Since no one seems to be talking about anything other than the sudden departure of our city attorney, I decided rather than rehash old ground I would write about something totally different: crime in Malibu.

Some of you who have already seen the front page know there was a major crime in town this week. Recently, some of you may have noticed three sheep standing in a field at the intersection of Civic Center Way and Webb Way. It was reported to me that sometime between last Thursday night and early Friday morning, the middle sheep, actually a ram, vanished. I spoke to a deputy involved in the investigation, who agreed to give me information but only on background because this is an active, ongoing investigation.

He said they had received a number of anonymous tips and had begun to question some people at City Hall, which is very close to the scene of the crime.

One City Hall insider said he thought the sheep hadn’t been stolen at all and suggested it probably left voluntarily. When it was pointed out to him this seemed highly unlikely since the sheep was actually concrete, he apparently scoffed and said, “How do you know the sheep was concrete? Perhaps it was just pretending to be concrete while planning its departure.” This line of logic seemed rather farfetched until we heard there is a fund at City Hall for animal relocations and apparently a withdrawal had been made recently. But we were told the withdrawal was merely from the accrued fodder fund and didn’t mean the ram was asked to leave.

The detective had also heard rumbles that things were not that harmonious among the three sheep, that the sheep on either end were upset because the ram was always in the center while the two ewes were on the ends, and that there was a secret vote and thereafter the ram was allegedly told to leave. Apparently, they wanted to rotate the center position and the ram refused to budge.

Another City Hall source said that wasn’t it at all. She said the reason was that the ram was grazing in a tsunami/flood plain. She had attended a seminar recently about liquefaction, and it was her opinion that, since this was a well-known liquefaction zone, the ram probably just slipped into the ground. We were skeptical because the other two sheep are still there, but she said they talked about that at the seminar and our area was susceptible to “spot liquefaction,” and any time anything is put on that land, that’s where the liquefaction occurs.

We then had a call from a radical environmental activist group, “Sheep Up.” Although not taking credit for the disappearance, the group felt it was really a political act of protest. Sheep, a spokesperson said, were inherently bad for the soil, destroying indigenous vegetation, and since this was a highly sensitive area of coastal scrub and junk (“junk,” by the way, is a subspecies of the coastal scrub), perhaps that was why the sheep suddenly vanished. We said considering the ram was concrete that didn’t seem very likely. That didn’t matter, he countered, because this was a symbolic political act — this was a concrete symbolic sheep eating symbolic grass in a symbolic wetland/ tsunami/liquefaction zone. Finding it hard to refute that tight logic, we moved on.

Another local called us to say it was absolutely clear to him that it could only be the Malibu Bay Co. that was responsible for the disappearance. He said there was a clear historical record that whatever bad occurred in the Civic Center was the fault of the Malibu Bay Co. In fact, he had called a member of the Planning Commission, and she told him it’s written right into the Malibu General Plan, in the boilerplate section, in bold letters. It says, “IT’S THE MALIBU BAY CO.’S FAULT.”

So we called the sheriff’s investigator back. He said livestock rustling was rather common in rural areas like Malibu but the investigation, unfortunately, had stalled in a jurisdictional dispute between the Sheriff’s Art Squad and the Sheriff’s Rustling Squad, and they were awaiting a decision from downtown as to which group was to proceed.

He said he’d call back.

P.S. An interview with Councilwoman Joan House and former City Attorney Christi Hogin is currently airing on Falcon Cable (The Malibu Government Channel).

Your reckless disregard for the truth sunk to a new low in your “From the publisher” column last week. This forces me for the second time in a month to correct your misstatements of fact. If this keeps up, I’ll need space for a weekly column.

City Attorney Christi Hogin was not fired as your editorial implies. She was not “asked to resign” as the Fourth Malibu City Council (1996-98) “asked” former City Manager David Carmany to resign in 1996. Ms. Hogin made the decision to resign. Per the terms of her contract, approved by the Third Malibu City Council (1994-96), Ms. Hogin was entitled to a compensation package including earned, unpaid wages, notice (pay in-lieu of), accrued, unused sick leave, unused vacation and unused administrative leave and severance pay. This totaled $118,000.

In addition, since Ms. Hogin served as Malibu’s first full-time city attorney for five years, the City Council asked her to remain as a legal consultant to our new city attorney until January, 2000. I am very pleased that Ms. Hogin agreed to our request, which clearly demonstrates her commitment to the city she served for nine years. For that service, the City Council agreed to pay Ms. Hogin the equivalent of her annual base salary and COBRA benefits since the amount of her time needed to perform her legal consultant responsibilities to the city is unknown and could pre-empt her ability to seek and secure full-time employment during this transition period. This compensation offer totaled $109,000. Added to the aforementioned contractual obligations to Ms. Hogin, incurred by a contract approved by a past city council, Ms. Hogin’s total compensation package is $227,000.

As to your “supposed” reporting that I “cut a deal” with Mayor Walt Keller and Mayor pro tem Carolyn Van Horn to remove Ms. Hogin as City Attorney in return for their endorsement of my 1998 candidacy, well, obviously your imagination is overheating again, Arnold. There was no such deal. But, I’ll file this false accusation away with all of the others you’ve leveled against me over the years. It’s grown to be quite a collection. There was your classic 1994 fib-a-roo that claimed I said I’d take the mobilehome park rent control ordinance all the way to “the Supreme Court.” I never said such a thing. Your 1997 Big Whopper was that I told the Los Angeles Times the city of Malibu was “going bankrupt.” Not only did I never say the city was going bankrupt, but you can imagine my surprise when the Associate Press reported you were the source for the bankruptcy quotes. That revelation was certainly an eye-opener into how you operate.

Of course in last year’s election you went into spin cycle overdrive claiming (1) I didn’t want Kanan-Dume Road re-opened (Wrong again — I supported its re-opening from its initial closure in 1996); (2) You claimed I was Keller and Van Horn’s puppet (I’m nobody’s puppet, Arnold, as my voting record clearly demonstrates, and, of course, least of all your puppet, which I suspect is the cause of much of your misreporting); and (3) My ’98 election would mean the city’s intergovernmental relations would die. Frankly, I inherited an intergovernmental relations mess thanks, in part, to your constant badmouthing of the city of Malibu to anyone who’ll listen. I’ve led the effort on this council to hire two experienced lobbyists to help us actually get results. In fact, just three weeks ago, I spent the day in Sacramento with our lobbyist meeting state legislators trying to do just that.

Finally, your remarks last week at our City Council meeting where you claimed “we all know” that the city attorney’s resignation was “tied in” to the current 1998 campaign finance investigations and prosecution was not only out of line for a supposed “objective” journalist, it clearly demonstrated, once again, your obsession with this issue. For the record, as I have told you repeatedly, I publicly recused myself from any City Council deliberation on this subject last year in order to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest although I legally did not have to do so. And I have refrained from even inquiring about any city prosecutions (code violation cases, parking tickets, etc.) including the camping finance case.

Your constant spin doctoring is substance abuse, Arnold. The community deserves factual, fair and balanced reporting from the publisher of this newspaper, not a weekly malicious prosecution in the court of public opinion. Ironically, the only one “gagging” a free and fair press in Malibu is you.

Tom Hasse

city councilmember

Noticed in the other “newspaper” that Hasse figured only about five people considered his proposal as censorship. As one of the fulminating five, I thought you would be interested in noting that the Malibu and Los Angeles Times are not the only newspaper skeptics. [An] article appeared in the Sacramento Bee, a paper not known for being conservative by any stretch of the imagination.

Having traveled the world, and in the past found that mentioning Malibu was my home always was greeted with respect, awe and even envy, I’m afraid with this group of council clowns the admittance that Malibu is my home will be met with pity, scorn and derision, sentiments which are sure to be augmented by the latest fiasco — the $227,000 city attorney “firing” and buy-out. It’s great Malibu is so rich we can afford to use public funds to afford very expensive lawyer consultants and costly staff removals just to satisfy some of our inept councilmembers’ egos.

Wayne Estill

About a year ago, you published a letter in which I sarcastically took Caltrans to task for failing to properly repair the stretch of PCH just south of Big Rock Drive. Whether my sarcasm was too obtuse for the dim bulbs that head this incompetent state agency, or if it even cracked their thick, intransigent skulls, I’ll never know. But the latest offense is too much to ignore.

These past few weeks, virtually the entire stretch of PCH — from Topanga to Trancas — has been prepared for major repaving. Vast stretches, in fact, that don’t need repaving at all. Add to this the gazillions spent on various landslide projects over the past quarter century and the question remains, why has the stretch of severely warped and buckled highway south of Big Rock never been addressed? Compared to their other projects, this should be a minor project on Caltrans’ radar. Yet for 25 long years Malibu has suffered through dozens upon dozens of amateurish patch jobs every time another season of rains buckle the highway.

Would our esteemed City Council please take up the baton and do something about this problem? Please? Caltrans has proven that they can move mountains, literally. How hard can it be to bulldoze a few annoying humps on a highway? If there’s a reason this can’t be done, the morons running Caltrans owe the citizens of Malibu an explanation.

Wade Major

It is a good thing that the city attorney has resigned, and also a good thing that the city has provided reasonable severance pay to a civil servant of nine years tenure.

These moves clear the air in our community for open and honest debate and discussion on the urgent issues confronting us. Regrettably, the city attorney had fallen into the appearance of an over-zealous prosecutor of alleged political offenses, and a politically polarized position with respect to City Council members, past and present. The situation was clearly brought into focus by the lengthy investigation of Remy O’Neill, but has a longer history.

The (apparently) politicized prosecutor seems to be a regular and menacing theme of our times. The citizens of Malibu, in whose name the local election campaign law was drafted, certainly never intended such draconian procedures be applied to what is evidently a minor record-keeping error by an outstanding and politically active citizen. And once an appointed official, in whom discretion is vested, becomes politically colored, a conundrum is created for the whole community — a log jam in which everyone regrets to act for fear of taking on the appearance of improper partisanship.

But ultimately it is up to the legislators — in this case the council — to adopt laws that are less subject to misinterpretation and trivial misapplication. In the bigger picture, it is essential that citizens and their representatives be forever vigilant to avoid giving to officials and employees too many levers of power, too many well-meaning rules of all kinds that can be easily used as tools against individuals. I urge the City Council to consider that our election campaign laws need revision to pass Constitutional muster, as well as “the rule of common sense” (i.e., that it is an uncommon virtue).

Francis Jeffrey

This letter concerns the recent story in your publication about Malibu wineries and vineyards. In my opinion, it seems quite astounding that an entire article could be written on the subject without even a mention of George Rosenthal, who is the person most responsible for putting Malibu wineries on the proverbial map. However, the author devoted a large portion of the story to a viticulture “expert” who does not appear to have produced a single bottle of wine. Additionally, I am curious as to whether your reporter actually visited the site “adjacent to” (actually belonging to) Saddlerock Ranch where Mr. Schaefer has supposedly planted 7,000 vines. Although I have not been up there for a couple of months, there certainly was nothing approaching 7,000 vines when last I looked. Additionally, as a former vineyard owner myself, I do have an idea of how much land would have to be devoted to 7,000 plants. The area that was cleared for Mr. Schaefer’s endeavor could not accommodate that number — 7,000 grapes, yes, 7,000 vines, no, unless they are to be planted within a foot or so of each other; hardly standard practice, and the water source (a well, I believe) would be hard pressed to provide the vast quantity of water required by so many plants.

It is unfortunate that people’s statements may not always be completely accurate, and that actual legwork is required to confirm their veracity. If, indeed, The Malibu Times is the hard hitting newspaper you seem to wish it to be, it should hold itself to a higher standard of publishing than that required by a “local rag,” and make fact checking a requirement of good reporting, not an option.

A. Lipman