State and Federal Agencies Blast Legacy Park Specifics

• Municipal Environmental Review Board Gets Latest Word about Major Concerns

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu’s Environmental Review Board met this week to discuss the Environmental Impact Report and other documents related to making improvements at Legacy Park on Wednesday after the Malibu Surfside News went to press.
The panel had some of the latest agency comments about the city’s plans for Legacy Park and heard numerous reservations, complaints and concerns about the city’s current plans.
The most recent letter from the Santa Monica Bay Restoration Commission, which funded grants to the city and considers itself, “a major partner in the purchase,” cited several concerns about the plans, including the proposed use of Legacy Park for wastewater dispersal, which “were discussed only on the programmatic level.”
SMBRC insists the “actual cumulative effects on local groundwater and in Malibu Creek and lagoon of the dispersal of stormwater, urban runoff and treated wastewater may be significant and must be dealt with in a comprehensive manner before proceeding with any one phase of the project.”
The commission, which awarded Malibu $2.5 million in grants, reminded the city of the terms of the grant and then warned that the detention pond proposed is different than vegetated retention basins first cited by the city and represents a “deviation.” The city would have to apply for a deviation from those original plans.
“The detention pond, as currently planned, would occupy only a small fraction of the 15-acre site. We believe that a larger treatment wetland is a much more appropriate alternative for Legacy Park and would more effectively accommodate additional storm flow capacity and allow for the greatest treatment potential,” wrote the agency’s executive director and environmental scientist.
They also took exception to Malibu’s habitat restoration plans, saying the proposal is not native to the area and they support the re-introduction of local native plant species.
A top scientist for the Regional Water Quality Control Board said Malibu lacked documentation for potentially significant impacts pertaining to groundwater, hydrology and water quality impacts.
“Additional public review is necessary because the new design for Malibu Legacy Park proposes to dispose of 33,000 gallons per day in an area where Malibu Lumber will dispose of 17,000 gallons per day and adjacent properties have septic systems which rely on continued groundwater separation. We believe cumulative hydrological limitations should be assessed early in the permitting and construction process because the assimilative capacity of Malibu Valley might preclude future and adjacent projects,” wrote Rebecca Chou, chief of the groundwater permitting unit of RWQCB.
The National Marine Fisheries Service told the city the EIR is inadequate because it does not describe the actual effects of the project on steelhead and critical habitat within Malibu Creek.
The regional administrator charged the impacts from stormwater runoff detention and treatment before release into Malibu Creek are not addressed.
“The final EIR must describe the effects either adverse and beneficial of the proposed action on endangered steelhead and their critical habitat, as required by the California Environmental Quality Act,” wrote Rodney McInnis.
Two environmental organizations also took issue with the plans and urged another approach.
“The stormwater and wastewater components of the project should be designed and completed in parallel,” wrote Heal the Bay staff members.
The environmental group also indicated the project should include “significantly greater treated stormwater storage capacity,” and more study is needed on hydrology and water quality impact.
The Santa Monica Baykeeper had a retired professor of soil and water resources review the hydrology and water quality technical reports and told city officials he believes the project “is also likely to raise groundwater levels and worsen groundwater quality in the project area.”
Dr. Byron Shaw indicated there is no recognition that there are already serious groundwater elevation and water quality problems on the park property and that use of the property to dispose of stormwater via infiltration and evapotranspiration “will only make these conditions worse.”
The Baykeeper analyst also noted the stormwater treatment facility relies on a detention pond that is capable of storing only eight acre feet and that no analysis is presented on how frequently this capacity will be exceeded and untreated water discharged as surface water.
The ERB is charged with reviewing the city’s application to construct a public park, linear park and stormwater treatment components on the 15-acre site and make recommendations to the planning commission.
The proposal, which will require a coastal development permit, conditional use permit and a variance, includes grading, accessory structures, a bridge, master sign program, stormwater pipelines, street improvements, parking spaces, habitat restoration and trails, according to a public notice.
The amount of paperwork and the size of the documents for Legacy Park have become so large, city officials have indicated that due to the size of the attachments, the report will not be posted on the city’s website, but rather the entire ERB agenda packet has been posted to the city’s FTP site.
City officials recently attempted to get the public more involved in review of the park’s improvements and scheduled two workshop meetings. However, municipal officials complained the public turnout was low and the meetings did not attract community interest.
“On Wednesday night, the staff and consultants outnumbered the residents,” said Councilmember John Sibert. “There were seven on Saturday.”
Sibert said he was sorry there were not more Malibuites at the workshops. “There were even signs and ads, but still that got very few folks,” he said.
The workshops were designed as an informal effort to gather as much input as possible from Malibu residents about what they want to see installed in the park in the way of amenities.
The date for submitting comments to the Environmental Impact Report has passed.
Currently, the park plans are described as a facility that will be home to five ostensible coastal habitats and is being billed as Southern California’s only coastal prairie habitat.

Freelance Journalist Challenges Workings of Municipal Paparazzi Panelists

• City Attorney Says ‘Group of Experts’ Is Not Covered by Open Meeting or Public Access Laws

BY ANNE SOBLE

A local freelance journalist is challenging the makeup and procedures of a City of Malibu policy process charged with the task of possibly drafting an ordinance to control what municipal officials perceive as inappropriate and unsafe behavior by paparazzi in the community.
Hans Laetz, who has spent three decades in news management, primarily in the broadcast arena, submits articles to a broad cross-section of area publications, including the Malibu Surfside News. He is not representing any of these publications in his clash with City Hall.
Laetz asserts that a municipal paparazzi panel has met twice in closed session, actions he contends violate state governmental transparency legislation, including the Brown Act, the state open meeting law. He indicates that the group has produced a draft ordinance, a copy of which he has requested from the city.
Laetz made these points in an email exchange with Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich. He has distributed copies of the most recent emails on Monday to print and broadcast media, as well as journalism organizations.
In one of the emails, Laetz wrote, “California Government Code § 54952 (b) requires advance agendas, public documents and open meetings for “a commission, committee, board, or other body of a local agency, whether permanent or temporary, decision-making or advisory, created by charter, ordinance, resolution, or formal action of a legislative body.”
He added, “The committee is by any reading a temporary advisory body created by formal action of the city council. Calling it ‘independent’ does not make it so. This task force is an official City of Malibu advisory panel, created and charged by a city council act, and is without doubt under the Brown and Unruh acts.”
However, City Attorney Christi Hogin responded on Tuesday that the meetings in question are not a violation of the Brown Act, or any other state mandate, because even though the paparazzi panel is referred to as a committee in public discusssion, no committee was technically formed. Hogin said that the meetings involve a group of “experts” assembled by the mayor that does not involve staff time.
In short, it would appear that this non-committee is no different than any other bunch of people sitting around a kitchen table who decide to develop public policy options, which, as an aside, led to the term “kitchen cabinet” to reflect undue unofficial political influence.
Yet Conley Ulich uses the term “committee” when discussing the matter with Laetz in emails and when talking to The News, in addition to referring to “committee membership.” And, in a separate email to Laetz, Councilmember Sharon Barovsky referred to the group as an “ad hoc committee.”
As for Laetz’s assertion of the existence of a draft ordinance, the mayor said the meetings have produced what she describes as “suggestions” and she indicates she has not gone through all of them. She said one of the approaches “on the table” is the Malibu Surfside News editorial position that no additional legislation is required.
Conley Ulich added that the group that has met so far consists of several attorneys but that is not the “committee’s final membership.” She indicated there is a question of whether the American Civil Liberties Union, originally touted as a participant, is going to take part in the non-committee.
Because the names of the participants in the panel headed by Pepperdine Law School Dean Kenneth Starr have not been made public, this has earned the group the sobriquet the “Starr Chamber” among journalists who question the need for additional legislation beyond existing state paparazzi laws and are concerned Starr might weaken local First Amendment rights.
Laetz told The News that a red flag is raised by Starr’s role in the Alaska student banner case that resulted in U.S. Supreme Court restriction of student free speech rights that were affirmed by the high court 39 years earlier.
That case also prompted conflict of interest discussions concerning Starr’s representation and the justices on the Supreme Court who are paid by Pepperdine to take part in university seminars.
Laetz is lobbying the mayor for membership in the so-called “group of experts,” asserting that, as a freelancer, he can bring this specialized perspective to issues related to the paparazzi, the majority of whom are also uncredentialed freelancers.
In his pitch for panel membership, Laetz writes, “Although I do not have the J.D. [yet] or pedigree of Dean Starr...I am a third year law student [at the Ventura College of Law] who will specialize in First Amendment law [and] feel I have more than a passing understanding of First Amendment and criminal law and precedent.”
Laetz and Conley Ulich were slated to meet on the issues he is raising at City Hall on Friday.

• The Publisher’s Notebook •

Malibu’s De Facto Paparazzi Doings

BY ANNE SOBLE

I am already on record as opposing any municipal legislation to put curbs on paparazzi, or any other members of the media, credentialed or otherwise, even ones who behave in ways I may personally abhor because I will accept no abridgement of the right of free speech that does not jeopardize public safety. I stand with Thomas Jefferson that if I have to choose between government and a free press, I will opt for the free press. Sadly, there are too many times when I think this would have been particularly applicable in Malibu public policymaking.
I feel compelled to return to the city’s exploration of a draft ordinance to curb inappropriate paparazzi behavior in light of the exchanges between a local freelance journalist and the mayor and city attorney that continued long after the rest of the pages of this week’s issue of The News had been put to press. The City of Malibu has shot itself in the foot on policy issues as disparate as the poorly crafted Measure M and what may become the equally disastrous Legacy Park boondoggle. Its de facto paparazzi panel may be another.
If a local government ever needed transparency to save it from itself, the City of Malibu may be it. If the city wants to stop photographers from driving unsafely, blocking public walkways, or harassing children near schools, the laws are already on the books. The state Paparazzi Act, traffic and trespass laws, and child endangerment measures are there for the enforcement. The city should put the legal system to work and leave the First Amendment alone.
I have been equally forthright in my concern that the man who turned the Clinton family foibles into a national pastime, nurturing the worst of prurient celebrity fascination, and turned an Alaskan teenager’s harmless prank banner of “Bong Hits 4 Jesus” into a repressive curb on young voices is not the person to steer Malibu’s public policy on the media.
If free speech and communication cannot flourish unfettered, even if immature or tasteless by traditional norms, at our institutions of learning, how can we develop a citizenry unafraid to speak up when the emperor has no clothes, starts a war without cause, or cripples an economy on behalf of the favored few? My fear is a Starr Chamber would extend those Alaskan free speech curbs to press and non-press alike.
Malibu does not need non-committees of unnamed experts selected by unknown criteria. Governmental secrecy is the watchword of those who would dictate to others in their own self-interest.

Malibu Chumash Village to Host Klamath Riverkeeper Event

• Local Groups Join Ranks with Organizations Seeking Removal of Four Dams

BY ANNE SOBLE

The activist group Ventura Coastkeeper is hosting a fundraiser on Saturday at the Nicholas Canyon County Park Chumash village to support a sister environmental organization’s fight to remove four dams and restore one of the state’s great rivers, the Klamath.
According to the event’s organizers, “At stake are the traditional cultures of California’s three largest Native American tribes as well as the state’s commercial and sport salmon fisheries.”
Mati Waiya, who is the head of Ventura Coastkeeper and a member of the Chumash tribe in the area, has spearheaded local cooperation with Klamath Riverkeeper.
Waiya says, “It’s important that we support one another’s struggles because all things and all struggles for justice are connected.”
He adds that is why he is working with the international Waterkeeper Alliance to launch a Tribal Waterkeepers program.
Klamath Riverkeeper’s objective is to convince PacifiCorp, which is overseen by Warren Buffet, to remove four dams on the Klamath River that have reportedly led to dramatic declines in the salmon population, as well as massive blooms of toxic blue green algae.
According to Klamath Riverkeeper’s Regina Chichizola, “Buffet’s PacifiCorp is creating an ecological disaster and native people and commercial salmon fishermen are paying the price.”
Chichizola says this weekend’s event is important to help fund the group’s actions on “this critical concern, “Funds raised will help the Klamath Riverkeeper and the Karuk tribes’ actions to solve the Klamath crisis,” she said.
Recently, Klamath Riverkeeper, along with members of the Karuk, Yurok, and Hoopa tribes, disrupted Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting in Omaha, Nebraska, in an attempt to draw national attention to what is happening.
According to Chichizola, PacifiCorp is owned by Mid-American Energy, which is owned by Berkshire Hathaway ,and Buffett is president and majority shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway.
Chichizola says, “We want Buffett and PacifiCorp to know that as long as there is no business as usual for salmon fisherman on the Klamath, there will be no business as usual for them either.”
The groups hope that additional political and economic pressure will come from environmentalists who do not want to see the river destroyed.
The event that will be held at Wishtoyo Foundation’s Chumash Village at Nicholas Canyon County Park will feature traditional songs and regalia from the local Chumash community and the Ohlone dancers, as well as performers from the Klamath River tribes.
Organizers say the highlight of the evening will be a dinner of traditional fire-roasted Klamath salmon.
“Once you have a taste of what could be lost, you quickly become a supporter of our struggle,” said Leaf Hillman of the Karuk Tribe.
The groups taking part in the event hope to raise $75,000 to support their campaign efforts, including the cost of experts to assist with a nuisance lawsuit against Buffett’s PacifiCorp that is now headed to trial.
The July 26 event is set for 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the site that features a reconstruction of a Chumash village and a spectacular view of the waters the Chumash people once traversed in numbers.
Donations to assist the Klamath campaign are requested.
Malibuites interested in attending the event can obtain additional information from Waiya at 805-794-1248, or Chichizola at 541-951-0126.

Malibu City Council Considers Cannabis Outlets

BY BILL KOENEKER

Will the Malibu City Council allow pot pharmacies within the city limits? That is the question that may be answered next week when the council considers a recommendation from its planning commission calling for allowing three medical marijuana dispensaries.
The council had approved several moratoriums on the facilities when it was learned there were no specific provisions in the city’s zoning code for permitted uses of such dispensaries after two started doing business in Malibu.
Despite a staff recommendation to prohibit the pot pharmacies in Malibu, the planning commission recommended an ordinance conditionally permitting up to three dispensaries within the city at one time in any commercial zoning district, subject to specific conditions.
The staff planner has another suggestion if the council follows the planning panel's recommendation. “In order to facilitate the three dispensary limit and ensure that existing dispensaries are given priority to those three permits, staff recommended a provision requiring that existing medical marijuana dispensaries obtain a conditional use permit within 90 days of adoption of the ordinance,” wrote Kathleen Mallory, a contract planner for the city.
Mallory, still pushing for a prohibition, prepared an alternative ordinance for the council to consider prohibiting the use or banning any new dispensaries within the city.
Consequently, Mallory is presenting the council with two recommendations, the planning commission’s, or hers, to ban pot pharmacies.
During the planning commission hearings, several experts, an attorney and various patients and their families came to urge the council to allow the pharmacies to continue to operate in the city.

Malibu City Council Decides to Litigate Overnight Camping Bid Override

• Challenges CCC Head’s Decision to Allow SMMC Plan

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu City Attorney Christi Hogin announced this week that the Malibu City Council, in closed session, unanimously directed her to initiate litigation against Peter Douglas, the executive director of the California Coastal Commission, over his decision to allow a Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Local Coastal Program Amendment override.
Later in the evening, Hogin said she would have the lawsuit served this week. “It is a pretty narrow legal question,” she said.
Douglas told the Malibu Surfside News he thought the litigation was a waste of taxpayers’ money. “It is a squandering of public resources. I wonder if the city council would be so free to spend the taxpayers’ money if it were their own,” Douglas said about the litigation.
The CCC head said the issue is clear to him, “The Coastal Act does provide for Coastal Commission review when there is a broader public interest that is denied by the local government.”
As for the city’s LCP amendment, Douglas said, “It is a waste of time. It is a non-starter.”
The announcement of the lawsuit overshadowed the agenda item later in the meeting when the council also unanimously agreed to adopt a resolution that finds that the SMMC park plan, which includes overnight camping, is not a type of development subject to the LCP override provisions, and reaffirmed the city’s LCP amendment pending before the state panel.
Hogin said the council’s vote on this item is as important as the litigation, since it is a parallel process to convince the Coastal Commission of the city’s actions.
Malibu’s reaction is a direct result of Douglas determining that a plan proposed by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy is eligible for an LCP amendment override that, in effect, would sidestep the city’s objections to the conservancy’s plan.
The SMMC plan calls for overnight camping facilities within park boundaries in Ramirez Canyon Park, Escondido Canyon Park and Corral Canyon Park, as well as a comprehensive program for acquiring land for and improving the Coastal Slope Trail and extensive use of facilities at the Ramirez Canyon location of the SMMC’s headquarters.
Hogin had already called Douglas’ decision extraordinary and accused the conservancy of employing what she referred to as “tactics” that try to bypass the city by seeking the override.
As is the case whenever public camping is an issue, there was nearly a standing-room-only crowd at the council meeting. Many of the speakers blasted Douglas and Joe Edmiston, the executive director of the SMMC, for their positions.
However, council members cautioned the public that personal attacks would not prove successful before the Coastal Commission.
“If you make personal attacks on Joe or Peter, they won’t work. Tell them you are afraid your house will burn down. That might work,” said Councilmember Sharon Barovsky.
Councilmember John Sibert agreed. “We have got to talk respectfully to the Coastal Commission. Personal attacks don’t work,” he said.
Mayor Pamela Conley Ulrich, who thanked her colleagues for approving litigation on the contentious matter said, “This is not about keeping people out of the mountains, it is about keeping fire out.”

Plea Bargain Efforts May Be Underway for Two of the Five Corral Fire Suspects

• Culver City Duo’s Complicity Seen as Separate Scenario

BY HANS LAETZ

A plea bargain may be in the works for two Culver City men who are accused of helping to set the Thanksgiving weekend Corral Fire that burned an estimated half billion dollars in property in Malibu.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys agreed to postpone last Friday’s scheduled arraignment for the pair, Dean Allen Lavorante and Eric Matthew Ullman, because “talks” are being conducted on the case.
Attorneys would not be specifically quoted, but hinted that the case against these two men may be settled with a plea agreement this summer.
Lavorante and Ullman are described by prosecutors as the lesser perpetrators in the chain of events in which two groups of men crossed paths in a cave on the hot, windy night of Nov. 23, when gale-force, 90-degree winds were blowing towards Malibu.
The two Culver City men allegedly took their dates for a romantic bonfire in a notorious party cave at the northern end of Corral Canyon Road, overlooking the San Fernando Valley.
According to trial judge Michael Kellogg, who read a description of the arson investigation at an earlier court hearing, the Culver City men were in the cave with the women when Los Angeles residents Brian Allen Anderson, William Thomas Coppock, and Brian David Franks, arrived and kicked them out.
The three L.A. men are accused of getting drunk, adding cords of wood to the small bonfire, and then kicking burning logs down a cliff into heavy brush, as dry winds raked the area.
At the earlier bail hearing, Judge Kellogg said all five defendants should have known that open fire is prohibited in the fire-prone mountains, and that red flag broadcasts had been made for days before the fire broke out,
The judge, a Malibu resident, also noted that large signs prohibiting fire are located just down the road from the caves.
Kellogg had previously agreed with the Culver City men’s attorneys that the case against Lavorante and Ullman is different from the case against the three other men, who allegedly stoked the initial small fire into a raging inferno.
“There are two separate factual scenarios, I understand that very well,” the judge said last winter.
Lavorante’s lawyer, Ben Pesta II, has said the level of guilt for the two Culver City teens is much less than the other three. “At the very worst this was an act of incaution that had horrible consequences that everyone regrets,” he said.
Despite the varying levels of culpability, all five men are charged with the same crimes: recklessly causing a fire with great bodily injury, recklessly causing a fire to an inhabited structure, and arson during a declared emergency.
All three of those crimes are felonies, each carries a sentence of between 2-4 years in state prison.
All five men are free on bail or personal recognizance pending trial. Anderson, Coppock and Franks are scheduled to have their next court appearance Aug. 5, when a preliminary hearing date will be set.
At the preliminary hearing, the prosecutors will have to present enough evidence to a judge to warrant a trail.
If no plea agreement is reached with Lavorante and Ullman, they face arraignment Aug. 21.
As many as 55 houses in Corral, Latigo and Escondido canyons were gutted in the predawn fire Nov. 24. No official damages total has been released, but $513 million in claims have been presented by residents to government agencies.

City Council Delays Action on Malibu Pot Sales Law

• Planners Seek More Time to Study Thorny Matter

BY BILL KOENEKER

The Malibu City Council put off making any decision this week about allowing the operation of marijuana dispensaries in the municipality after the staff asked for more time.
The planning commission brushed aside planners’ calls for a complete ban on medical marijuana dispensaries and insisted on a recommendation for an alternative ordinance that would allow at least three cannabis outlets within city limits.
The planning panelists attached a number of conditions and performance standards to the limit of three that would be allowed.
The matter was scheduled to be heard this week by the council, but the staff is seeking until the end of the month in order to further analyze the alterative ordinance suggested by the commissioners and to recirculate environmental documents.