Remy O’Neill, giving unselfishly of her own time, hoping to gain for us a peaceful community to live in which is not overpopulated, is being accused of election fraud possibly by people who have millions of dollars to gain with no concern for our fragile environment or the increase of traffic on our already congested Pacific Coast Highway.
This is Alice in Wonderland — up is down and down is up!
Kara Fox
To Mayor Keller, council, staff and press:
The public’s business must be held in public. Closed-door sessions breed distrust and misunderstandings.
As Thomas Jefferson once said, if I had the time to chooose between representative government and a free press, I would choose the free press.
Please be smart. We elected you and we do want to know what’s going on.
Having been in the news business most of my life, I’m siding with the press.
Mary Frampton
The May 13 edition of your paper ran a front page story titled “Planning Commissioner and Neighbor Face Off Over Fence. You also ran a “Correction” on May 26, 1999, page 3. Both articles are factually incorrect.
My new neighbor, a real estate agent from Santa Monica, encroached with a fence about two feet into the front of my property. I notified him of the encroachment in writing and asked that he either remove it or discuss it with me. We never discussed the matter. He cleared the ESHA in back and fenced it, which led to the issue with the city. I did not turn him into the city or the city biologist or enlist any assistance from them as you stated in both articles.
This accusation is very damaging to me personally and professionally as my reputation as an active member of this community for the past 24 years is very important to me. I did ask you to verify the facts and print a retraction. Even though the City or County does not divulge the source of a complaint, they could tell you who didn’t file one. In fact, the unfounded and untrue allegations by Mr. Rocco which he brought to you in what appears to be retaliation for presumed complaints by me, should have been investigated by you very carefully. The City conducted a thorough investigation and found the allegations false. Los Angeles County Animal Control apologized and said they acted too hastily.
I was not aware of who had filed these complaints until your article.
As a postscript, a dead peacock was found at the back of my property two weeks ago.
Charleen Kabrin
Dear Major Tom:
While you are orbiting around Pluto, we have been having trouble with your proposal for a Malibu City Comprehensive Communications Policy, commonly known as “Gag the Press” policy. We have had some success with convincing our followers of the need to control the flow of information to the public for the next election. However, since we formed the Press Police, there has been considerable reaction to their strong-arm enforcement tactics.
The Press Police have been interrogating Planning Commissioner Kearsley, who was denounced as a known “First Amendment Abuser.” Commissioner Kearsley claims that the denouncement is the highest compliment ever paid to him, and in the future he will live up to his reputation by calling or writing the press every 20 minutes. In addition, he is suggesting that the city hire a new communications director by the name of Mr. Deep Throat, whose past experience includes ad hoc Communications Director for the Nixon Administration.
Major Tom, please help us. Malibuites are resisting our attempts at control. Our previous attempt at control of house color has met with some success. However, our color cops have recently reported midnight sightings of houses being painted white. Our ongoing attempt at controlling the light coming from inside and outside Malibu homes has met with some resistance.
The Light Brigade has charged several of our residents with purchasing 100 watt light bulbs. Major Tom, this newest attempt at control, the “Gag the Press” proposal, is causing the troops to become restless. You need to come back down to earth. Press Control, over and out!
A message from the future?
Ken Kearsley
I do not blame our city attorney, who, refusing to be intimidated by some of her bosses, was just doing her job.
Still, respectfully, it is a sad day, when a person who cares deeply about Malibu’s environment is charged with five criminal misdemeanors.
With so much of our environment degraded, including Malibu Creek which is used as a sewer pipe emptying into world famous Surfrider Beach, and the Malibu Bay Company (who I am really afraid of) lying and misleading the public about what would be best for the health of the land and living beings, ultimately caring most about making even more money for themselves.
Thank you Remy O’Neill for your courage, hard work and personal risks you took in trying to keep Malibu a beautiful, healthy community. Your “crimes” do not compare with the degradation and harm that would have come to our community if you had not acted and people had voted a different way.
If it’s any consolation, the 45 misdemeanors I have been charged with, and found guilty of, over the years, has not deterred me from acting out for what I believe would be best for future generations.
Valerie Sklarevsky
News Analysis
Twelve years of labor-relations peace between the classroom teachers of Santa Monica/Malibu and the school district continued unraveling this past week. More than 300 teachers, among them 40 or 50 from Malibu, rallied outside a school board meeting May 26. Although some hesitated to call it picketing, there were protest signs a plenty. Teachers union officials indicated this massive show of support should signal to the school board the teachers meant business.
The teachers union and the district have been trying to negotiate a new contract, but negotiations appeared to have stalemated in March. Since then, both sides have met with a state mediator with, so far, little progress shown. They’re due to meet again this week.
The principal points of contention appear to be salary issues and contract issues.
The union has always negotiated for the classroom teachers, the substitute teachers, the child care teachers and adult education teachers as one unit. Now the district, in a move that hasn’t happened before, is making separate offers of 5.75 percent raise for classroom teachers and a 3 percent raise for substitutes and others, which some in the union view as an attempt by the district to split the union.
The situation was apparently exacerbated by the fact that the board already gave the superintendent a raise of almost 12 percent and other administrators a raise that averaged 9.5 percent. Assistant district superintendent Joseph Quarles was quoted in the L.A. Times as saying these raises were approved to “correct past inequities” in the way that similarly qualified administrators were paid. However, Beth Muir, Teachers Association president, indicated that wasn’t how the union viewed it. She said that in a recent L.A. County study, which ranks all 47 school districts in the county, the SMMUSD administrators finished second out of 47 in their rate of pay, while the teachers ranked 44 out of 47. The district disputes this interpretation of the numbers.
Ann Payne, a teacher at Point Dume Marine Science Elementary School, said the impasse has begun to impact Malibu and teachers are grumbling for the first time in nearly 20 years. Board President Margaret Quirones was quoted as saying there is no pecking order within the system, however, the perception among the teachers is that when the superintendent gets an 11 percent raise and the substitute teachers are offered a 3 percent raise, there most definitely is a pecking order.
Another major issue is the board’s attempt to link the pay raise to the kindergarten teachers increasing the length of the kindergarten day by 90 minutes from the present 210 minutes per day. Some in the union claim this is because the daycare program, which they view as top heavy with administrators, is beginning to lose money, and they believe the district is trying to pick up part of those costs by lengthening the kindergarten day. The district denies this emphatically and points to the fact that the Santa Monica-Malibu PTA Council unanimously voted earlier this year to support a longer kindergarten day.
Whatever the outcome, it seems clear that the “collaborative, consensus building process” that was designed 12 years ago in a process that was titled a “win-win” program appears to be coming to an end, and the teachers and the school district appear to be entering a newer, more confrontational type of relationship.
I do not know what City Communications Policy you wrote about last week in your editorial, but it was not the one I authored and the City Council unanimously adopted on May 24.
Contrary to your editorial, the policy I authored does not “gag” anyone. In fact, regarding news media inquiries, it merely memorializes the current practice that has been in operation for over two years. As the city’s chief administrative officer, the city manager may delegate responding to news media inquiries to his staff or contractors, which he has done throughout his two-year tenure. The policy does not require, as your editorial suggested, that department directors (e.g. the public works director, the planning director, etc.) must run to the city manager for permission to respond each time they get a call from the news media. It is a standing delegation of authority that has worked well for over two years. The City Council recognized that fact and formally adopted it as city policy. I have never heard you object to this policy prior to my putting it down on paper two weeks ago.
As for city commissions, committees and advisory boards, the policy directs staff to refer news media inquiries about advisory body business received at City Hall to the chair of the advisory body that is the subject of the inquiry. It does not “gag” the news media from calling other commissioners or “gag” other commissioners from talking to the news media. Again, this policy formally memorializes the current practice.
As to the City Council “personally” seeking to control information flow to the media — in this town? Get real. The communications policy merely reflects the division of labor in Malibu’s city government (policy making: City Council; policy recommending: city staff and advisory bodies; policy implementation: city staff, contractors and consultants) and directs the staff to direct news media inquiries to the appropriate party. It doesn’t direct the news media to do a thing. Last time I checked, the news media were not a part of the city government.
Finally, five more misstatements of fact contained in your editorial need to be corrected. First, the city manager, not the City Council, determines the placement of items on our agenda based on the Council’s Rules of Procedure and Decorum. (I rewrote that resolution last year, too, so you may want to quickly glance at it and distort it beyond all recognition in your next editorial. On second thought, why should you actually start reading city reports, now? Facts just seem to get in the way of your agenda.) Second, the city clerk, not the City Council, makes the copies of council materials available for the public and the press (i.e., any sinister conspiracy to deprive Arnold York of City Council agenda materials goes far beyond the five councilmembers and could be, in fact, a plot involving everyone at City Hall. But honestly, Arnold, you should stop bashing our decent, hardworking city staff. Not everyone is really out to get you). Fourth, a policy (as opposed to an ordinance) does not come back for a second reading. And fifth, your accusation that I slipped my four colleagues a “mickey” to secure their support for this policy is beyond bizarre. It took me two days to find out that “mickey” wasn’t a who but a what –1930s lingo for a fuzzy-headed drug. This fact would explain your last few editorials, of course.
Oliver Stone sends his best.
Tom Hasse
city councilmember
Do I understand correctly what was reported in the newspapers? After more than a year of investigation of Remy O’Neill and her Road Worriers organization, has our city attorney actually come up with nothing more than three petty reporting deficiencies, each involving a $200 joint contribution check? As I understand it (and it is hard to understand) there may have been a technical failure to report, as I am told the election ordinance requires that the makers of the $200 checks, in addition to having made $100 contributions along with their sons’, daughters’ or friends’ $100 contributions, had additionally acted as an “intermediary” for those contributions — whatever that means.
As a Malibu taxpayer, I am outraged at our city attorney’s gross waste of city funds on what looks like politically motivated investigations. City Attorney Christi Hogin owes Malibu and its citizens answers to a few pertinent questions. For a start, Ms. Hogin should answer (with full explanation) the following:
If technical reporting deficiencies as to three $200 contributions is all you ended up with at the end of over a year of investigation, on what legitimate suspicions did you start the inquiry, and what was the necessity for a full year of discovery?
Is it a proper exercise of prosecutorial discretion to bring a criminal misdemeanor charge against Remy O’Neill, considering: (1) the seriousness (or lack thereof) of the alleged offenses, (2) the difficulty of proving that these alleged technical violations were made “knowingly and willfully” (also with what motivations?), (3) the fact that Ms. O’Neill long ago made her books and records available to the city attorney and asked repeatedly for a meeting with the city attorney for the purpose of correcting any reporting errors or omissions, and (4) Ms. O’Neill’s reputation for integrity in the community?
Why couldn’t this matter of reporting of contribution “intermediaries” have been settled administratively long ago (by amended filings, perhaps?) and now a year later, why is this still not an option?
David Andersen
In an effort to win a density bonus for a large self-storage facility it has proposed for Cross Creek Road, the project’s developer, Mariposa Land Company, came to the Planning Commission last week bearing gifts for the city.
But the commissioners found the offer of public benefits — including a grant of $100,000 for ball fields — not quite generous enough and declined the gifts, as well as the request for additional square footage. While the commissioners approved a smaller version of the project, planned for just north of Civic Center Way, the commission in effect left the City Council to decide what type and amount of public benefits would merit a bonus density.
In refusing the gifts — which also included the removal of invasive vegetation from adjacent state park land and the execution of an open-space deed restriction to prevent further development on the parcel — the commissioners expressed a lack of satisfaction with what Mariposa’s Grant Adamson had offered the city.
Commissioner Ken Kearsley and Vice Chair Andrew Stern said the $100,000 was not adequate. “I think $100,000 is too low,” said Stern. “I’d like at least $200,000.”
The commissioners also said they were uncomfortable with Mariposa’s suggestion that the money be held by a third party, such as People Achieving Recreation & Community Services (PARCS) for the benefit of the city. “We have to have some hand in it,” said Kearsley.
Other commissioners insisted that a public benefit should mitigate the impacts of a development. “The money for playing fields is nice, but I don’t see how it benefits the surrounding area,” said Chair Jo Ruggles.
Commissioner Charleen Kabrin echoed that sentiment. “I’d like to see it tied to a comprehensive improvement of the area around the site,” she said.
Sensing the commission would not agree on whether the right type of public benefit had been offered, planning staff member Drew Purvis, sitting in for a vacationing Planning Director Craig Ewing, suggested the City Council should negotiate over public benefits. Commissioner Ed Lipnick, who said he did not even know whether a gift of cash was appropriate, agreed.
“I’m uncomfortable with this,” he said. “It’s a policy issue that is best settled at the City Council level.” The commission then unanimously approved the project at 42,275 square feet, three-quarters the size of that originally proposed. Mariposa is expected to appeal the denial of the larger size project to the council and once again seek an exchange of public benefits for a bonus density.
There’s an old term at the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department called “20/20” retirement. That’s when 20 minutes after your 20th year you put in for your pension. But Sheriff Leroy D. Baca is in his 34th year and is still picking up steam.
Baca addressed the Malibu Bar Association meeting last week at Duke’s. “I’d like to see the return of the Malibu Sheriff’s Station,” he said. “It would localize and personalize law enforcement in the community. I’m not suggesting that Lost Hills isn’t handling the job effectively, I’m just saying Lost Hills isn’t Malibu, and Malibu isn’t Lost Hills.”
Making the world’s largest Sheriff’s Department feel and work like a small-town precinct appears to be his primary goal. “When people pick up that phone, I want them to know who they’re talking to.”
Dressed in a deputy’s uniform rather than an Armani suit, Baca quickly explained, “I wear the uniform several times a week to show respect for the deputies in my command.” On occasion, he makes an arrest, “backed up by real deputies, of course. I’m not crazy.”
Born and raised in East Los Angeles, and with a doctorate in public administration from USC, he heads the largest sheriff’s department in the world, with nearly 14,000 sworn and civilian personnel.
Among his many plans is a project that sends inmates to remove graffiti and plant flowers along freeways and in city parks. “I’m not saying I don’t believe in punishment,” said Baca. “I do. But if a person’s spending time in the county jail system, they should be doing something productive with that time.”
As for the cost of these programs? From inmates’ telephone use and from sales at prison stores, Baca has generated $30 million so far. “What could make more sense for the county then to have a person pay for his own rehabilitation?”
“I try hard to instill that sense of leadership in every deputy,” he said. “I may be the guy in charge, but each and every person in the department is expected to be a leader. To be fair, to follow a set of core values, to do the right thing.”
Baca stated the vast majority of his employees are right on track, and for that very small percentage who, for whatever reason, choose a path of defiance, “they will be weeded out and replaced. There are too many good people waiting in line for their jobs. I will not tolerate racism, sexism, bigotry and anti-Semitism in my department.”
Our new sheriff plans to “bird dog” violent gang members wherever they go. “Just like in Littleton, when that deputy started firing back, the boys retreated. Same with the gangs. They don’t shoot at us, they run. They know we’re better shots than they are.”
As for guns in schools, the sheriff said, “You bring a gun to school, we arrest you. We’ll do what we can to help you get a diploma, but you’ll never go back to that school.”
Speaking about the shooting in Littleton, Colo., he said, “What the press rarely reports is that there was a deputy at the school. When the shooting began, the deputy was able to fire back, causing the perpetrators to hide in the library. I believe if it weren’t for that deputy, perhaps twice as many people might have been killed.”
Baca plans to have a deputy in every school. Thanks to the reserve deputy program, it’s imminent. “It involves 160 hours of training, but becoming a reserve deputy is a real asset to the community. We get requests every day, some from people such as Steven Seagal and Jay Leno.”
To celebrate the department’s 150th anniversary, Baca said, “We need a float in the Rose Parade. A huge, magnificent float. We’ll call it ‘The Kids Are Our Future.'” He’s got an award-winning designer working on it.
Apparently, no one ever told Baca becoming sheriff was no bed of roses.
