The Solomon solution
An open letter to council members Carolyn Van Horn and Walt Keller
In lieu of the competition between Pepperdine University and Malibu Bay Company to house recreation facilities in Malibu, may I suggest that the city of Malibu grant Pepperdine University the privilege of building a senior citizen complex and grant Malibu Bay Company the privilege of building a youth center for both teens and tots, i.e., Little League, skate-boarding, etc., and all recreational needs for the youngsters.
E. Reta Templeman
Response to PARCS survey over the top
A surprisingly enthusiastic response to a recent parks and recreational needs survey in Malibu has prompted leaders of the community-wide assessment to extend its deadline.
Pat Greenwood, treasurer of PARCS (People Achieving Recreation and Community Service), said, “We’re getting some great responses in numbers and content to the actual survey.” Explaining why the deadline for returning the questionnaire has been extended to mid March, she said, “What’s happened is that as it (the survey) has gotten out into the community, we are receiving input of more groups who would like to fill out the survey. We’re getting calls from people who are so pleased we’re taking an interest in their needs.”
Nearly a month ago, PARCS distributed its needs assessment survey to some200 organizations and parks and recreation interest groups in the Malibu area, including church and community centers, sports organizations and homeowners groups.
“Our plan is to take the results to the city,” said PARCS member Kristin Reynolds. “As we go to these meetings of the City Council and recreation commission, we will have a better pulse on what the users want and need.”
Because of the strong community response, PARCS has sent out another 50 to 100 questionnaires in the last week, according to Greenwood. What do the returns indicate so far? Greenwood said, “In short, the most frequent comments are requesting meeting facilities and playing fields for sporting events.”
The PARCS survey addresses recreational needs of all age groups from toddlers to seniors and requests a profile of each group’s current recreational activities. Organizations are asked to describe whether their present faciities are adequate or lacking, and to provide a projection of future needs.
Questions are aimed at getting an idea of how city government should design future playing fields, senior and teen centers, and how to make them accessible to all residents. A perspective of how the city should work with the community to fund and supplement current facilities is also in the assessment, along with a space for comments on priority needs not covered in the survey.
Embracing the music is smooth sailin’
Marty Grebb was born to play music. The Chicago-born master of keyboard, sax and guitar grew up in a musical family of working teachers and professionals. He has performed in studio or on stage with such stars as Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Nicks, Rosanne Cash, Leon Russell, Paul Butterfield, Etta James and the list goes on.
Grebb, who lives in Malibu with his wife and family, never really had any doubts that music would be his life. His first record deal came to him playing in a band called “The Exceptions” while still in high school. The direction of his future looked rather obvious at the time with Grebb’s band playing gigs on school nights. “It was obvious to my English teacher too, because I kept falling asleep in class, and he called my dad and my dad told him that I already knew what I was going to do so lay off.” To Grebb’s surprise the English teacher, with musicians in his own family, responded with encouragement rather than discipline. From The Exceptions Grebb went on to play with The Buckinghams, and later the band Chicago.
Aside from the instruments Grebb plays with versatility and authority is his vocal appeal. There is evidence of blues in the salty quality he expresses that often resides in a heritage other than his own. “I listened to Marvin Gaye, Donny Hathaway, Freddy King and Albert King. And last year I got to be a guide singer for B.B. King when he was sick. I got called in to do a session while B.B. King sat there and watched me sing a song that he was eventually going to sing on his own album.”
The span of Grebb’s career as session player and sideman to name talent has taken him to the top of the line and state-of-the-art venues. What’s the highlight for him? “Mainly being blessed to work with all the musicians and singers and people I have worked with because they are all my teachers and I’ve learned something from everybody.”
Grebb is now in his 50s and will release his own CD of original material in June on Telarc. The focus is finally his own. And the talents of Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, players from Little Feat and countless others appear to enhance this debut. It’s called Smooth Sailin’ — a phrase that might readily apply to Grebb’s unbroken musical life. The fact that this musician comes into his own as a late-blooming featured artist doesn’t rock his boat at all. “I can be like a 14-year-old kid when I’m going to play music and be so jazzed about it. I find that there’s some kind of childlike thing that makes it easier for me to be a musician, and being in contact with that and knowing about that has helped me to embrace whatever it is.”
Malibu’s George Washington Keller
Once more you manipulate the facts to support your self-serving point of view.
I realize as an editor you need not tell the truth but it would serve this community if you would at least try to sort facts from fiction. I dare you to print this letter without changing it as you often do.
I’m sure we disagree on the quality of the City Attorney’s service and perhaps no one is truly objective. If the November evaluation of the City Attorney by the City Council was favorable, then all further actions would be superfluous. If not, it would seem to be fair to re-evaluate her so that she would know the problems.
As to the evaluation being connected to the investigation, you quote Walt Keller, the George Washington of Malibu, as saying, “it’s unrelated to the investigation.” Are you calling him a liar, Arnold? After all, he was in the closed session, not you. Where are you getting your information, I wonder? Could it be or is it possible that you are defending the leak of your inside information.
In regard to the Independent Prosecutor, Ms. Hogin herself withdrew the request for him saying she was unhappy with his proposal. It had nothing to do with the City Council. She has now been on this for 10 months.
I applaud you for supporting our local Kenneth Starr and think perhaps you should start a new campaign to make her Dean of Pepperdine.
Gene Wood
Editor’s note: It is the policy of The Malibu Times to print letters in total and unedited, except for changes in conformance with Associated Press style (including capitalization, punctuation and abbreviation), as well as spelling corrections.
Bluffing again
Five things that will make Malibuites think you are daft.
1. Leave the copy machine set to reduce 200 percent, extra dark, 17 inch paper, 99 copies.
2. Sit in your yard pointing a hairdryer at passing cars to see if they slow down.
3. Specify that your drive-through order is “to go.”
4. Sing along at the opera.
5. The Malibu City Council awarding the Malibu Bluffs Park rehabilitation contract to a contractor who has never worked on this type of project before.
Doug O’Brien
Council moves to amend General Plan
In a move that has already rankled local developers, the City Council last week took the first steps toward adding language to the General Plan that may significantly diminish the size and scale of future commercial developments.
Planning Department officials say the General Plan and the city’s interim zoning ordinance are in conflict over the permitted level of density in commercial developments.
The General Plan allows a floor-area ratio — the size of a proposed development relative to its lot size — between 20 and 25 percent. Developers are permitted a 20 percent FAR, but they may up that amount to 25 percent if they provide a benefit to the public, such as a donation of land.
The zoning ordinance, however, only permits a maximum FAR of 15 percent.
The planning staff originally proposed amending only the zoning ordinance as a way to cure the inconsistency between the ordinance and the language of the General Plan. But after discussions with Mayor Walt Keller and City Attorney Christi Hogin, the planning staff, just prior to last week’s meeting, proposed an alternative solution that has developers up in arms: amend the General Plan so that it is consistent with the zoning ordinance’s maximum FAR of 15 percent.
Councilman Tom Hasse, who was credited with spearheading the effort to eliminate the conflict between the plan and the ordinance, said he has wanted to see the discrepancy fixed since his days on the Planning Commission.
But Ed Niles, who is serving as the architect for the Malibu Bay Company project proposed for the Chili Cook-off site, expressed suspicion about the council’s motivation for changing the General Plan.
“If your intention is to designate and reduce the density of the Chili Cook-off site, then I’d like to know,” he said, his voice filled with anger. “If that’s your intention, then you’re wrong.”
Hasse emphatically denied any “sinister” motivation, and he said his actions had nothing to do with the Bay Company.
“For once, Malibu Bay Company is not even within my thought processes,” he said.
If after public hearings, the council votes to change the FAR within the General Plan to 15 percent, local developers are not likely to take the matter lying down.
Representatives of the Bay Company and the Adamson Companies waited through most of last week’s very tedious meeting to hear the council take up the agenda item.
Grant Adamson, whose hotel project is under review by the planning staff, said Planning Director Craig Ewing has assured him both orally and in writing that only the FAR within the zoning ordinance would be amended to cure the inconsistency.
“We’re nearly three years into a very expensive application process that we never would have bothered doing at a FAR of 15 percent,” he said. “We can’t make it work at 15 percent.”
Niles, who helped draw up the General Plan, said it specifically states that it is “the governing body” over the city. If a local ordinance conflicts with the plan, he said, then only the ordinance could be changed. “The legal implications here are unbelievable,” he said.
Under state law, changes to a plan must be “in the public interest” to either cure a problem or to reflect a change in the philosophy of the community.
Hogin told the council that if only the zoning ordinance were amended, the change would not apply to proposed projects already being reviewed by the planning staff. But she said she preferred not to comment on whether a change in the General Plan would apply retroactively to development plans under review.
“The General Plan is a whole other matter which will take a little more careful thought,” she said.
While the council voted unanimously to direct staff to propose amendments for the General Plan and the zoning ordinance, Keller, with the apparent agreement of Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn Van Horn, said the council would not really be changing the General Plan, but merely clarifying it if the FAR was specified as 15 percent. He asserted that the plan provides, by implication, a FAR of 15 percent, and only permits a bonus density of 20 percent if the developer provides a public benefit.
“The General Plan, as it stand now, infers [15 percent], but doesn’t spell it out,” he said. “And that’s why we want to talk about clarifying it; we’re not changing it, we’re clarifying it.”
