Super League Malibu offers to operate a downsized 2024 race event and to negotiate for 2025 event

By Barbara Burke

Special to The Malibu Times

Zuma Foundation, a Malibu-based nonprofit organization, has canceled the Zuma Beach Triathlon slated for Sept. 14. 

“With the goal of producing a world-class triathlon event for the City of Malibu, the local community, participants, and all stakeholders involved, the Zuma Foundation has requested that the City of Malibu postpone the Zuma Beach Triathlon until the Fall of 2025.” The foundation’s press release stated. “This decision prioritizes the safety of participants and ensures the delivery of a world-class event for the City of Malibu, local residents and athletes.”

The press release noted, “The health and wellbeing of our race participants is of the utmost importance. The ongoing construction and repair issues on Pacific Coast Highway, including the delayed completion of the Trancas Bridge project, among others, have led us to reschedule the event due to safety concerns for the thousands of athletes who come to Malibu to train on the course leading up to the race.”

On Jan. 8, the Malibu City Council voted to approve permits for the Zuma Foundation, Inc., whose director Michael Epstein has operated the event in the past under various company names, to operate a triathlon in Malibu on the weekend of Sept. 14, 2024. In doing so, the council rejected a contract bid by Super League Malibu Triathlon, formerly Super League, which had operated the event from 2019 to 2023.

The construction delays, as well as complications in Caltrans’ efforts to clear the creek near Zuma Beach have forced the cancellation of the event, according to City Councilmember Paul Grisanti, who served on the two-member race committee that recommended that the council award the permit to Zuma Foundation. Grisanti added that recent rains have complicated efforts to clear the underpass below the Zuma Creek bridge, one of the areas where triathlon participants would have biked this September. 

“If Zuma Beach Triathlon fails to take place in 2024, we would like to open the door to the conversation about bringing back Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Super League Triathlon, and Malibu Triathlon to the City of Malibu in 2025,” Brennan Lindner, Super League Malibu Triathlon’s spokesperson stated at the April 24 City Council meeting. Readers can hear his remarks at 1:44:22 in this video: 

www.youtube.com/live/LEx0LLQE06M?feature=shared.

Lindner also told the council that Super League Triathlon is open to producing a smaller-scale swim or swim-run event in Fall 2024 that would take place only within LA County jurisdiction — the beach and parking lot at Zuma Beach.” 

Lindner told The Malibu Times on May 5 that the smaller-scale event “would have smaller impact and provide the community of Malibu multi-sport athletes the opportunity to participate in an athletic activity and fundraiser for local charities.” 

“We produced a similar event at Zuma for five years and it was a blast,” he stated. “I believe our good faith efforts over the past four years have demonstrated that we are open to, and willing to, work together to reduce the traffic impact of the event, as well as to incorporate more fundraising to benefit Malibu charities.”

The Malibu Triathlon was founded in 1987 by Epstein and has been a perennial draw for professional, amateur, corporate, and celebrity triathletes. In recent years, the race spanned two days. In 2017, Eptein sold the race to Motiv Sports and was its executive director until 2020. The Malibu Triathlon was purchased by Super League in 2021. Since 2012, the city’s municipal code has limited permits for marathons, triathlons, and cycling events to two per year. In 2013, the city contracted with Epstein, granting him permits to host the Malibu Triathlon for 10 years. In 2017, he sold that right to Motiv Sports. Super League Holdings PTE LTD purchased the Malibu Triathlon in 2021. The city could have extended that permit pursuant to the parties’ contact, but opted to issue a request for proposals, culminating in a contract award to Zuma Foundation.

Grisanti noted that Lindner made overtures to operate a race event on Zuma Beach and its parking lot. However, he stated that there have been no formal discussions with Super League Malibu Triathlon to do so. The Malibu Times will keep readers informed should any such discussions commence.

The commission asked city staff when the TUP meeting will be rescheduled 

During the Planning Commission meeting on Monday night, May 6, Commissioner Kraig Hill mentioned the letter to the editor he submitted last week to The Malibu Times on the increase in trailer trucks on the highway. Hill’s letter is in relation to the fatal incident that occurred on March 29 on Cross Creek Road and Pacific Coast Highway. A tanker truck had been returning from delivering fuel at Pt. Mugu and homicide detectives said a homeless individual ran in front of the truck going down the highway. Dimitri Failla, 32, died from blunt force injuries after being struck by the tanker truck.

“I’m wondering if staff has any update — if we’re handling trucks any different on the highway now, including the ones that park in the center median,” Hill said. 

In the past year or two, Hill has noticed non-local trailer trucks on PCH more frequently than in the past. 

“I find myself on PCH several times per week, and lately have noticed them several times per month,” Hill said in his letter. “Getting the non-local trucks off of PCH is part of transforming it from a de facto freeway into a neighborhood boulevard.”

Planning Director Richard Mollica said the public safety department has been looking into the issue and is coordinating with the sheriff’s department, and said it will be addressed in the city council level. 

Commissioner Dennis Smith agreed with Hill and said the tanker trucks are a problem. 

“We shouldn’t have anything like that going through town — it’s bad,” Smith said. “They can go around us, they don’t like it, but they can do that.”

Chair John Mazza asked city staff about the Temporary Use Permit meeting that was rescheduled from Feb. 12. The hearing is to consider an ordinance and the Planning Commission’s recommendations on updating regulations for TUPs, which are permits for events at non-residential properties.

Mollica said the TUP meeting was supposed to take place next week at City Council; however, it has been postponed.

“It’s set now in the first meeting in June,” Mollica said. “I hope it doesn’t move again, but it has been postponed.”

Chair Mazza pulled item 3.B1, an extension of Coastal Development Permit No. 18-005; a request to extend the Planning Commission’s approval for construction of a new single-family residence and associated development, for question.

The commission motioned to approve Coastal Development Permit-Woolsey Fire No. 22-001, an application for a conversion of existing accessory structure (studio) to a second unit, and construction of new swimming pool, spa with associated pool equipment, decking, onsite wastewater treatment system, and other site improvements.

The commission motioned to approve Coastal Development Permit No. 21-038; a follow-up application for an emergency foundation repair of an existing garage.

The next Planning Commission meeting is scheduled for May 20.

City of Malibu holds workshop to inform residents on best practices

Protecting your biggest investment, your home, against a devasting wildfire was the topic of a Malibu workshop intended to arm residents with knowledge and best practices for use in what’s called “firescaping.”

Cal Poly Pomona professor and expert landscaper Douglas Kent, who’s written extensively on wildfire damage prevention, shared his advice on how best to landscape homes in Malibu, a “flammable community.”

Kent likened your home to your heart.

“If you want to live long and thrive, you’re going to do all you can to create a healthy heart,” he said. “Same thing to defend against fire. Statistics show that if you have a fire hardened home you have a 70 percent chance of survival.”

Fire scientists like Kent have learned over the years that most homes lost to wildfires are ignited by flying embers. Preventing them from entering a structure is key. One of the first places to start is to make sure all home openings are screened with 1/16-inch metal mesh. This includes dryer vents and, of course, chimneys. 

Weatherization is key. Of the 1,643 structures lost in the Woolsey Fire, 60 to 70 percent were lost to firebrands according to Kent. 

“Forty percent of those burned from the inside out, which means the firebrand penetrated the structure and ignited something inside,” he said. 

Peeling paint, decayed weather stripping, and clogged gutters can all be easily ignited by firebrands, so home maintenance is key to keeping a home fire resilient, Kent added.

Make sure your address is clearly visible especially at night so emergency responders can identify your home. This probably means trimming trees, clearing brush and abiding by the 5-foot rule in clearing a path around your home. Create a defensible space. It’s critical to not store combustible materials in a 5-foot perimeter around your home. Recyclables, trash, compost, tools, and furniture cushions need to be stored away from the structure. “

So much of fire protection is basic housekeeping,” said Kent, who added that slopes are also a concern. “I don’t think Malibu has one flat place. What happens on slopes is flame lengths double with every 10-degree growth in slope. If you have a 3-foot flame on flat land, it would be 6 feet on a 10-degree slope, 12 feet on a 20-percent slope, and on a 30-percent slope it would be 24 feet long. The slope causes a convective process that elongates the flame. If you have slopes, you really need to concentrate on your structure more than anything because you’re going to get those elongated flames and firebrands lashing your structure. The solutions are screens.” 

Kent suggests clearing eaves and hardening your home’s trim materials often made of soft wood that can twist and buckle when exposed to intense heat, inviting firebrands into newly formed gaps. 

“Really watch where any two materials meet,” he said. “It’s going to be a place of vulnerability.” This can be especially true of fences connected to homes. 

Play structures, tool sheds and other outbuildings are often overlooked by residents hardening their homes. 

Malibu Fire Liaison Gabriel Etcheverry, on hand for the presentation, makes free house calls and assessments for Malibu residents. Etcheverry will give suggestions on how to fire harden your entire property. But as Kent said, “If your neighbors are not on board it could bring a fire onto your property.” 

Getting neighbors to comply with fire smart practices and firescaping can sometimes be challenging. Etcheverry encouraged attendees to “work with your neighbors.”  Kent even offered using “cookie diplomacy” in order to compromise with neighbors and encourage landscape maintenance. 

Landscaping with less flammable plants around your home is ideal. These types of plants are generally broad-leafed, with thick and easy to bend leaves that are moist. These plants should also have a low amount of litter as opposed to a conifer, have sap that looks more like water, have no fragrance, no hair and have silver or gray leaves. Examples include toyon, native verbena, yucca, coast live oak, and ceonothus. But Kent emphasized, “It’s not the plant itself. It’s the maintenance, the pruning, the care, the irrigation. That’s what’s going to create the fire resistance. Maintenance is the fulcrum of fire safety without a doubt.”

The squad began the postseason with a 21-12 record, including a 10-0 record in the Citrus Coast League

The Malibu High boys volleyball team opened the playoffs with a nail-biting victory on its home floor on April 27. 

The Sharks, a No. 1 seed, defeated the visiting Cate Rams 3-2 in the first round of the CIF Southern Section Division VI Boys Volleyball Championship.

Malibu head coach Derek Sanez said the match was close. The coach noted that sophomores Alex Galan and Taj Menteer had stellar performances. 

Galan’s hot serving streak in the second set gave Malibu winning momentum after they lost the second set. Menteer starred on defense late in the game, Saenz noted. 

“He shut down their big kid so many times,” the coach recalled. 

Axel Jimenez, the team’s lone senior, said Malibu worked hard for the victory.

“The practices leading up to the game were spent watching film of Cate and practicing against the type of team they are,” he said. “It was a hard fought win.” 

The victory advanced Malibu to a second-round match against the Eastside Lions on Tuesday. The winner of that game moved on to a quarterfinal matchup on May 2. The semifinals are on May 4, with the championship game scheduled for May 11. 

The Sharks entered the playoffs on the heels of a stellar season. The squad began the postseason with a 21-12 record, including a 10-0 record in the Citrus Coast League. Malibu swept all of their league opponents and won many matches by 10 to 15 points. In fact, they never lost a set. Malibu had a five-game winning streak at press time. 

Saenz, in his sixth season coaching the Sharks, stated that this year’s group was his most successful team in the regular season.

“Last year, we started the season 0-10,” he remembered. “We finished the regular season with over 20 wins. In the prior 10 seasons before I got hired, they won like 26 matches in 10 years.”

Jimenez, the team MVP and an All-Citrus Coast League performer a season ago, said the Sharks’ roster — dominated by sophomores — is full of talented volleyball players.

“Our key to winning is getting in the proper mindset for the playoffs,” he said. “Being able to handle the pressure of our season being on the line needs to be something we become used to.” 

Saenz said MHS has championship aspirations.

“We didn’t set too many performance goals in terms of the skill level we want to be at,” he said. “It’s more of, we just have to grow up. I focus on level and mentality. Yes, we want to win CIF, but we are going to focus on the mentality that will make us a championship team.”

At a practice in February, Saenz showed the team video of college volleyball teams that upset highly rated teams in the regular season but failed to win a title in the postseason. 

“You can be good enough to knock off the team that wins the national championship,” Saenz said. “How does one team win that match at the beginning of the year, but doesn’t make the playoffs and other team wins the whole thing? That has a lot to do with culture. We want to have winning culture — develop maturity in how they present themselves, goal-setting. We want the best possible version of each individual.” 

Jimenez has been the top Shark on the court this season also. Sophomore Keegan Cross and freshman libero Lucas Galan, both great athletes, have also starred. 

Saenz said Malibu has high hopes that rise above the volleyball net. 

“We always expect greatness out of each other,” he said. “If we are saying, we want to win a championship. We have to know that we are a team with people that can do great things.” 

Shortest-serving prime minister has a lot to say 

The shortest-serving prime minister of the United Kingdom, Liz Truss, discussed conservatism and her just-released book Thursday, April 25, at Pepperdine University as part of the school’s President’s Speaker Series. The outspoken Truss, currently on a book tour promoting “Ten Years to Save the West” served as the U.K. P.M. for just 49 days in 2022. She’s been mocked in her country for a tenure shorter than the shelf life of a head of lettuce, or in American terms, a mere five Scaramuccis. Truss did jokingly agree her tenure was “unmatched.”

Before Truss’ conversation with Pepperdine President Jim Gash, the university released a disclaimer saying in part, “Driven by a desire to connect deeply with our community and inspire meaningful dialogue in the pursuit of truth, the series provides opportunities to cultivate an engaged and impassioned collective through civil discourse. Pepperdine is the convener of this conversation and not an advocate for Liz Truss’ worldview.”

A staunch conservative who admired Margaret Thatcher and backs Donald Trump’s re-election, Truss used to align with liberal democrats at a younger age.

“Everybody has a dark past,” she joked eliciting a laugh from the crowd adding, “I gradually moved to the right.”

Quoting from her book, Gash read, “Conservatism must win across the free world, particularly in the United States of America. Perhaps the most immediate challenge facing conservatives is the need to restore conservative leadership to the United States, Canada, Australia, and across the free world.” 

Gash questioned Truss on why she singled out those countries with Truss’ response being, “Well, I like to say the U.S. is Britain’s greatest invention albeit unintentional … If you look at the development of the representative democracy from Magna Carta to the Bill of Rights, the American Constitution, we exported some pretty good ideas to the United States. Now what’s happening is you’re exporting all these bad ideas to us, whether it’s the wokeism agenda which started in the United States; in fact much of it started here in California, whether it was Hollywood or what’s going on in the tech industry, the U.S. has a massive cultural influence on the free world and yet, the direction of travel has not been in a conservative direction. It’s been in a leftist direction for I would say a period since the late 1990s, maybe since the early 1990s since the end of the Cold War. We’ve seen these bad leftist ideas.” 

Truss called out what she terms the “new left” or the people who “want to stop drilling for oil, people who want to allow boys who identify as girls to be able to use their restroom, anti-colonialists, and anti-capitalists.

“We’re used to dealing with the old left. The point about the new left is they are actively interested in the destruction of our society. You can’t compromise with people that support Hamas. You can’t compromise with somebody who thinks a man can be a woman.” 

The outspoken Truss said, “I’ve been called many things. One is the human hand grenade.” The former U.K. leader didn’t mince words when she called the official London P.M. residence “flea-infested” or when speaking of the current monarchy said, “I think that some of the more problematic elements of the royal family have all gone to California. You’re dealing with them. Thanks for looking after them.” 

Truss did say though that she thought the British monarchy “works,” adding, “I think King Charles is very respected.”

“Ten years to save the west, from whom or what?” asked Gash. Truss replied, “We’re facing two enemies … We have the woke … with some pretty crazy ideas that people wouldn’t have subscribed to a few decades ago, whether it’s anti-capitalism, eco-extremism, transgender ideology … on some university campuses we’re having people actively campaign in favor of terrorism trying to undermine the United States.” Enemy number two she called, “totalitarian states who want to end our way of life,” singling out China, Iran, and Russia. “I think we’re getting close to a tipping point and that’s what my book is all about,” she added.

Referencing her book, Truss said, “The first thing I want to do is explain to people what is actually going on in British government because there’s a lot of armchair critics … People in Britain are frustrated … a poll said 74 percent of Britons think the country isn’t working, things are getting worse and neither party can fix it. Despite all this I am an optimist. I do believe things can change, but what I’m saying is big changes are required … I want to be an agent of change, and I’ll do whatever it takes.”