In a marathon meeting last Thursday, Malibu residents continued to protest potential budget cuts being considered by the Board of Education of the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.

About 30 Malibu parents, teachers and administrators helped pack the 100-seat Santa Monica City Council chamber as the board considered budget cuts until 10:30 p.m. and, for another two hours, charges of noncompliance with special education legislation at Malibu High School. [See separate story on special education.]

Even as the audience heard the projected budget shortfall for the 2000-2001 budget year was now less than $1.5 million (down from $2-2.5 million two weeks ago, and down from the $5 million projected in December), several parents decried the potential layoff of Point Dume Marine Science Principal Cynthia Gray.

“Cynthia Gray is a good fit for the Marine Science School,” parent Bonna Read told the board, chaired by Malibuite Todd Hess. “You did a good job picking the perfect person for the job, and we want to keep her.

“Both schools would suffer irreparable damage,” Read continued, referring to the plan to have Juan Cabrillo Elementary School principal Pat Cairns administer both schools. “Imagine asking one principal to attend two sets of PTA meetings and many other public functions, not to mention driving back and forth between campuses. Both schools require someone to be the last word in the many day-to-day operations where the buck has to stop.”

Read also read aloud a letter to the board from Point Dume Marine Science Elementary PTA President Tarek Shraibati. “We need the strong leadership Ms. Gray has provided,” the letter said. “Without it our school will fall into chaos.”

Cutting Gray’s job is just one proposal of the original 65 presented to the board to close the $5 million budget shortfall projected in December. According to the board timeline for adoption of the final 2000-2001 budget, action on potential layoffs must be made before a March 2 meeting in Malibu.

Additional board meetings are scheduled for Feb. 9 in Santa Monica, Feb. 15 in Malibu and Feb. 17 in Santa Monica. The school district staff is to present its revised list of budget cut recommendations totaling $2-$2.5 million at the Feb. 24 meeting.

Referring to a report by Assistant Superintendent Arthur Cohen that the budget shortfall was now estimated at less than $1.5 million, parent Kim Scott told the board, “We have heard what a positive difference 26 students can make,” [$131,000 in state funding]. Having only one principal for the two schools would drive many students out of the district.”

Rick Gates, president of the Santa Monica-Malibu Council of PTAs, told the board he would be addressing the Malibu City Council Feb. 14. As he has with the Santa Monica City Council, he will be asking Malibu to work with the school district to increase state education spending.

Malibu resident Wendy Carey, who serves on the school district fiscal advisory committee, announced the availability of 10,000 form letters to state elected officials, including Gov. Gray Davis and state Superintendent Delaine Eastin. A trip to Sacramento the last two weeks in April is also being considered, she said.

The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District and Superintendent Neil Schmidt may be reached at 1651 16th St., Santa Monica, CA 90404, telephone 451.8338, fax 450.1667

Planning Director Craig Ewing submitted his resignation to the city effective Feb. 11, giving up the post he has held since Jan. 4, 1998. He has accepted the position of community development director for the Northern California city of Lafayette.

Ewing, who spent nine years as planning director for the city of La Canada-Flintridge, said he was drawn to Malibu by the opportunity to take on the challenge of a new city’s planning needs. “It’s a beautiful setting in which to work, along the coast, but with that goes the higher responsibility of protection, preservation and regulation,” he said during his first week in Malibu.

When Ewing took on the job, he said he recognized the city faced tough issues concerning the city’s undeveloped land, and that there were opposing views on the need to expand the city’s job base and the broadly shared perspective that Malibu should remain a residential community. “We have pressures for development that are going to test a lot of those views, and we’re going to have to come up with a single voice,” he said. “These are tough issues because they touch on emotional issues for people — the use of their land.”

Ewing said Tuesday, “The issues are still emotional, most are still unresolved, and I don’t think we came up with a single voice. After two years and a month, it is with some regret that we weren’t able to accomplish more.”

During his tenure with the city, Ewing worked on a number of projects and programs, including completion of a draft Local Coastal Program Land Use Plan, which is now before the California Coastal Commission staff for review. A formal submittal will come later this year.

His draft Hillside Management Plan was sent to the City Council, but council members didn’t support it, and instead formed a new committee of architects and engineers to review it.

“The draft zoning ordinance is still a good ways off,” Ewing said. “We made a number of specific changes to the Interim Zoning Ordinance regarding front setbacks, institutional uses, parking standards and modifications of variances.”

Ewing also drafted a “how-to” planning procedures book for the public. “It went to the council in December, but they have not given approval to distribute it,” he said.

The draft wetlands delineation report has been submitted to the Army Corps of Engineers for review. “We’re still waiting to hear from them on that,” Ewing said.

The Civic Center Specific Plan was finished and submitted to the City Council by contract planners Crawford, Multari and Star after months of work with a citizens group, but the council dumped that too.

“I think the report probably was salvageable, but it allowed too much density for what the community would support,” Ewing said. “It was submitted right at the time of the last election, and I think there was a desire by the new council to distance itself from that.”

Ewing said one of the achievements of which he’s most proud is the people he hired to staff the planning department. “I am the longest-serving employee in the department. We had a complete turnover. They are wonderful people, hard working, intelligent, and they have good hearts. They work well together, and while the city and I don’t agree on a lot of the rules, I walk away knowing the department is well staffed with really fine people.”

In his new position with Lafayette, Ewing will be responsible for planning, city engineering and public works. “New responsibilities for me. The city is a residential community, mostly all single-family, and is semirural. They have taken a new interest in their downtown commercial area, and we have a multimillion dollar street-improvement project that includes building a small parking structure, which has to be designed, and a new library. It should be a lot of fun. And I found a place to live in San Francisco, an apartment on Yerba Buena Island with a spectacular view.”

City Manager Harry Peacock has not announced an interim replacement for Ewing; however, recruitment for a permanent planning director is underway.

The city’s previous planning directors had been frustrated in their efforts to accomplish the same goals while working with citizen groups on the thorny issues of formulating the city’s General Plan, Interim Zoning Ordinance and the Civic Center Specific Plan, along with state mandates for housing elements, environmental protection and public access to beaches.

Bob Benard, the city’s first planning director, resigned after a grueling few years to take a position with the city of Long Beach. Joyce Parker resigned in favor of Oxnard (she is now with Agoura Hills) shortly after former City Manager David Carmany’s forced resignation allowed him to take a less-contentious post with the city of Pacifica. Vince Bertoni, who filled the interim post before Ewing arrived, went to the city of Santa Clarita.

The auditorium at Hughes Research Laboratories was packed, a change from the normally sparse attendance, for Monday night’s City Council meeting. Most of the audience, many bringing placards, came to protest what they see as heavy-handed code enforcement by the city.

Many came to see how the council would resolve the dispute between beachside neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Gil Segel and Mr. Charles Perez.

And, finally, members of the Parks and Recreation Commission came to protest lack of public consultation in hiring the parks and recreation director.

In the marathon meeting lasting until 11:30 p.m., the council:

• Voted 5-0 to schedule a meeting as soon as possible on the code enforcement issue.

• Heard that litigation between the city and the California Coastal Commission over parking at the Point Dume headlands had been settled.

• Unanimously approved the employment agreement with Paul Adams for position of Parks and Recreation Director;

• Voted 3-2 to hire a consulting team to prepare a flood mitigation assistance program. Mayor Pro Tem Harry Barovsky and Councilmembers Joan House and Tom Hasse sided with staff in choosing a consultant who might know more about Federal Emergency Management Agency practices. Mayor Carolyn Van Horn and Councilman Walt Keller preferred another consultant, whose fee was $37,000 cheaper and whose views on the Civic Center more closely matched their own.

• Unanimously approved the Planning Commission decision that the deck stringline rule applies to swimming pools.

• Voted 3-2 (Barovsky and House against) to refer a decision on the Perez/Segel dispute back to the Planning Commission

Code enforcement

After hearing nearly two hours of public testimony, and unable to take action on the comments until the issue was “agendized,” the council agreed to schedule a meeting devoted to code enforcement as soon as possible. Paul Major asked it to consider: grandfathering structures built prior to cityhood, an immediate temporary moratorium on noncritical health or safety conditions, and the creation of a “Grandfathering Task Force” to work with the council-appointed architects and engineers committee reviewing the hillside ordinance.

As they had last month, residents told the council city staff has engaged in selective code enforcement against modest-income, long-term residents by citing unpermitted guest houses and other structures.

As a result, residents say they are being treated like criminals for the first time in their lives. They fear and resent the government they thought would “grandfather” the structures built before incorporation but instead insists they be brought up to code standards or be demolished.

“Many residents so fear retaliation that they don’t speak out,” said Deborah Purucker. “Thomas Jefferson told us we had inalienable rights, that government derives its powers from the consent of the governed. No government should create an environment that makes people feel like criminals in their own homes.”

Residents Jim Johnson and Gary Winikott said Malibu’s original settlers were people of modest means, such as firefighters or school teachers, who were greatly involved in volunteerism. The city’s code enforcement policy is turning neighbor against neighbor and the city into an area of mansionization, forcing long-term residents out.

“Many people could not afford to live here today,” said Johnson. “You are creating fear, anger and resentment. You are turning neighbor against neighbor.”

“You don’t see Johnny Carson or Barbra Streisand when it comes to helping with natural disasters,” said Winikott. “Every house going in now is big. We are pushing out the normal people.”

Point Dume parking

The city announced it approved two related agreements to resolve a long-term dispute with the California Coastal Commission over access to the Point Dume State Park.

A settlement agreement resolves pending litigation. The settlement agreement is linked to a Joint Project Agreement between the State Parks department and the city for managing natural resources and traffic at the park and at Point Dume State Beach, said City Manager Harry Peacock.

If the Coastal Commission had been successful in the litigation, which arose from its 1997 Cease and Desist Order about boulders and “No Parking” signs along Birdview Avenue and Cliffside Drive, the city might have been liable for $6,000 a day in administrative fines.

Deck stringline rule

The council faced two issues about the “stringline” test, a rule of thumb for determining how far seaward homes and decks may project toward the beach. It agreed unanimously with the staff determination the deck stringline applies to swimming pools.

Then the council had to decide whether that definition would apply to resolve a yearlong dispute between the Segels and Perez (and the Planning Commission and planning director) over Perez’s plans to remodel his house and build a pool on the deck.

Planning Director Craig Ewing had determined the stringline, the last part of planning clearance needed for Perez to build a pool on his deck, in October. The Segels, Perez’s neighbor on the east, filed an appeal.

In November, the Planning Commission upheld the Segel appeal, basing its decision on three factors: the Coastal Commission had a more restrictive guideline, an offer to dedicate coastal access by the prior owner of Perez’s property overlaps the stringline area, and the information on Perez’s site plan might not have been accurate.

Motions by Barovsky to uphold Ewing and by Keller to uphold the Planning Commission failed. Although Hasse crafted a third description of a stringline, based on the definition the council had just approved and which would have allowed Perez to build the pool, his colleagues decided to let the Planning Commission make the decision.

Hiring practices

Parks and Recreation Commissioners Pat Greenwood, Ted Vaill and Sam Hall Kaplan, as well as former Parks and Recreation Study Group Member Marissa Coughlin said the commission should have been consulted before the city hired Paul Adams as the new Parks and Recreation director.

They wanted to look outside the department (Adams has been a city recreation supervisor for several years) for someone who would have more intergovernmental agency experience.

Referring to the agreement among the city, Coastal Commission and State Parks department, and recreation advocate Kristin Reynolds’ submission of reports on land use and public opinion on a Parks Master Plan, Coughlin said, “We need to achieve what Kristin Reynolds did, to give the city Parks and Recreation department the same credibility. We need someone with experience in intergovernmental relationships.”

“I thought open recruitment was part of public policy,” Greenwood said.

A committee charged with reviewing the City Council’s proposed ordinance on hillsides sees the mapping approach as a way out of the minefield of political decisions council members make using the lot-by-lot approach.

Architects say the ordinances give an immense amount of discretionary power to the City Council to control community character. Council members must decide which constituency to please.

For example, at the last City Council meeting, council members postponed a decision on Barbra Streisand’s home remodeling plans because they did not know whether to support her or her neighbors. Council members were faced with accusations of either selective enforcement for celebrities or reverse discrimination against celebrities.

The Architects and Engineers Committee, comprising local architects Michael Barsocchini, Ed Niles and Richard Sol, as well as Woodland Hills civil engineer David Weiss and Santa Monica landscape architect Marny Randall, will recommend the council buy a geographic information mapping system costing $175,000 – $300,000.

The committee made its decision last week, after hearing from Planning Director Craig Ewing that he has resigned effective Feb. 11 and that the council is asking for community input on two-year budget priorities by the end of this month. The maps would also be useful to the city consultant refining the Interim Zoning Ordinance, Ewing said. Barsocchini noted it is hard for someone to visualize slope. He said he took Planning Commissioner Charleen Kabrin to a site on Point Dume and asked if she thought it was steep. She said it was, but a property owner might not. “That’s politicizing,” Barsocchini said.

Ewing is to fashion a resolution calling for a basic system of maps showing topography, property lines and roadways, estimated to cost $175,000. Optional overlay maps include zoning districts, the mean high tide line, landslides, infrastructure such as District 29 water mains, environmentally sensitive habitat areas (ESHAs) and archeological sites.

Ewing said the mapping system could be the basis of a permit tracking system costing about $50,000. People could look on the Internet for “tags” of all the permits on their property. Then they would know where they would have to go to resolve the issue.

“The base map system thrashes out lots of information. It will make like easier for everyone,” Niles said.

ESHAs were high on the option list because of the amount of time the city’s biologist, Marti Witter, has to spend locating them. “I’ve learned to ask about them,” Randall said. “If you’re looking on the ground, you don’t know if you have an issue.”

The committee was created last October because the council had rejected the Planning Commission’s year-long effort to fashion an ordinance regulating the design of new homes and remodels, after residents complained the hills were sprouting gargantuan eyesores.

The commission had trouble reaching consensus on how steep a slope to set as the threshold for regulation until the staff proposed extending the design regulations to all proposed homes and remodels over 18 feet tall, as well as those planned for hillside slopes greater than 33 percent. That recommendation also grants the Planning Commission expansive new powers to review housing projects.

“It is a tool for determining the future,” Niles said about the mapping system. Noting the number of lawsuits against Realtors, Niles said. “Once a property is on a map, it forces the city to respond, instead of having to make political decisions.” The city of Agoura Hills has a topographical map with everything on it, “not because they are so nice, but because they want to protect themselves,” Niles said.