much time and money to get through the process. Your no-growth candidates, Mr. London, do not agree with this.

Our planning director in response to the Planning Department audit defends his staff (and rightly so) by saying and I quote, “In the past, the council has stated that development in Malibu must be controlled, restricted and, in some cases, discouraged.”

This policy may be the reason for the recent unhappiness over the injurious code enforcement process.

Kay Furgurson