City Urges League of California Cities to Join Opposition to SMMC Parks Plan

• Contentious Conservancy Package Is Slated for State Coastal Commission Review

BY BILL KOENEKER

Without comment or discussion, the Malibu City Council this week adopted a resolution that will request the League of California Cities oppose the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy’s proposed parks and trails plan. The league founded in 1898 includes 478 California cities in its ranks. Malibu has been a member since it incorporated in 1990.

The SMMC and its sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, are scheduled next week to consider approving the plan and submitting it to the California Coastal Commission for certification.

The plan proposes linking a series of five SMMC properties and National Park Service land with a multi-use trail, including camping in several of the coastal canyons and expanded uses of Ramirez Canyon Park, where the Conservancy is headquartered.

The controversial plan was opposed by the California Contract Cities Association after Malibu persuaded the organization to endorse the city’s opposition to the plan.

The city has taken the position that the public works plan bypasses local control and oversight and has argued that since the SMMC is an area-wide agency and has many joint power authority agencies its future role could preclude local control in many other locations besides Malibu on other issues.

“This is an unusual deployment of a ‘public works plan.’ The proposals in the ‘plan’ (such as adding parking spaces, restrooms, trailheads, camp sites) appear to be simply development within the meaning of the Coastal Act and therefore simply subject to obtaining a [coastal permit] consistent with the Local Coastal Program,” wrote City Attorney Christi Hogin in a memo to council members.

Hogin indicated in the past the Conservancy has received its permits from the Coastal Commission. “Now that the city has a certified LCP, the Conservancy would be required to apply to the city for a permit. In lieu of that, the Conservancy has elected to propose a public works plan which is subject to approval of the Coastal Commission not the city, although the commission must ‘consult’ with the city. Any way that one views it, the plan is a direct effort to skip the LCP and therefore skip the City of Malibu,” added Hogin.

The city attorney noted the plan itself is “problematic for various reasons,” including that it appears to permit camping on the trails in residential neighborhoods, allows extensive event uses at Ramirez Canyon Park, proposes trails that do not correspond with the city’s master trails plan and seems to rely on the city’s police power for implementation.

“In many respects, the plan is inconsistent with the LCP. In addition, the Conservancy has refused to comply with the [California Environmental Quality Act] in connection with the plan,” Hogin added.

Australian Government Says Billiton Bypassed Sanctions against Iraq

• Impact on Cabrillo Port Project Is Expected as Company’s Credibility Is Called into Question

BY HANS LAETZ

A special prosecutor in Australia has charged that BHP Billiton officials conspired to sell $5 million worth of Australian wheat to Saddam Hussein in 1996, secretly bypassing American trade sanctions against Iraq, in order to secure valuable oil and gas rights. The company was lobbying U.S. officials as troops entered Baghdad in 2003 to be allowed to operate Iraq’s largest oil field, the report says.

The revelations come as the company is lobbying the U.S. and California to build an $800 million liquefied natural gas terminal off Malibu, and is portraying itself as a reliable U.S. trading partner as it seeks permits and licenses for the project, worth $5 billion in profits to the company.

The Cole Commission report has made the front pages in Australia and the financial pages around the world, as it accuses high-ranking government and company officials of purposefully bypassing U.S.-led trade sanctions against the Baghdad government in 1996, when the U.S. Navy and Air Force were blockading Iraq.

The high-ranking BHPB official who set up the deal, and then left to head the spinoff company created by BHPB to handle the oil project, was described by the official government inquiry as “a thoroughly disreputable man with no commercial morality.”

The wheat-for-oil deal was part of a scheme by the official government wheat exporting agency in Australia to curry favor with Saddam’s government. BHP Billiton purchased some of the wheat, “donated” it to Iraq around the U.S. blockade, and then sold the debt to a spin-off company headed by BHPB petroleum official Norman Davidson Kelly, who collected a $7.2 million payoff from the Iraqis.

The Australian inquiry recommended criminal prosecution for the onetime BHPB official and 11 Australian Wheat Board officials who set up the illegal scheme.

BHP Billiton officials have told Malibu residents that the company is a reliable trading ally of the United States, and officials from the Australian embassy last spring traveled to Malibu to testify that the Canberra government is a firm supporter of U.S. foreign policy.

Local ocean advocates expressed shock when told of the findings. “These are very serious charges,” said Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network. “People need to take a very close look at who this company is, and how they do business. Very few people know what their business record and environmental record is.”

BHPB chief executive Chip Goodyear told reporters in Australia Monday that the company will analyze the report by a special prosecutor and issue a public comment later this week.

BHPB’s annual meeting is this week in Brisbane, and company officials are quoted in Australian newspapers as saying they want a quick and thorough investigation to prevent the company’s international reputation from being further tarnished. The company has undergone a complete management transition since the oil deal with Saddam in 1996, and Goodyear has instituted numerous reforms, Australian newspapers report.

But as late as 2003, BHP Billiton was lobbying Vice President Richard Cheney to be allowed to take over the huge Halfayah oil field just weeks after American forces invaded Iraq in 2003, the Independent newspaper in London has reported.

The Cole Commission was created to investigate a complicated deal by the Australian-based conglomerate to secure an oil and gas concession in Iraq once American sanctions ended. The BHPB shipment of wheat was part of $244 million package of kickbacks and bribes paid by Australian wheat exporters to Saddam’s government.

The commission report, issued Monday, said BHP Billiton may have “conspired with, or aided and abetted” the Australian wheat board officials who funneled money to Saddam in contravention of the trade embargo.

The company’s proposed LNG terminal 13.8 miles offshore of Malibu has been beset by regulatory delays, as government agencies seek enough specific information from BHP Billiton to make a decision on its safety and environmental impact. The Cabrillo Port environmental impact review was supposed to have been completed in Spring 2005, but is at least two years overdue after federal and state regulators said they were not getting information they had asked for from the company in 2003.

An investigation by the Malibu Surfside News last week reported that 521 tons of air pollution would be released each year by the Malibu terminal, with most of that smog-producing waste being blown into the Los Angeles air basin. Additional review of the numerous documents released by the federal government shows that some emissions from LNG carriers may have been listed twice by the company’s lawyer in a letter he sent to smog regulators last month.

Removing the possible duplicates leaves a total estimate of 484 tons per year of smog-causing chemicals, up from the 261-ton total in the current environmental impact report.

The increase is caused by including offloading operations, emissions from LNG carriers and tugboats, and “ammonia slip” totals in the sum of air emissions, which the company contends is an unfair and inaccurate means to judge the total smog impact that Cabrillo Port would have on area skies.

School District’s CFO Resigns in the Wake of Teachers’ Contract Dispute

• Malibu School Bus Issue Was First Indication of Friction


BY HANS LAETZ

The Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District’s chief financial officer has resigned, following a disagreement with new Superintendent Dianne Talarico over whether the district could afford an expensive three-year salary contract with its teachers.

Winston Braham, who served for two years as assistant superintendent for business services, ostensibly tendered his resignation after clashing with the new superintendent over the $7 million pay increase package.

Talarico announced late Tuesday that the SMMUSD was hiring a financial consulting firm called Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team to look at the district’s current situation and future projections.

“I don’t really believe there’s any reason to consider that we have any financial crisis,” she hastened to add.

Earlier this month, Braham refused to sign a budget projection required by state law, and noted on the document that he could not certify that the district’s reserve fund would cover the third year of the contract.

The district’s Citizen Finance Oversight Committee sided with Braham and voiced its “deep concern” that the district would deplete its $7.2 million contingency fund in the third year of the deal.

“We agreed to disagree that we could afford this raise,” Talarico told the Malibu Surfside News, after announcing her second-in-command’s departure.

“Something made him decide not to certify the document, but based on my understanding of [the district’s financial situation], I don’t think there’s going to be an issue in year three,” Talarico added.

Kathy Wisnicki, who is the only SMMUSD board member from Malibu, said that Braham resigned for personal reasons, and answered, “No, absolutely not” when asked if his resignation was over the budget estimate.

“The district has every reason to believe that we can afford the settlement, and that we are in excellent financial shape,” she said.

Earlier this year, Talarico had voiced public unhappiness with Braham and the district’s transportation director over delays in adding an additional morning school bus run from the Sunset Mesa and Topanga Beach areas, where as many as 90 students were crowding onto buses designed for 60.

In this week’s interview, she agreed that the bus fiasco had left her angry with Braham and others, but said that this was not a factor in his resignation.

“I’m very dissatisfied when I tell the community something will be done, and it doesn’t get done, and my integrity is on the line,” she said.

Wisnicki noted that it is not unusual for a new superintendent to change top leadership, and said former Superintendent John Deasy did the same thing when he came to the district.

Braham is the second assistant superintendent to resign from the district this year. Last spring, former Malibu High School principal Mike Matthews stepped down after it became apparent that the school board would not hire him as the permanent replacement for Deasy, who left earlier in the year.

Cities Look to Malibu as Leader in Effort to Ban Foam

Photo credit, MSN/Hans Laetz

TAKEOUT TABLEWARE—City environmental programs coordinator Jennifer Voccola looks at recyclable, disposable takeout dishes served by a Malibu sandwich shop. The paper plate is made of cotton and the plastic cup is a type of modified corn starch, both are not only recyclable but are also biodegradable.

BY HANS LAETZ

When the Malibu City Council banned foam carry-out containers and cups last year, more than a few eyes rolled in nearby cities, and in the restaurant trade. The groundbreaking ban was viewed by food industry experts, and some local shopkeepers, as impractical.

But now, as Malibu takes its first belated steps toward enforcing the ban, the groundbreaking rules are being looked at by other nearby cities. Santa Monica and Calabasas are among the municipalities around the country that have begun the steps to ban the familiar white, Styrofoam-like containers.

A shortage of staff has kept Malibu from enforcing the ordinance until now, said Jennifer Voccola, the Public Works Department’s environmental programs coordinator. Letters will be going out soon, she said, telling business owners that the time to comply is on the next order of disposable items.

But that’s not soon enough for one small business owner, who complains that the city’s ordinance is being obeyed by small locally-owned stores but is ignored by large chain operations. Diana Nielsen, owner of Malibu Yogurt, says she spent about $30,000 over 12 months to comply with the law.

“I complied immediately because that’s what you do,” she said. “So did Malibu Seafood, Coogie’s and that wonderful little Malibu Mutt hot dog stand.

“But if you go to McDonald’s, you get foam. At Ralph’s, if you buy a soda from the deli, foam. At Subway, the drinks are in foam,” she said. “Malibu is being horribly unfair.”

Voccola said the lack of staff to enforce the ordinance will be a nonissue once outside contractors, who currently conduct annual stormwater runoff inspections, are trained to also enforce the anti-foam ordinance.

“We’ll start with the letter, and tell people they have to start complying, but we’ll hold off until they do their next buying cycle,” she said. Voccola said city staff wants to work cooperatively with businesses and the Chamber of Commerce to create an entire green-oriented plan for businesses.

Down the beach in Santa Monica, the city council is looking at enacting Malibu’s ban, with an eye to extending it to cover all non-recyclable, disposable goods.

“We were looking at the City of Malibu’s ordinance, and when I saw that we were falling behind in Santa Monica, I said, ‘Let’s look at what’s happening up in Malibu’,” said Santa Monica City Councilman Kevin McKeown, who authored the bay city’s ordinance.

“At first, we got resistance from all the predicable places. But now the businesses are talking to their suppliers, and seeing there are practical, cost-effective alternatives,” he said. “Now, the only people who are opposed are the people who manufacture the foam products themselves.”

Calabasas is also looking at a similar ordinance. Voccola has been asked to address the city council there to explain Malibu’s successes—and delays—in banning the foam cups and boxes.

Even facilities owned by the City of Malibu are being placed under scrutiny, including the tiny snack shack at the Bluffs Park little league field. Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich asked city parks director Robert Stallings to ensure that no Styrofoam-style cups are used at the “sugar shack.”

The ordinance took effect 15 months ago, and those companies that applied for an emergency exemption saw their official permission to continue using foam expire three months ago, Voccola said. “The time has come for the rules to be enforced.”

Conservancy Counters Resident Challenge with Its Own Supporters

• Public Meeting Turns Rowdy as Both Sides Harden Positions in Their Battle Over Plan

BY BILL KOENEKER

A war of words that probably will spill over into the courtroom fired back and forth this week between Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy proponents and Ramirez Canyon homeowners and other locals over a proposed parks and trails plan.

The showdown took place at a public meeting Monday night of the boards of the SMMC and its sister agency, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, at Webster Elementary School. Malibu city officials were also in attendance and voiced their objections.

There have been a series of meetings in Malibu on the access plan, but this one turned rowdy, with claims that Malibu residents object to the plan because of racial bigotry. Those remarks were met by loud boos from the locals.

SMMC and the MRCA had released last week a revised draft plan proposing to link a series of five SMMC properties and National Park Service land with a multi-use trail including expanded uses of Ramirez Canyon Park. The revisions and subsequent changes were available for public scrutiny on the state agencies’ websites.

The homeowners group known as the Ramirez Canyon Preservation Fund issued a statement before the meeting stating that the proposal, while offering “admirable goals,” lacked local oversight and ignored environmental constraints.

“The public works plan denies the City of Malibu and its residents any say as to where parks and trails should be located. It also proposes paving over a meadow for a parking lot in Escondido Canyon, allows excessive vehicle traffic on Winding Way threatening the safety of equestrians and hikers, permits loud commercial and fundraising events in Ramirez Canyon at the end of a narrow and hazardous box canyon; and allows overnight camping in the hills above Malibu that will create a significant fire hazard from careless campers endangering many of our neighborhoods,” the HOA letter states.

However, it was some speakers at the meeting, who insisted it was their skin color that Malibu residents really objected to.

But Steven Amerikaner, an attorney representing the homeowners group, alleges he was subsequently told by some of the speakers that they had been paid to come to the Malibu meeting.

When the SMMC and MRCA issued a press release last week about the availability of the revised plan, the agencies’ head explained why they were moving forward with the plan.

“Public access to public parkland is a fundamental right in California,” said Joe Edmiston, the executive director of the SMMC. “The coastal canyons of the Santa Monica Mountains in Malibu contain some of Southern California’s most lush and beautiful landscapes of the highest ecological quality.”

However, homeowners counter the latest version of the access plan is “deeply flawed” and that it is imperative for Malibu residents to make their objections known before the plan goes to the California Coastal Commission for approval.

Malibu city council members showed up in force with Mayor Ken Kearsley and Councilmembers Pamela Conley Ulich and Andy Stern speaking. The mayor insisted the SMMC and MRCA should undertake an Environmental Impact Report before submission to the coastal agency.

Edmiston shot back that the city did not do an EIR when it submitted its Local Coastal Program. Previously, one resident had urged the council to attend, saying the last meeting in Malibu was packed with outside interests and groups that had to be counterbalanced.

“Joe is throwing his weight around. It is time for the city to throw its weight around,” said Winding Way resident Larry Grey, who is on the city’s trail committee and added he is in favor of trails, but questions the campsites as needlessly dangerous.

Many other residents talked about the fire safety issue and said they refused to believe that enforcement would prevent careless campers from breaking the rules and having a campfire and posing a danger to themselves and others.

Conservancy officials counter that exhaustive research has produced a plan that balances the need for protection of the natural resources in the area, the concerns of private residents and the need to promote access opportunities.

“Some of the best minds in civil engineering, planning, park design and accessibility have worked together to form a plan that will connect the parks and improve public access with minimal impact,” added Edmiston.

SMMC officials indicated when the plan is submitted to the Coastal Commission, which can certify the proposal as a public works plan, the plan will include detailed technical analysis of its various components, including geology, mapping, grading, traffic engineering and accessibility.

Some observers indicate they believe the series of public meetings, the press releases and posturing by SMMC officials and homeowners is simply a prelude to the entire issue ending up in the courtroom.

Cabrillo Port Smog Impact Estimates Climb Upward

• New Memos Show BHP Billiton Is Leaning on EPA to Approve Project as Quickly as Possible

BY HANS LAETZ

The Australian company that proposes to build a floating liquefied natural gas terminal off Malibu has disclosed that the project would emit twice as much smog-causing chemical pollution into the air, upwind of Malibu’s Point Dume, than it had originally estimated, according to newly discovered memos.

Federal officials also say that BHP Billiton told them last month that “it would not consider as legally binding” any vote by Ventura County smog authorities to eliminate a regulatory loophole in smog laws that benefits Cabrillo Port. Local officials took just such a vote last week.

And federal officials said the company is seeking to avoid adding catalytic scrubbers to the floating LNG terminal because the units would be too unstable and unsafe to work on while the ship bobs on the high seas off Malibu, and it would cost $20 million to make the ship longer to accommodate laying the scrubbers on their sides.

These findings are contained in hundreds of pages of memos and e-mails exchanged by BHPB and Environmental Protection Agency regulators obtained by the Malibu Surfside News last week.

The public records show what environmental activists say is a heavy-handed attempt by the Australian company to rush through Cabrillo Port’s air discharge permits to meet the company’s self-imposed deadline of starting LNG imports to the project on July 1, 2010.

In one memo, EPA officials said they were confused by three different smog estimates provided over the past year by BHP Billiton.

In response, the company issued a revised prediction totaling 521 tons per year of sulfur oxides, nitrous oxides, petrochemicals and particulate matter that would be released into the local skies by Cabrillo Port and the fleet of tugboats and LNG carriers that would attend it.

Those chemicals are ingredients for smog. Weather patterns in the Malibu area show the discharges blowing towards the Malibu-Santa Monica area most of the time.

The published estimate for the terminal itself had been 261 tons, but the company now says the terminal would emit 298 tons per year. Company spokesman Patrick Cassidy says the total grew by 14 percent because the EPA asked BHPB to include the emissions caused by pumping the LNG from the carriers onto the terminal.

An Oct. 16 letter from BHPB attorney Thomas R. Wood says there would be 182 tons per year of smog from tugboats and LNG carriers, an estimate that had not been publicly disclosed until now. Much of that discharge will be further offshore than the terminal, as the LNG carriers steam into U.S. waters and switch from using dirty bunker fuel to cleaner-burning natural gas, Cassidy said.

The overall amount of pollution was computed by adding the separate categories of emissions for terminal, tugboat and ship operations found within four different sections of the Oct. 16 letter.



Cassidy disputed that methodology as a “non-standard practice.”

“Lumping the air emissions together can lead to flawed or misleading analysis because of the unique characteristics and effects of individual emissions,” he said in an e-mail from his Houston office.

“This analysis fails to provide a true picture of the air quality impacts of our project as it does not take into account the significant mitigation and emission reduction programs that BHP Billiton has committed to, which will enhance air quality in the region before the facility is even operating.”

But EPA officials said The News’ method of totaling the emissions data “sounds fair.”

“If you add up all the tables, the totals would give you all the emissions from the project,” said Gerardo Rios, an EPA air permit manager in San Francisco.

Rios noted that the current air permit is only for the 289 tons of fixed-source emissions from the terminal itself, not the 182 tons of smog from ships.

At public hearings last summer, some Malibu residents demanded to know exactly how much smog would be generated by the LNG terminal and its fleet of ships. Following those hearings, EPA officials and other regulators asked BHP Billiton to supply that data.

Other new documents detail a meeting in Washington, also on Oct. 16, where BHP Billiton President Renee Klimczak told the EPA she had learned that the Ventura County smog board was planning to vote to clarify that its onshore smog regulations do indeed apply to Cabrillo Port. “BHPB stated that it does not consider the board’s opinion to be legally relevant,” wrote EPA air scientist Joseph Lapka, “and asked for EPA’s views on the matter.”

Lapka wrote that EPA told BHPB it has no views or decision, yet, on the contentious issue.

Last week, Ventura smog officials voted 9-0 that their own rules had been misinterpreted by EPA and the company, when they said the LNG terminal would not have to meet strict onshore smog rules. EPA says it will announce a new decision on the onshore smog rules early next year, and if it goes against the company, Ventura officials say it might be impossible for the project to be built.

Lapka also wrote that the company rejects possible California Coastal Commission jurisdiction over the smog rule issue. Coastal Commission staffers have been told by EPA that Cabrillo Port does not pass the strictest smog standards, and the Coastal Commission may withhold a coastal permit for the ship based on that.

In Malibu, city councilman Andy Stern said he wasn’t surprised that EPA is getting heavy pressure from the company. “They clearly would like to be exempt from the pollution standards that apply to other firms,” he said.

The EPA documents include records of meetings between BHPB officials and regulators, some of them as recent as four weeks ago, in which the company asked the bureaucrats to process Cabrillo Port’s air discharge permits as quickly as possible. The company told EPA that it wanted to get the smog permits at the same time that the Coast Guard and Commerce Department issue the overall project license, which the company says it wants before the end of the year.

But EPA’s Lapka said he told the company it must provide data that the company says would take five months to gather. In a memo last month, Lapka held firm and said the air discharge permit could not be issued until those questions are answered.

Among the latest unanswered questions from EPA is a request for the company to explain just exactly how much natural gas will leak from the ship.

“The Environmental Impact Report didn’t address such leaks at all, and that can be a significant problem at other similar facilities,” said Karen Krauss, an attorney at the Environmental Defense Center. “It looks like the EPA is following up on our comments that this needed to be addressed.”

Cassidy, in an e-mail from his Houston office, said state of the art engineering will ensure such leaks will be kept to an “immeasurably small” amount.

Many of the EPA questions are similar to those filed by EDC during the public comment period last summer. The EDC challenge is partly funded by contributions from the City of Malibu and local residents.

In another exchange, EPA asked the company why it had rejected a catalytic air-pollution reduction system for Cabrillo Port. According to EPA, the company’s answer was that the scrubber was not safe on a floating ship, as it would be potentially explosive, and that the machinery would tower high over the ship, endangering employees who would have to work on the machinery as the floating LNG terminal heaves with the sea.

EPA officials, however, said BHPB could lay the scrubber on its side on the floating ship by making the vessel longer. EPA told the company that its $20 million price tag for extending the ship is not an acceptable reason for rejecting the scrubber, which EPA says is mandatory because other LNG terminals use the same technology to remove air pollution from the exhaust.

BHPB has also backed away from a promise to use LNG as a pollution-reducing fuel for its tugboats and supply vessels, a major part of the company’s campaign to win community support in 2004.

The company’s president wrote this fall that “community concerns have repeatedly questioned the safety of natural gas-powered support vessels operating in and around Port Hueneme. Although we know from existing technology that natural gas-powered vessels would pose no particular safety risk to the port, we respect the safety-related concerns being raised.”

Klimczak said a new type of clean diesel engine will be used on the tugs, which she promised would be about as non-polluting as the promised LNG engines.

Among other documents in the file was BHP Billiton’s timeline, which shows the company plans to start construction on its floating LNG storage and regasification factory ship in another nation—no shipyard in the U.S. can handle the massive ship—on Jan. 1, 2009.

High-Ranking Schwarzenegger Official Joins Staff of LNG Company

BY HANS LAETZ

A second high-ranking official in the administration of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined the staff of one of the companies seeking to build three offshore Liquefied Natural Gas terminals in Southern California ocean waters.

Joe Desmond, former chairman of the California Energy Commission, has been hired by NorthernStar energy, the company that seeks to convert an unused oil drilling platform off Oxnard into an LNG terminal.

Until a few weeks ago, Desmond was the governor’s key advisor on energy matters in general and offshore LNG terminals in particular. The Energy Commission has been promoting LNG imports as an important step in diversifying California’s energy supply.

“Joe Desmond is a nationally recognized energy policy expert, and his presence will immediately enhance our management team,” said William “Si” Garrett, CEO of NorthernStar Natural Gas.

Desmond had also served temporarily as Undersecretary of Energy Affairs at the California Resources Agency, but could never gain confirmation from legislators, who felt he was too close to regulated businesses.

Last year, the Energy Commission’s chief LNG official resigned from public service and went to work for Tidelands Oil & Gas. David Maul is now a consultant for this small Texas company, which says it will build a floating LNG terminal somewhere in Santa Monica Bay or the San Pedro channel.

There are a total of five LNG terminals planned or proposed for the immediate area, including BHP Billiton’s for 13.8 miles off Malibu’s north end, the Woodside undersea terminal proposed for 22 miles south of Point Dume, and the Mitsubishi plant proposed for the Port of Long Beach.

The governor will have final veto power over the plans, and may have to decide on BHPB’s proposed Cabrillo Port next spring.

Two other close Schwarzenegger advisors, Mike Murphy and George Keiffer, work for law firms or lobbying companies that have received million-dollar contracts related to the building of LNG terminals in California.

The ramifications of the impact of government regulators entering the employ of those they formerly regulated is hotly debated in public policy circles.

Ventura Board Votes to Put Cabrillo Port on Stricter Smog Diet

Photo credit, MSN/Hans Laetz

TESTIMONY—Malibu activist Keely Shaye Brosnan addresses the Ventura Air Pollution Control Board at Tuesday’s hearing.

• Panel’s Unanimous Action Could Make It More Difficult for Project to Meet Requirements

A Ventura County smog control agency dealt a heavy blow to BHP Billiton’s plans to anchor a liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast, when it told federal regulators Tuesday that Cabrillo Port must meet the strongest level of pollution control rules.

By a 9-0 vote, the Ventura County Air Pollution Control Board asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to place the LNG terminal under the New Source Review guidelines of the federal Clean Air Act. The vote came after the board was told the LNG project may be impossible to build under the severe rules, which could require BHP Billiton to buy and retire existing air pollution credits in Ventura County that may not exist.

The smog board’s executive director, Mike Villegas, told the board that public testimony last summer convinced him it was a mistake for him to officially support a policy reversal on Cabrillo Port by EPA officials in 2005. The EPA switch came after local EPA scientists and lawyers felt heavy pressure from BHP Billiton, Australian government and White House officials to ease up on Cabrillo Port, the Malibu Surfside News has reported.

Villegas said the outpouring of public opinion at public hearings last summer, coupled with legal opinions filed on behalf of Malibu residents, “brought us to the realization that we were flawed in our decision, that there was a crack in our logic.”

“During the public comment period last summer, some enlightening comments were made that made me go back and look at our initial finding,” Villegas told the board. “When I face the fellow in the mirror that I see shaving, I want to make sure I see a face of integrity.”

At Tuesday’s meeting, Malibu resident Keely Shaye Brosnan implored the smog board to endorse Villegas’ finding, and “as the mother of two small children, one of whom has asthma,” tell the EPA it has also made a mistake.

Brosnan noted that the EPA decision to grant BHPB for an exemption “undermines our area’s commitment to improve air quality,” and said “there is no reason why BHP Billiton should receive special treatment, even if they have friends in the White House.”

But a BHPB lawyer urged the agency not to undo the change, which he said was unfair to do to the company at this late date. “There was a general understanding as to what was going to be the interpretation on Rule 26(c),” said attorney Tom Wood, who said it the company has relied on that interpretation as it prepares to build the LNG terminal.

Don Facciano, president of the Ventura County Taxpayers Association, said “the company has been spending a lot of money during the past year under the assumption that the EPA interpretation was acceptable to you, and now you want to unilaterally change it. Is that a flip-flop?”

But Linda Krop, lead attorney for the Environmental Defense Center, rebutted, “Remember, it was the EPA that first changed the rules, and now it is proper to ask them to go back.” EDC’s legal filings this year were the first to formally object to the EPA reversal, and were partly funded by the City of Malibu, California Coastal Protection Network and Malibu residents.

BHP Billiton’s attorney told the board the company currently plans to remove more pollution from California skies than required, even under the stricter rules, by removing two heavily-polluting tugboat engines from regular service between San Francisco and San Pedro. But environmentalists have scoffed at that plan as not sufficient, because the smog reduction must be accomplished near the same place that the new smog is created, which may not be possible given the lack of heavy industry in Ventura County.

The tighter smog rules were opposed by several Oxnard and Ventura residents. Chris McLaughlin said he was there “to represent the views of the silent majority who support this plant and the energy and jobs it will bring. It’s not right to change the rules in the third quarter.”

Oxnard Chamber of Commerce director Nancy Lindholm also blasted the decision. “We believe this issue appears political, given that it comes up late in the process after many public hearings have already occurred.”

But the EDC’s air pollution lawyer, Karen Krauss, urged the board to make the change back to the original interpretation. “EPA has chosen to single out Cabrillo Port for an exemption from the Ventura County regulations that apply to every other business. And Cabrillo Port is nowhere near the Channel Islands, much less on them, as the rule states.”

After the vote, BHP Billiton spokeswoman Kathi Hann said the board’s vote “was just their interpretation of a rule, and we’ll have to see what the EPA does.”

Indeed, the Tuesday vote hands the matter back to EPA officials in San Francisco, who are digesting more than 12,000 anti-LNG comments filed last summer. EPA officials said a final determination on the level of smog rules to be applied to Cabrillo Port will come this summer, a separate legal issue from the project’s overall environmental and operating permits.

The complicated issue boils down to Ventura County Smog Rule 26(c), which, when written in 1994, exempted a small Navy generator on San Nicolas Island and the lighthouse on Anacapa Island from mainland smog rules.

When it first examined the Cabrillo Port application in 2003, EPA ruled that BHPB would have to purchase 1.3 pounds of smog credits for every one pound of nitrous oxide emissions generated at the LNG terminal – a burden that could be impossible, given that there is not a lot of heavy industry in Ventura County, county supervisors said.

After the White House lobbying, EPA reversed itself in 2005 and “exercised its discretion” to interpret Rule 26(c) to mean the offshore plant and its 270 tons per year of smog-causing chemicals would be governed by the same rules as the small generator on San Nicolas Island, 60 miles distant, instead of the Ventura County shoreline 14 miles away. Net result: BHP Billiton would not have to meet the offset rules, which could kill the plant.

After the meeting, Malibu city councilman Andy Stern credited the smog agency’s director for changing policy after hearing from the public. “You don’t see that happen very often like that,” he said.

CAPTION 1. Photo credit, MSN/Hans LaetzTESTIMONY—Malibu activist Keely Shaye Brosnan addresses the Ventura Air Pollution Control Board at Tuesday’s hearing.

Democratic Sweep May Further Slow Malibu LNG Port Plan

• Boxer and Waxman Will Chair Committes and Increased EPA Oversight Is Expected to Follow

BY HANS LAETZ

The seismic shift in Congress—and two little-noticed electoral changes in Sacramento—may have very real impacts along the California coast, where new offshore oil drilling, and proposed floating liquefied natural gas proposals, may all of a sudden face tougher scrutiny.

Cabrillo Port, the floating LNG storage and regasification ship planned for Malibu waters, is sailing into its final decision-making period this winter, and coastal advocates said they expect close congressional scrutiny of a regulatory process they said was stacked in favor of LNG importers.

The immediate fate of the Malibu LNG terminal now sits with the little-noticed, three-member California State Lands Commission, which has two new members elected last week. Spokespeople for both Lt. Governor-elect John Garamendi and Controller-elect John Chiang both told the Malibu Surfside News it is too soon for either to make a statement about Cabrillo Port.

“I’m sure you understand the entire emphasis was on the election, and we are only now studying specific policy issues,” said Chiang spokeswoman Trisha Murakowa.
The Lands Commission’s third vote is held by a high-ranking official to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, and is expected to vote the governor’s bidding.

Schwarzenegger has backed off of earlier statements of support and just before the election issued a strongly-worded statement pledging a thorough look at Cabrillo Port’s energy supply, safety and pollution issues.

With the new commissioners being sworn in Jan. 8, commission spokesman Dwight Sanders said Monday that the Cabrillo Port Environmental Impact Report will not come up for a hearing and vote until March at the earliest, overshooting original estimates by months. “The process of evaluation continues, and we certainly think it will be completed by the end of the first quarter (of 2007),” he said.

BHP Billiton officials had targeted Spring 2005 as their target for securing permission to build Cabrillo Port, their marketing name for a 14-story-high set of rounded storage tanks, smoke stacks and regasification ovens that the Australian company wants to float in 3,000 feet of water about 16 miles southwest of Point Dume.

If the LNG terminal secures State Lands Commission approval, it would next go to the California Coastal Commission. If approved there, the reelected governor would have the opportunity to approve or deny the permit.

In Washington, efforts to loosen offshore oil drilling restrictions on California’s outer waters appear dead, with the U.S. House of Representatives version of a new offshore drilling bill left without its chief sponsor, defeated House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo.

A compromise Senate bill, which would not open up additional California waters, may be the best that drillers can hope for, according to Washington news reports.

On the Senate side, Sen. Barbara Boxer is in line to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and pledged to act on global warming issues as first priority. “Time is running out, and we need to move forward on this,” Boxer was quoted as saying during a conference call with D.C. reporters.

Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democrat who represents Malibu and L.A.’s Westside, becomes one of the majority party’s highest-ranking Congressman next session, and Waxman expects success for his Safe Climate Act in the 110th Congress. If enacted, it would extend California’s groundbreaking laws nationwide, and roll back the nation’s total allotted greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

“Global warming will be back on the agenda now, but whether anything gets enacted and signed by the President is another matter altogether,” was the pessimistic assessment by Marchent Wentworth, a legislative lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists, in a telephone interview from Washington.

Schwarzenegger’s law, AB 32, calls for similar rollbacks here, but some LNG opponents have cautioned that bureaucrats appointed by the Governor to implement AB 32 might favor the use of LNG as a “bridge fuel” for several decades. Conservationists say that will hurt the growth of renewable energy sources, while increasing America’s reliance on imported fossil fuels.

“Clean coal technology may not be ready for a few years, and I need to heat my house right now,” said Bill Cooper, director of the Center for LNG, a Washington lobbying group, in a telephone interview. “A lot of people feel natural gas is the cleanest burning fossil fuel we have available, with the lowest relative fossil fuels.

”But others in D.C. disagreed: “There is a fundamental disconnect between the push for lower carbon emissions and any movement towards LNG imports,” said Wentworth.

“I think BHP Billiton is delusional if they think their project will reduce our state’s greenhouse gases,” said Rory Cox, a San Francisco director of Environment California, an anti-LNG group. Cox’s group points to its studies which portray LNG as dirtier than coal, if the enormous amounts of greenhouse gas burned to liquefy, transport and regasify it are included in the equation.

Cox said the big implication of a Democratic Congress “is the shenanigans at EPA,” where lack of congressional oversight has led to some interpretations of pollution rules that benefited the energy industry in general and Cabrillo Port in particular.

Opponents of Dume Room Closure Pour Out Their Concerns Council

• The 35-Year-Old Bar Is Described as Worthy of ‘Landmark’ Status in an Emotional Appeal Before Members of the Malibu City Council Who Indicate They Can Do Little

BY BILL KOENEKER

The impending closure of a longtime establishment, the Dume Room, has stirred a whirlwind of protests, petition signings, letters to the editor and a visit by some of its most ardent fans to the Malibu City Council chambers this week.

Habitués of the Point Dume bar came to express to the council many of their personal sentiments about the changing face of Malibu and how the closing of the last neighborhood tavern is symptomatic of changes that have escalated in the last several months.

“Save the Dume Room. It is bigger than saving a bar. It is a huge blow to the [social] classes of Malibu,” said Jeff Kantor, who ticked off a laundry list of the shuttered establishments in Malibu such as Pierview, Windsail, the lumber yard, the hardware store and other venues, some of which he said are still closed and remain idle.

Mario Vitale, the operator of the Dume Room for the last four years, added to the litany of stores used by locals that are no more. “The [Point Dume] pet store is going, Malibu Gymnastics is gone, the hardware store long gone. There are 15 or 20 permitted uses that are gone,” said Vitale, who said it wasn’t simply self-interest that was driving him because he can take his liquor license anywhere.

“It is more than a bar. Your kids go there. Dads bring them in for their first drink legally. It is a rite of passage. Brides have met husbands. Even John Wayne drank there,” he added.

Radio personality George Reyes said he has been a fan of the Dume Room since 1999 when he moved to the coastal enclave. “It changed my life. I met all kinds of people there from blue collar to millionaires,” he said. “Everyone needs a place to escape.”

Longtime Malibuite Dixie Moore said the local bar has been the place to go “if you are sad or if you are single. It is a wonderful place. There are old guys and ladies from the Point Dume Club who go there.” Moore vowed that if the shopping center is developed, she will boycott it. “I will not step on that development. We will not give you our local sales taxes if we don’t have a place to go to,” she said.

Tony, who gave no last name, said the tavern is one of the last places in Malibu that is not pretentious. “It doesn’t depend on what you have or don’t have. If you have the power to save it, you should. A lot of places in town where you go, you have to have a lot of money,” he added.

Realtor Donna Bohana said she could go anywhere in Malibu, but by the end of the evening always found herself back at the Dume Room. She said she has been a fan since her college days 20 years ago. “It has been a part of my life since Pepperdine. I work across the street. I go to Nobu. I take my clients to Moonshadows or Sunset, but at the end of the night I like to take them to the real Malibu and sing Frank Sinatra songs. You guys have to do something. It should be landmarked. I can go anywhere in Malibu but I choose the Dume Room,” she said.

Jennifer Kantor said she is a DJ and has played everywhere in Los Angeles but singles out the Dume Room. “It seems a lot of places are disappearing and there is a bunch of high-end shops where nobody seems to shop. We don’t want this to be another empty lot. I’ve played everywhere, but the Dume Room has my heart,” Kantor told council members.

A majority of the council members were sympathetic to the outpouring, but said they were impotent in the face of market factors shaping Malibu.

“Everything you have said about the Dume Room is true. My father used to walk to it,” said Councilmember Sharon Barovsky, who said she did not see how the city could interfere with private property rights. “I won’t shop there if they do this, but I don’t see how we can legally do anything,” added Barovsky.

“I agree it is a part of Malibu. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to stop it. I don’t know how to stop evictions or rent increases,” said Councilmember Andy Stern.

However, Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich took a different tack. “I think there is something we can do. There are ways to legally control or make Malibu unique,” said Conley Ulich, who said she has been touting a proposed formula retail store ban to stop chain stores from wanting to do business in Malibu.

“You are absolutely right. Our town will look exactly like everywhere else, because that is what corporate America wants. It may not be too late. I think there is something you can do,” she added.

Councilmember Jeff Jennings said he remembered having a birthday party at the Dume Room 25 years ago and currently gets reports about the status of the bar from others.

“Everything you said is correct. Everything you said is true,” he added, saying that the lack of commercial retail space is the factor driving up rents in Malibu. “It is Economics 101. This is what happens, if you constrain the supply of a product. It is happening all over the country,” he said.

Jennings noted the “right message,” is a boycott. “The person who has the power is the person who owns it. He is the guy you really need to target,” he said.

Mayor Ken Kearsley suggested fans might form a co-op, get 200 people each to contribute $1000 and with the $200,000 obtain a room or meeting place. “We have a marijuana co-op. You could have a co-op. With $200,000 you could have a nice place,” the mayor said.

Malibuites reeling from the number of store closings and changes rapidly taking place in the commercial sector of the local community, may be taken aback to learn two more stores are shuttering their doors this month.

Champagne, a French bakery and cafe located in the Malibu Colony Plaza, and Malibu Pet Supply in the Point Dume Plaza are closing up shop by the end of this month, according to both owners.

A spokesperson for Champagne said the rent increased 75 percent and the business could make no money. The franchise operation is trying to relocate in Malibu, but has not yet found a suitable location.

Foot traffic is not enough to make the operation profitable for any location in west Malibu and if a location is not found the operation will cease.

Malibu Pet Supply started having its 50 percent sale last week and its doors will close next week, according to a store employee.

When asked if the store would relocate, the reply was, “There is no place to relocate in Malibu.”

Ferrari Guy Pleads ‘Nolo’ on All Counts to Bring Case to Close

Photo credit, AP/Ric Francis
IMAGE—Bo Stefan Eriksson’s change of appearance for the 10-day trial that ended in a hung jury last week gave way to prison garb when he pled out of three charges in Superior Court on Tuesday.

Photo credit, MSN/Frank Lamonea
TEAMWORK—Deputy District Attorneys Tamara Hall and Loren Naiman of the DA’s auto insurance fraud unit successfully prosecuted embezzlement and felony gun charges against the former Gizmondo video game company executive and sometime Formula One auto racer who was at the center of an international media maelstrom when he crashed a rare million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari in Malibu last February.

• Swede Is Expected to Serve One Year of Concurrent Three-Year Sentences and Then Be Deported

BY ANNE SOBLE

Four days after a Superior Court jury deadlocked in the case, the Swedish businessman and ex-felon, who was unceremoniously dubbed “Ferrari Guy” for his spectacular high-speed wreck of a rare, million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari in Malibu in February, pleaded no contest Tuesday to two counts of embezzlement and one count of felon-in-possession-of-a-gun.

The embezzlement charges stem from two sports cars, a second Enzo and a Mercedes McLaren SLR, that were leased from British financial institutions and brought to the United States without their permission before Bo Stefan Eriksson ceased making payments on the cars last year.

The surprise plea before Judge Patricia Schnegg came as the court was preparing for a separate second trial on the firearm charge and the retrial next month on a total of four counts of embezzlement and grand theft related to the two supercars that have since been returned to the UK.

The grand theft charges were dismissed as part of this week’s plea deal, which included admission of the allegation that the fraud exceeded $500,000 and packaged his earlier no contest plea on one count of misdemeanor DUI. Eriksson also acknowledged his 1994 conviction for fraud in Sweden.

Judge Schnegg immediately sentenced the 44-year-old to three years in state prison on each embezzlement count and six months on the DUI conviction. All sentences will run concurrently, and Eriksson will get credit for time served, which might mean that he could be out of jail as early as next November.

The former Gizmondo video game company executive was also ordered to pay $5000 in restitution. Another restitution hearing is set for Dec. 7, the date the retrial process was slated to start.

Eriksson’s Bel-Air home, estimated to be worth between $3.9 million and $5.2 million, has been seized and is being sold by a court-appointed receiver to pay the lessors of the cars and fines.

Eriksson’s high-profile defense team of Jim Parkman and William White of The Cochran Firm in Birmingham, Alabama, and Alec Rose, a Southern California criminal law specialist, indicated Tuesday afternoon that the pleading “was what Stefan wanted to do.”

Lead attorney Jim Parkman suddenly returned to Alabama last weekend, prompting some court observers to ask where the Ferrari case was heading after the jury deadlocked last Friday, 10-2, in favor of conviction.

The Cochran Firm recently filed a Notice of Appearance as counsel for Richard Scrushy in the post-trial phase of the high-profile HealthSouth case in Alabama that put the legal team in the media spotlight. Hearings in that case are getting under way.

Regarding the unexpected Eriksson plea deal, Parkman would only state, “Stefan came to an agreement [and he], the defense and the DA took a look at the case and where we were at.”

Although Eriksson had already turned down a plea offer, Parkman said, “Stefan had concerns overall, about both the cost and the energy of continuing the case. He wanted to move on, and ultimately be out of jail in a year. [He] believes that he can be successful in the future.”

Deputy DAs Tamara Hall and Loren Naiman served as the prosecutors. After the court session, Hall said that Eriksson “will be deported after he serves his prison term and will not be allowed to return to the United States.”

Hall summed up the District Attorney’s office’s contention that “justice was served by this plea. This is a fair resolution and is consistent with a majority of jurors who found him guilty on the embezzlement charges.”

Anti-LNG Forces Rally for Smog Agency Meeting Next Week

• BHP Billiton Spokesperson Says Misinformation Is Contributing to Bias Against Project

BY HANS LAETZ

Malibu activists are hoping that next week’s meeting of a little-known Ventura County smog agency may be the first step in fighting an Australian company’s plans to anchor an aircraft-carrier-sized ship permanently in the seas west of Point Dume.

Meanwhile, BHP Billiton has signaled to investors and world financial markets that its proposed $800 million liquefied natural gas terminal off Malibu will further overshoot its goal of securing permits and environmental reviews, and said malicious misinformation may be being spread about Cabrillo Port.

Coastal Advocates, the group organized to oppose a proposed Liquefied Natural Gas terminal off Malibu’s coast, is urging its members to travel to Ventura Tuesday to testify about what they say is a misuse of Ventura Air Pollution Control District smog rules by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

California Coastal Protection Network director Susan Jordan told Malibu LNG activists that “in the face of our successful efforts, BHP is going on the offensive. What we have here are two Ventura County supervisors who agree with our longstanding position that the EPA should not have reversed their [earlier] decision.”

The EPA is responsible for enforcing local smog rules at offshore port projects. Last year, after getting heavy pressure from White House energy officials and BHPB lobbyists, the EPA reversed its stand on the LNG terminal’s smog permits.

The EPA officials relieved Cabrillo Port of the tightest air regulations by interpreting local smog maps as placing Cabrillo Port in the Channel Islands air basin. Had the factory ship and its 270 tons per year of smog-producing emissions been considered onshore, BHPB would have had to buy and retire 150 percent of that smog generation ashore in Ventura County.

At Tuesday’s hearing, the smog agency is being asked by some of its members to say the new EPA interpretation is wrong, and ask that “new source review” requirements from the onshore smog basin be used. Those restrictions are so stringent they may make construction of Cabrillo Port impossible, coastal activists said.

The board is made up of the five Ventura County supervisors, and the mayors of the five largest cities in the county. It will meet at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Ventura County Hall of Administration, 800 S. Victoria Ave., Ventura.

BHP Billiton officials told financial reporters in Australia last week that their target for securing environmental review permits for Cabrillo Port has again been moved back to early 2007.

Kathi Hann, BHPB’s Oxnard spokesperson, told Australian reporters that recent demonstrations in Malibu were “Not In My Back Yard,” or NIMBY, protests. “If these protesters were really concerned about the environment, they would be going to protests in Long Beach and Baja California and everywhere else where projects like ours are being proposed,” Hann was quoted by a Bloomberg reporter in Sydney.

BHP Billiton’s chief spokesperson in Houston, Patrick Cassidy, told the Malibu Surfside News, “A lot of erroneous, misinformation about Cabrillo Port is out in the public, and this is contributing to the negative attitude some people have about the project.” Cassidy said he is not sure if the misinformation is “innocent because of the project’s complexity, or it’s malicious because of project opponents and competitors.”

In an e-mail, Cassidy said “while much discussion has been carried on about engineering processes, facilities, or locations, the crux of the issue is whether or not Californians want to ensure the supply of natural gas for their economy into the mid- and long-term future.”

The company has also for the first time acknowledged local news reports that the project will be referred to the California Coastal Commission, even if it secures construction permits from the California State Lands Commission in the current process. That further delay will push back Cabrillo Port from getting to the governor’s office for a final yes-no decision into next spring, some observers said.

Late last week, the Coastal Commission added Cabrillo Port to its agenda for its January 10-12 session in Long Beach. When the Cabrillo Port LNG terminal off Malibu was first proposed in 2003, federal officials said the permitting process would be fast-tracked and a final decision would be reached by spring of 2005.

But the application derailed when the Coast Guard said it could not process the application due to more than 120 unanswered questions about the project. State officials are also seeking answers for the 1400 specific critical comments filed by the public last summer when the project’s second Environmental Impact Report went up for review.

Substantive questions about the project must be sent to the company for response, and those responses must be evaluated, a state official said.

California State Lands Commission officials have said intense local opposition, coupled with unanswered questions about the project, have delayed the EIR permitting process until at least the end of this year, and possibly longer.

The fast-track clock will be restarted, officials said, after the EIR questions are answered. That federal-state fast-track clock was supposed to take 330 days, but is stretching into its third year as the company conducts additional research.

The so-called “data gap” questions involve major new sources of smog, ship collisions, impacts on whales and fish, earthquake dangers, and the process for drilling two pipes across 22 miles of undersea wildlife habitat off Point Mugu.

“In Malibu, you have a community that frankly doesn’t want anything within eyeshot of their coastline,” Michael Zenker, senior director of North American gas research Cambridge Energy Research Associates, told Bloomberg. “From that standpoint, the Cabrillo Port project is a particular challenge.”

Charter Service Issues May Be Related to Upgrading of Systems

• Customers Are Already Complaining

BY BILL KOENEKER

Without much fanfare, Charter Communications has quietly begun performing maintenance on its broadband network that is scheduled to take place periodically over the next two months, according to a recent company announcement.

But that may be the good news of a good news-bad news scenario if some early customer rumblings are well-founded.

The maintenance, according to Craig Watson, Charter’s vice president of communications, is related to two new upgrades the telecommunications firm plans to unveil in the near future.

“It will give us the ability to launch new products including faster Internet service and Charter will begin to offer telephone service,” he said. Watson indicated the new products will be offered by the beginning of next year.

The maintenance activity is apparently catching some customers off guard as complaints are coming into the local office and critical letters to the editor. are starting to appear

Charter’s intentions about its maintenance schedule were published in an announcement that was carried over the City of Malibu’s website. The city maintains a television cable franchise agreement with Charter, but has now authorized Verizon to enter the market and provide competition.

The announcement indicates that after midnight, customers may experience network outages from time to time. Company officials have assured customers that all services should be back online by 6 a.m.

Watson said the information was published on Charter’s website and several cities’ websites and broadcast on channel 15, a public access channel. The announcement of the new services was slated to follow.

However, some customers said they were experiencing problems after 5 p.m. and it was unclear if the difficulties stemmed from the planned maintenance.

Watson said without the specifics of each situation he could not comment on whether the evening interference was related to the scheduled work after midnight.

The Charter spokesperson acknowledged that there is always some “pain” when upgrades and expansion of a system takes place.

Watson said, though, the new services will offer customers new choices and conveniences. “Customers will be able to have two or three products on a single billing. With Charter phone they will be able to keep their equipment and their phone number,” he added, saying that for the first time it gives Malibu customers an alternative for phone service. Internet service will increase from five to 10 megabytes, according to Watson.

Trancas Standoff Jarred Even the Most Filming-Jaded Locals

Photo credit, David Avila
CRIME SCENE—One of the three armored vehicles and some of the SWAT team members ringed the driver of the truck who led a police chase from Oxnard to Malibu, ending in a Trancas area cul-de-sac.

Photo credit, David Avila
SCENE—Blood-soaked bandages and IV bags littered the scene after last week’s standoff.

• Car Chase Involved Armored Tanks, Helicopters and SWAT Crews Armed with Tasers

BY HANS LAETZ

Malibu High School locked its gates, armored vehicles raced with lights-and-sirens on through Malibu, and a Zuma Beach neighborhood was turned into a police zone last week, when an Oxnard man held police off for two hours in a tense standoff.

A national TV audience watched Ruben Marin, 46, take Oxnard Police officers on a pursuit from Ventura to Malibu, only to turn up a dead-end street Thursday morning. Residents taking out the trash or attending their dogs suddenly found themselves in the potential line of fire and were commanded to take cover.

School officials, not knowing the nature of the incident but seeing a fleet of helicopters orbiting the area, locked the gates and cancelled off-campus lunch periods.

The two-hour standoff ended when SWAT team officers fired at least five 40-millimeter beanbag shells into the truck’s windows to shatter them, and dragged the bleeding man out of the vehicle in the cul de sac. Marin suffered chest wounds from the beanbags, and self-inflicted knife wounds to his throat.

The incident had begun shortly after 8 a.m. when Ventura Police motorcycle officers spotted Marin’s truck pulling out of a motel and he refused an order to pull over, said Oxnard police Cmdr. Scott Hebert.

Oxnard Police officers picked up the pursuit when Marin exited the 101 freeway at Oxnard Boulevard, and headed down Highway 1 past Point Mugu. The chase reached speeds of 80 miles per hour, police said, as the truck sped through the curves along Pacific Coast Highway.

As the chase passed Leo Carrillo Beach, California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office patrol cars swung in behind the Oxnard units.

After running into heavier traffic at Trancas, Marin drove up several side streets and ended up cornered in the 6400 block of Surfside Way, a dead-end street. Residents scrambled for cover as Oxnard police officers pointed their guns at the truck and shouted instructions via loudspeaker.

Residents took cover behind masonry walls or went out their backyard gates, as police communicated with Marin in the truck. “He was talking to our sergeant over the cell phone, and to his son,” Hebert said. “But he refused to give up.”

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Office deputies brought in three armored vehicles and used them to pin the compact truck in, as SWAT officers took up positions behind walls and in nearby houses. Seeing that, the man started to cut himself with a large knife.

“We used a Taser to get him to stop the knifing, and then we dragged him out of the truck,” Hebert said. “Once he took action, we felt it important to go in and prevent him from injuring himself.

L.A. sheriff’s paramedics, who had flown into the area by helicopter, immediately began lifesaving efforts. Marin was flown to an undisclosed hospital and was in serious but stable condition with self-inflicted cuts and some trauma from the beanbags and shattered glass, officers said.

Surfside Way residents were allowed to re-enter the area about four hours after the incident began.

Marin might face a mandatory third felony strike sentence of 25-years-to-life if convicted on an existing felony spousal abuse charge, or a new felony fleeing charge that he faces, police said.

Governor Proclaims He Has Not Taken Stance on Cabrillo Port

Photo Credit, MSN/Frank Lamonea
STATEMENT—Gov. Schwarzenegger declined to address the Cabrillo Port LNG proposal on his recent visit to Malibu, but is now on record as taking no stand on the project.

• Worldwide Publicity on Malibu Opposition May Have Been a Factor in Statement’s Timing

BY HANS LAETZ

Five days after a large anti-LNG terminal rally in Malibu, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a statement stressing he has not taken any stand on the proposed Cabrillo Port planned for 13.8 miles off the Malibu coast.

The governor’s public stance takes a step back from earlier remarks, when the governor embraced liquefied natural gas terminals in general and the BHP Billiton project planned for Malibu waters in particular.

“I have not taken a position on the BHP project at Oxnard, or any LNG project,” the governor said in a written statement released last Thursday. “As governor, it would be inappropriate for me to take a position on any specific project before the review process is complete.

“The BHP project still has many hurdles to go before it could ever reach my desk. Let me also be clear that any proposal that comes before me would have to meet strict standards of both public and environmental safety before I would approve it.”

Anti-LNG activists in Malibu said the governor’s statement was welcomed. “I am pleased that the governor is now stating for the record that he has not taken a stand on any specific LNG facility,” said City Councilmember Andy Stern. “I do hope he keeps an open mind and will study any proposal himself in depth, prior to making any decision on one.”

Schwarzenegger’s recent statement of last week is the third time the governor has offered his views on offshore liquefied natural gas terminals. On July 1, while standing in an electric grid control room during a heatwave, the governor said he supports importing additional LNG into the state.

According to a transcript provided by the governor’s office, the governor was asked if bringing a large LNG plant to California was a good idea. “I think we have to look at all of those things,” he answered. “I think I’m a big believer in liquid natural gas.

“I think we have to find a good, safe area where we can build it and where it also is acceptable to the people. And I think it’s very important to know that those plants are very safe, and we have them all over the world. And where I have checked it personally, where they have them, there is no accident ever been reported.”

And last year, the governor told a reporter that the plant near Malibu makes more sense than a similar LNG terminal proposed for Long Beach harbor, within five miles of the homes of 400,000 people.

Schwarzenegger holds a double-digit lead over challenger Phil Angelides, who has appeared in Malibu to promise to veto the BHP Billiton proposal if elected.

The Cabrillo Port project is one of five LNG plants proposed for the California coastline, and its application was the first to be filed.

Since then, the project’s overall permit has been tied up as the Australian company answers 120 “data gap” questions from federal regulators and some 1,400 pollution, safety and operational questions filed by coastal residents.

Federal regulators evaluating the water discharge permit application say about 100 comments were filed by last week’s deadline. Earlier this year, the Environmental Protection Agency received more than 12,000 comments on Cabrillo Port’s proposed air discharge permit as well, most of them critical.

Comments were filed last week by the California Coastal Commission, Fish and Game Department and Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board, all of whom said the amount of hot water that Cabrillo Port would release into the Pacific might be harmful.

Although BHPB has redesigned that ship’s cooling system to dramatically decrease the amount of hot water discharges, the state agencies worry that plankton, fish eggs and other small marine creatures would be killed by water used to cool the ship’s generator.

City Wants ‘Greener’ Development

• Council Seeks Incentives for Sustainable Approach

BY BILL KOENEKER

Can the Malibu City Council encourage home builders to go “green” in designing and constructing new dwellings? That was one of the questions members explored at a special quarterly meeting last week.

The council had previously directed the staff to collect information about how other cities offer incentives for builders to use photo voltaic, or solar cell energy sources, or other related “green” building.

The idea would be to provide incentive-based programs such as moving to the head of the line or waivers of building permit fees related to the construction of PV panelings.

Municipal staffers, in a report, explained how other municipalities have approached the matter. Some cities offer an expedited review process typically requiring that the building meet certain thresholds of efficiency. Others direct cash payments for installation of PV paneling.

One city offers a complicated scheme in which a private company builds and maintains a PV system with no upfront costs to the city. Once online, the city pays the difference between the original energy costs and the new costs to the contractor.

Also discussed in the report is Senate Bill 1, the so-called implementing arm of the 2004 state “million solar roofs plan,” requiring developers, beginning January 1, 2011, to present to potential home buyers the option of installing a PV system in the residence and other incentives, including solar tax credits.

Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich said such incentives should be employed immediately by the city to counter the perceived need for liquefied natural gas. “We need to devise some incentives,” she insisted.

Councilmember Sharon Barovksy asked if the city had any kind of program currently available and was told no.

Mayor Ken Kearsley suggested the city conduct a workshop involving contractors and architects and have them come back to the council with incentives—either financial or help in the permitting process.

Councilmember Andy Stern said he was not in favor of putting another item on the staff’s plate unless it took up very little time.

Councilmember Jeff Jennings said he was initially nervous about the direction the matter was headed, but now feels the “carrot approach” of incentives is OK. Jennings said he would not want to place all of the emphasis on PV technology since there is other technology on the horizon.

The council debated about if other items on their wish list could be bumped to move the green building incentive proposal further to the top of the list.

“It is way past due. Let us do it now. It should be a number one priority,” added Conley Ulich. “I agree with Pam. It should be number one,” said Barovsky. “I would like to see something that addresses all of the sustainable issues.”

Council members agreed by voice vote to move the incentive proposal up closer to the top of the list.

VIEW PRESERVATION ORDINANCE

The council offered little hope for advocates who are trying to expand the scope of the city’s view preservation ordinance. Currently, a pilot program for Malibu Country Estates was sent back to the drawing board by the planning commission.

Council members expressed no sentiment about expanding the measure from its pilot program status, nor offered any other recommendations about changing the status of the enforcement issue, which currently proposed offers little involvement of the city in the enforcement arena other than for mediation or arbitration.

The proposed law for MCE would make the ultimate enforcement of the issue up to civil litigation.

MUNICIPAL FINANCES

Council members were told the revenues for the past fiscal year 2005-2006 exceeded the projected revenues by 108 percent. General fund expenditures for the same fiscal year were 82 percent of the annual budgeted amount. The city ended the fiscal year with almost $12 million in the undesignated reserve.

Council members patted themselves on the back for the accomplishment given the big ticket purchases made during that fiscal year such as the acquisition of the Chili Cook-Off property and purchase of Bluffs Park.

Ferrari Case Slated to Go to the Jury

• Wrangling Over Exhibit Admissibility Creates Delay

BY ANNE SOBLE

The jury in the first of two Superior Court trials for the Swedish businessman and racing car enthusiast who allegedly smashed up a million-dollar-plus Enzo Ferrari on Pacific Coast Highway in February, is expected to receive instructions and begin deliberating late Wednesday on four charges of embezzlement and grand theft against the former executive of the now-bankrupt Gizmondo video game company.

Similar charges against Stefan Eriksson, 44, related to the totalled Enzo were dropped when its lessor declined to participate in the case, but the allegations on leases for a second Enzo and a Mercedes McLaren SLR were addressed by witnesses from the two British financial institutions that hold the title on those two vehicles, which have since been returned to them.

Other witnesses included a customs broker, who addressed the complicated procedures Eriksson had to follow to bring the mini-fleet of super cars into the country, and a homeland security officer.

Judge Patricia Schnegg’s prohibition on cameras and audio equipment in the courtroom has resulted in limited media coverage of the week-and-a-half long trial, satisfying her concern that the international media frenzy that accompanied the February crash not create a similar trial spectacle and influence the jurors.

The decision not to provide daily trial transcripts, or dailies, further served to minimize media spotlighting of witnesses’ testimony and courtroom exhibits.

Predictions last week that the trial would wrap in less time than first forecast by both the prosecution and the defense fell by the wayside as the fine print of documents absorbed presentation time and arguments over exhibits became virtual cases of tug-of-war.

A pair of misdemeanor DUI charges against Eriksson from the spectacular crash were resolved with a no contest plea before the first trial began two weeks ago.

The District Attorney’s office indicates that it expects the second Eriksson trial on felony gun possession to begin as soon as the verdict is in from the first trial, but this may be subject to change.

This charge stems from a handgun found during a search of Eriksson’s Bel-Air residence. As a convicted felon who served prison time in Sweden, Eriksson is precluded from possessing firearms in the United States.

In yet another legal wrangle, Eriksson faces hit-and-run charges filed in municipal court by the Los Angeles City Attorney's office, involving an incident that took place Jan. 4, in which Eriksson, driving a Porsche Cayenne, allegedly rear-ended a Ford Explorer, and left the scene of the accident. It’s also contended that he did not have a valid California driver license and was uninsured.

City prosecutors maintain that Eriksson refused to give his ID to the other driver after the collision, got back in the vehicle and then drove way. Eriksson was not the owner of the Porsche, but police were reportedly able to trace the vehicle to him, according to the city attorney’s office.

Eriksson has been jailed since his May arrest. Bail was set at $3 million, but the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Agency has placed a hold on his release while it investigates possible irregularities when he entered the country last year, thereby precluding the posting of bail.