Publisher’s Notebook:

Mixed Messages in Malibu

BY ANNE SOBLE

Now that the U.S. Maritime Administrator, a title that always makes me think of Gilbert and Sullivan music, has officially closed the book on BHP Billiton’s proposed Cabrillo Port floating LNG regasification facility, Malibuites can experience a true sense of closure. This is probably none too soon, given some of the acquisition rumors—acquisition rumors are as basic as breathing in the energy and resources world—that Chinese government interests are nurturing fantasies of acquiring BHP as a hedge against that nation’s burgeoning energy needs in the decades ahead. And we thought the Aussies were a complicated lot. Imagine China’s lack of substantive environmental concerns and its freewheeling approach to labor rights and other social issues.

Don’t we all feel better knowing that the District Attorney’s office is going to keep Point Dume from going to the peacocks (yes, one should say peafowl, but hardly anyone calls them that)? The same DA’s office that couldn’t convict a celebrity of bad acting has decreed that the birds must be crated off to a sanctuary. Has no one looked into how the same county entities and the local government resolved the peacock problem in Palos Verdes Estates (after going all the way to the state Supreme Court)? The birds and the people seem to get along just fine down there. As for the local folks who can’t handle occasional bird noise during the mating season, why did they want to move to an area that takes pride in what little rural heritage it has left? And if noise really is their concern, where are they when people are needed to take on the round-the-clock barrage of leaf blowers and megadecibel motorcycle exhaust pipes?

Hope the recent increases in the sheriff’s department budget for Malibu doesn’t include a surcharge for the extra costs connected with the Hilton circus that is now underway. Of course, this has nothing to do with celebrity, campaign donations or photo opportunities. One of the saddest aspects of it all may be that there’s a generation or two that will never understand the iconic movie tag, “We’ll always have Paris!”