Most likely, the City Attorney will be asked to investigate Kraig Hill’s claim
At the April 24 City Council meeting, former Mayor and City Councilmember Jefferson Wagner used his three minutes as a public speaker to introduce and then play a 90-second video segment from the previous week’s Planning Commission meeting.
He started off by saying, “In all honesty, I feel we have to review something that happened last week. It pertains to the … position that Planning Commissioner Kraig Hill made at an agendized Brown Act meeting, alluding to some unscrupulous moments. Kraig, if you’re watching — fine job. They may call you a whistleblower, but the honesty is what it’s all about here at City Hall, and I believe our council will follow up here, as well as the legal staff. So thank you very much, and I hope your house doesn’t get raided.”
In the video segment, Hill explains that he’d been researching a property that was on the agenda.
“There was some concern about the square footage, so I thought I’d look at past permits and see if I could figure that out,” he said. “I found no building permit for the deck. I saw a permit from 2014 for more rocks, which showed the deck as existing. Nor did I find any separate permit for a guest unit; so I’d want some further clarification on those square footage numbers.”
Hill then related the following: “I received a call from [Malibu resident] Howard Rudzki urging me to approve this project on the basis that if, and only if, we would pass this project, the owner, on whose behalf he was calling, would use his money and influence to achieve a particular local political goal that I might agree with.”
“I told him that the owner’s political views have nothing to do with the merits of the application; and I would not and will not consider them one way or the other,” Hill continued. “I think that trying to influence a commissioner to vote a certain way based on ulterior political concerns is unconscionable, and I don’t want to see or hear that. That’s my disclosure.”
The Malibu Times contacted Rudzki for his side of the story, and he had this to say:
“My actions need no justification. I never urged Mr. Hill to approve any project in Malibu, nor did I insinuate that he needed to pass a project because the owner would use his influence to achieve local political goals that he may agree with.
“Mr Hill’s recollection of our conversation is grossly inaccurate. My call to Mr. Hill was to request him to review the project in question. The owner has been complying with Mr. Hill’s requests. He has been making the requested changes. However, Mr. Hill is apparently too busy to return his calls or follow up on the project as the owner has not received any response from Mr. Hill, despite having placed numerous calls to him.
“What is ‘unscrupulous,’ in the words of Mr. Hill and actionable is his insinuation that I attempted to influence a commissioner’s vote,” Rudzki said. “There is no factual basis to his conjecture and misguided conclusions. What I find unconscionable and outrageous is that he would corrupt the purpose of a usual and customary meeting on a project by making this outrageous claim. It is his and Mr. Wagner’s actions that have corrupted the purpose of the Brown Act, to which Mr. Wagner alluded.”
Mayor Pro Tem Steve Uhring made the following statement to The Malibu Times, “I have known Kraig for a long time, and I do not recall any situation where he was anything but honest. It is the responsibility of our city attorney to investigate and report the facts to the council and our residents.”
The project in question is a beachfront home located at 23936 Malibu Road, owned by “23936 Malibu, LLC.” That company’s only agent is Mohamed Ahmar of Beverly Hills. The property’s value is estimated at $20.1 million.