Council Outlines City Budget for 2007-2008

• Law Enforcement Costs to Rise

BY BILL KOENEKER

The Malibu City Council will get its first look-see at the proposed budget for fiscal year 2007-2008 at its meeting this week on Tuesday night after The News goes to press.

They will be told that total revenues are $30.4 million and expenses should amount to $32.9 million.

Some of the highlights of the budget include an estimated eight percent increase for the contract with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for a total operating budget of $5.4 million for law enforcement services, according to Administrative Services Director Reva Feldman, who noted the $436,000 increase reflects the rise in personnel costs and does not include any additional services.

On the upside, Feldman laid out the increase in revenues showing that many taxes, including property tax, utility user’s tax and sales tax, all increased substantially.

There is an anticipated increase of $382,830 from property taxes, a $200,000 rise in utility user’s tax, a $268,000 increase in sales taxes, $471,000 windfall in revenue from service charges and about a $360,000 increase in interest earnings.

Money doled out to non-profits in the form of grants was previously given the nod by the council and is reflected in what is called the general fund grant program, which was increased to $150,000.

The council’s administration and finance subcommittee has recommended and the majority of the council members are expected to approve awarding about $138,000 to various groups including $50,000 to the Malibu Green Machine for the Pacific Coast Highway median improvements, $10,000 to the Friends of Malibu Urgent Care, $10,000 to the Malibu Stage Company, $15,000 to the Malibu Symphony Association and $15,000 to the Point Dume Community Association, with the provision that the council can recommend what organization should receive grant funds.

Additionally, the council is expected to approve the A&F subcommittee’s recommendations for $10,000 to the Malibu Chamber of Commerce and various other lesser amounts to several wildlife organizations, a film foundation and mountain rescue team among others.

The A&F subcommittee also recommended using funds from what is called the general fund income programs designation, which is earmarked for low income serving applicants.

The recommendations include allocating $25,000 to the Malibu Community Labor Exchange, $15,000 to the Malibu Foundation for Youth and Families, $10,000 to SOS Community Outreach, $9000 to the Children’s Lifesaving Foundation, $7000 to Nature of Wildworks, $7500 to Webster Jewish Family Services, $5000 for Meals on Wheels, $6000 for Webster Bilingual Services and $2500 for Children’s Creative Workshops.

Feldman noted that the breakdown of the total $225,400 recommended by the subcommittee is that $28,500 will fund programs at local Malibu schools, $14,900 will go to organizations assisting animals, $49,500 will benefit the arts and $132,500 will fund programs enhancing and benefiting the community.

Some of the other highlights of the budget relate to increased expenditures for the upcoming fiscal year including spending $400,000 for plan checking services, $300,000 for contract personnel for additional parks and recreation programs, $84,000 for the capital campaign coordinator contract, $75,000 for the 2008 municipal election, another $50,000 budgeted to fund the increases for the general fund grant program, $40,000 for irrigation repairs at Bluffs Park, $38,000 for street sweeping, $35,000 for website upgrades, $15,291 for webcasting of planning commission meetings and $4,500 for ribbon-cutting events.

The capital improvement budget for the next fiscal year totals $10.7 million. Street overlay appropriations amount to $600,000. Feldman noted some of the line item budget is for works in progress, including the Las Flores Creek restoration with a $4.3 million price tag, the Cross Creek Road restoration project with a line item budget of $2 million and the Legacy Park improvements with a line item budget of $815,000.

The amount included in the proposed budget for Trancas Park is $503,010 while the actual cost is about $3 million. Feldman indicated the staff is currently figuring out other funding mechanisms.

The council at one time thought they had appropriated all of the monies for the Trancas improvements and were taken aback at a previous session when Feldman told them the staff was still looking for funding to bridge the shortfall.

At that point, a majority of the council asked Feldman to take the money from the general fund, but given the millions of dollars required, the staff is exploring options.

The budget for the upcoming fiscal year provides funding for 72 full-time equivalent employees. No new positions for the fiscal year are planned.

‘Mel Gibson Bill’ to Deter Sale of Information Passes Assembly

• AB 920 Sponsor Sharply Criticized by Celebrity Website that Obtained Actor’s Arrest File

BY ANNE SOBLE

AB 920, the bill that would make it a crime for public safety employees to be a party to so-called checkbook journalism—the sale of information, especially celebrity news, to broadcast, print and Internet media outlets—has passed the state Assembly by a vote of 74 to 0.

The measure goes to the Senate next week, where passage is also expected. The bill must be signed by the governor before it can become law, which is anticipated.

The measure, authored by Assemblymember Julia Brownley (D-Malibu), was recently introduced at the request of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, following the brouhaha that ensued after documents on the July 2006 DUI arrest and alleged anti-Semitic rant by Malibuite Mel Gibson became public soon after the incident took place.

Documents from Gibson’s Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station arrest file appeared on a celebrity-oriented website within a few hours, fueling an international media feeding frenzy that became a news event in its own right.

Last week, that website, TMZ, attacked Brownley and the measure. A posting on the site read “Brownley seems to think TMZ may have actually bribed someone to get the critical pages of the arrest report detailing Gibson’s anti-Semitic tirade. Well, Brownley is an idiot,” and reiterated that “TMZ didn’t pay squat.”

After repeating Brownley’s statement that “Mel Gibson was one of those cases where information was given out before his due process was executed,” the site asked, “So why is Brownley wasting taxpayers’ money by pushing a bill with a totally faulty premise? Why isn’t she interested in the fact that Sheriff’s officials lied to the people they serve and manipulated evidence?”

Adding an ironic touch, the site appears to regard the measure as celebrity favoritism, further skewering the representative with, “How’s this for a theory—she represents the district in which Gibson and other celebs live. We’re guessing Brownley is banking on a big celebrity turnout at her next fundraiser.”

Brownley has not commented directly on the TMZ assault, but said this week that AB 920 “is not targeted at any specific media outlet. I have no personal knowledge as to which outlets may or may not engage in this conduct.”

As for the actor whose behavior (for which he subsequently apologized with comparable fanfare) triggered the maelstrom, Gibson spokesperson Alan Nierob told the Malibu Surfside News the longtime local resident “is not available for comment on this matter.”

The LASD has been conducting an internal investigation of how the material was leaked to TMZ. LASD Chief Roberta Abner, who now heads the division that is overseeing the investigation previously stated that its conclusion is expected shortly.

Computer files and other records belonging to the arresting officer, Deputy James Mee, were removed from his home under court order but the department has not disclosed the results of their analysis or any other aspects of the internal review. Mee is now reportedly back on assignment in the field, but not in Malibu.

Brownley has stated that she does not know whether information was sold in the Gibson case, but stressed that the LASD is concerned about the possibility that scoop-hungry media outlets are offering to pay public safety officers for information, spurring her concern that such sales could “taint the right to a fair trial.”

AB 920 targets sheriff’s deputies, police and California Highway Patrol officers, as well as law enforcement agency staff employees who sell privileged information, in addition to reporters or other media reps who offer to pay for information. Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and fined up to $1000.

Brownley said, “In the age of instant information and Internet sites...the pressure to ‘break a story’ has raised concerns that some of these news websites may attempt to gain inside information on a story of a breaking event by paying a peace officer to obtain the information prior to its proper legal and timely release.”

If this takes place, she said, “This is a breach of the public trust, and, if violated, should be a crime. Adding a Penal Code section to prohibit...profiting or making any type of financial gain by providing proprietary department information...would dissuade both the peace officer and the media outlet from engaging in this activity.”

The mainstream media have remained quiet about the measure to date. Most adhere in principle to the notion that news organizations do not pay for information.

Although First Amendment concerns are raised whenever constraints on free speech rights are promoted, there have been reports of behind the scenes lobbying by some media for the measure. Mainstream media face fierce competition from alternative outlets and self-interest might favor legislation that appears to curb their no-holds-barred news edge.

Recognizing the strong judicial protections for information dissemination, the bill has no effect on the volunteer whistleblower who assists in uncovering government or corporate abuse.

Giving information out of moral outrage, or even spite, might violate an agency’s policy and be subject to disciplinary action, but it is not criminal.

Mountain Property Owner Wins Key Ruling on Public Access

BY HANS LAETZ

A Las Vegas radio tower entrepreneur who posted key sections of trails in the Santa Monica Mountains with signs demanding that hikers “get the hell off our land and don’t come back” has won an important decision from the California Court of Appeals.

His attorney said the ruling will prevent agencies like the California Coastal Commission from forcing landowners to allow public access to trails across private land or roads that, while traditionally open for general use, have never been formally deeded over by landowners.

“It’s a very basic right that has been affirmed here, to keep people off of your property,” said Encino attorney Fred Gaines who represented James Kay Jr., the owner of Castro Peak. The court opinion was released Tuesday by a three-member panel of state judges in Santa Ana.

Kay’s company, LT-WR, LLC, won a decision that a California property owner has the right to prevent others from crossing his or her land on what traditionally were held to be undeeded public trails. Common law allows someone to acquire a so-called “prescriptive easement” by openly using a trail for a set period of time, but Kay’s lawyer said the ruling requires easement claims to be proved in court.

The commission’s arguments were part of an effort by it and the National Park Service to maintain access to Castro Peak, a 2800-foot high promontory on the Santa Monica Mountains backbone above Latigo Canyon Road, east of Kanan-Dume Road.

The appellate court held that “inherent in one’s ownership of real property is the right to exclude uninvited visitors,” and ruled that fences and signs aimed at preserving the company’s ownership of the land must be allowed.

The Coastal Commission had argued that the signs would prevent people from using the trails and acquiring what are known as prescriptive rights to use the routes, which are basically the legal right to walk or drive across someone else’s land.

Enforcing such rights is an important tool for government agencies that are seeking to acquire access routes to beaches or scenic sites across private property owned by persons who might be forced to give up legal rights as they seek rezoning or building permits.

The trails at issue in this case had been used by hikers for years before Kay bought Castro Peak in 2002 and fenced it off. The commission argued that fences and signs might preclude the gaining of rights to cross the land in the future.

“If those people are going to try to claim a prescriptive right to that land, they are going to have to go to court and establish those rights,” Gaines said.

“It’s a very basic right, to be able to exclude people from your own land,” he said.

The ruling also held that Kay’s company was allowed to keep a mobile home on graded roads on the property.

Gaines said the caretaker on the property has been bothered by people knocking on his door seeking help, and that some small fires have been set by trespassers.

“It’s private property that is surrounded by public land, and if the public agencies want a trail there, they can either buy the land from my client or construct a trail around it,” Gaines said.

Spokespersons for the Coastal Commission and other recreation agencies could not be reached for comment.

The Los Angeles Times, in a 2004 report about Kay, said he had sued 23 of his neighbors for their reported refusal to grant him a prescriptive easement on the access road to Castro Peak. The federal government was also investigating whether Kay had mistakenly built his mountaintop radio relay facility on federal land at Castro Peak.

Gaines said Kay “is pleased with the decision.”

Publisher’s Notebook:

‘Mel Gibson Bill’: AB 920—Whose First Is It?

BY ANNE SOBLE

AB 920, a bill to to prohibit the sale of privileged information by law enforcement personnel appears to be sailing through the legislative branch and destined for the governor’s desk. Few argue against disclosure of information that compromises due process rights, but others want assurance this isn’t a backdoor approach to First Amendment curbs. Establishment media, which intone the axiom that they do not pay for information, have kept their distance from the bill, for the most part viewing the measure as a slap at celebrity-oriented outlets. But the lines of journalism are blurring as the mainstream media increasingly take their cues from the deprecated celebrity hounds and benefit editorially and financially from news frenzies that follow sensational disclosures by celeb websites and print and network magazines. Establishment media pretend to hold their noses, but they eagerly jump into these frenzies, further legitimizing this form of journalism. If A pays for news, then B, C, D and E pick it up, who’s in violation of AB 920?

That journalists espouse not paying for news has always clashed with the fact that highly-paid publicists, PR firms, advocates and consultants are mainstays of the news-generating network. There is also the issue of blanket protection for free speech, which has never meant unremunerated. What about the view expressed by a longtime waiter in Malibu who supplements his income with tips to the glossies? “The writer gets paid and the photographer gets paid. I provide the information for what they write and shoot. Where is it written that this should be a free service?” Ultimately, what is or is not protected as freedom of speech is going to be subject to demands from the alternative media. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution provides that “Congress shall make no law...abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press...” The Fourteenth Amendment makes that prohibition applicable to the states. Article I, Section 2(a) of the California Constitution provides that “every person may speak, write and publish his or her sentiments on all subjects....A law may not restrain or abridge liberty of speech or press.” There’s clearly still a lot to debate.

Archaeologist Forms Group to Address Issues Raised by Clovis Point Find

• Among Goals of Friends of Farpoint Is Legislation Assuring Protection of Cultural Heritage Sites

BY ANNE SOBLE

The archaeologist at the Malibu location where an authenticated Clovis cultural era spear point was found in 2005 has announced the formation of a group to try to protect the site that could date back 11,000 years, as well as raise public consciousness about the need for ways to address conflicts over site access with private property owners.

Dr. Gary Stickel said the first aim of the organization, called Friends of Farpoint, is to “immediately save the Farpoint site for its proper preservation and conservation.”

To this end, the archaeologist said the group seeks to “foster a National Park Service connection to the site.” Stickel said he has met with officials of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area and discussed the possibility of a future Farpoint exhibit, as well as enlisted support from the NPS and other public agencies for the site’s protection.

Stickel said the primary longterm objective of the Friends is to “foster better legislation (not only for the City of Malibu, but at the county, state and federal levels) to preclude problems, such as at Farpoint with access to the site and concern about destruction of artifacts, from occurring at other locations.”

The archaeologist said the new organization will also “seek creative ways to enhance the cultural resources,” emphasizing the ability of these resources to provide potential answers to some of the many questions that exist about prehistoric North American migration and habitation.

Among the broad-brush issues is whether the data support the “European origins” theory for the origin of the Clovis culture in the New World, as opposed to the traditional theory, which holds that the first Clovis people were the ancestors of Native Americans who came from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge into Alaska and then inhabited North America.

Stickel said, “Actually there are problems with both theories, and I am neutral, wishing to keep an open mind until more evidence can be produced, hopefully in part from our Farpoint site, and that is why it is so important for our nation’s history.”

He also emphasized that “we collected a good deal of data that indicates that the Chumash Native American People occupied the Farpoint site for thousands of years, and we were not allowed to fully document their occupation or even how long they occupied the site. That needs to be done.” The Chumash are Malibu’s first recorded residents.

There is also the desire to do more work at the site because “the Clovis Point was dug up by a backhoe, not carefully and scientifically,” but Stickel indicated, “I am actually emphasizing at present the need to preserve and conserve the site for future research (perhaps 50 to 100 years from now) when archaeological techniques will be greatly improved.”

He said, “The site has been suffering destruction in the forms of many long trenches, pits and excavations for a reflecting pool, all of which were unnecessary as there were other options to provide those facilities for the new mansion complex, and all of that destruction was done without any archaeology on those affected site areas.”

Stickel stressed that “it is a sad fact that our laws, not just in the City of Malibu where the site is located, but in general, are not strong enough to protect and allow us to conserve such a unique, highly significant site, one that may well yield critically needed information on how our continent was first inhabited.”
Anyone seeking more information about Friends of Farpoint can contact Stickel at 323-937-6997 or dregarystickel@netzero.net.

File Closed on Cabrillo Port: Governor Sounds Death Knell

• Veto Sends Strong Environmental Message to Future Energy Projects in the State

BY HANS LAETZ

Local ocean advocates said they have started planning “a really big party” after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger nailed the coffin shut on a proposed $1 billion liquefied natural gas terminal off the Malibu coast Friday.

The governor’s veto ends a contentious four-year battle over what would have been the largest floating industrial facility along the California coast, a controversy that brought Malibu celebrities, including Pierce Brosnan, out to campaign against the project proposed by Australian mining giant BHP Billiton.

Early this week, the Environmental Protection Agency said it was halting its effort to determine if BHP’s Cabrillo Port LNG terminal could get an exemption from federal and state smog rules. “Our recommendation has become moot,” an EPA official concluded, as EPA closed the file on Cabrillo Port.

And, perhaps not coincidentally, a competing firm that wants to unload LNG near Oxnard promised last week to “voluntarily” meet the same Ventura County smog laws that BHP said were impossible. That announcement from Northern Star was quietly floated three days before the governor had to make his decision on BHP’s Cabrillo Port.

And reaction to that veto from Malibu to Sacramento to Texas went along predictable lines, with coastal advocates left jubilant.

“Three years ago, this looked like a done deal, and that ship was a sure thing to be anchored off the coast of Malibu,” said Malibu City Councilmember Andy Stern who was out front in opposition to the project.

Shirley Godwin, an Oxnard organizer who worked for four years against the project, said, “The legal team and technical experts from the California Coastal Protection Network and the Environmental Defense Center did outstanding work.

“Our elected officials spoke out, investigative reporters provided us with important information,” Godwin said. “Numerous organizations from throughout the west coast gave their support. The residents studied the issues and wrote letters, walked neighborhoods, made phone calls, and attended many, many meetings.”

In Australia, a disappointed Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said that “not being successful simply means we have more gas to sell in other markets, probably at a higher price.”

He told the Australian Broadcasting Company, “This decision means Australian LNG exporters are able to pursue markets in Asia and India and in the Asia Pacific rim,” he said.

“We’re thrilled, we’re ecstatic,” said Susan Jordan, director of the California Coastal Protection Network.

“We respect, but are disappointed by the governor’s decision to disapprove Cabrillo Port,” said Patrick Cassidy, BHP’s communications director, from his Houston office. He said it was too early to say what would happen to the handful of employees at the company’s Oxnard office.

The proposed facility, a floating aircraft-carrier-sized ship that was to be anchored 13.8 miles off Leo Carrillo State Beach, was effectively stalled in April by two independent state agencies. The governor’s action Friday formally ended the application process and eliminated any and all possibility of court review, no matter how unlikely it is that a judicial challenge could have succeeded, opponents said.

Schwarzenegger had voiced early support for the Cabrillo Port plan, and Stern said his decision was dramatic. “He obviously listened and respected the opinions of the people along the coast,” Stern said.

“BHP always marketed this as an Oxnard project, and didn’t ever mention that it was closer to Malibu,” said CCPN’s Jordan. “I want to single out the efforts of Pierce and Keely Brosnan for really bringing this to the fore.”

The actor and his wife, an environmental journalist, helped organize a “paddle-out” at the Malibu Pier last fall that attracted hundreds of Malibu residents and worldwide news attention to the LNG battle.

In his veto message, the governor voiced support for the concept of LNG imports into the state. “But any LNG import facility must meet the strict environmental standards California demands to continue to improve our air quality, protect our coast, and preserve our marine environment,” he wrote.

“The Cabrillo Port LNG project, as designed, fails to meet that test,” Schwarzenegger concluded.

Last April, the California State Lands Commission held that Cabrillo Port would add more than 250 metric tons of greenhouse gas per year to the world’s atmosphere, if the state counted the worldwide emissions caused by compressing natural gas off the Australia coast and shipping it across the Pacific.

“There has been a great change in the Administration’s attitude towards LNG,” said Jordan. “For the first time, we hear him talking about worldwide greenhouse gas emissions caused by LNG imports.”

Jordan said her group does not necessarily oppose LNG imports, but has not been shown any need for a foreign fuel that some industry analysts say is both more expensive and more polluting than domestic natural gas supplies.

Santa Barbara environmental attorney Linda Krop said, “Both the commissions and the governor realized that LNG is not a clean fuel and is not a bridge fuel to help us until we come up with clean technologies.”

Cassidy said it was too early to say if BHP would come back with a redesigned LNG terminal for the lucrative California natural gas market. The company might have made $50 billion over the next 40 years if it had won the race to be the first LNG terminal in California waters, Australian government officials had said.

More than 40 LNG import terminals are being proposed around the nation, but given their great expense, federal officials doubt that more than a few will be built. BHP’s project was the only California LNG terminal to complete the regulatory process, although the Sempra Corporation is about 75 percent complete building an LNG terminal for the California market in Ensenada, Baja California.

BHP is partner with Woodside, another natural gas company, in several Australian gas fields, and Woodside is about to file its application to construct two LNG unloading buoys at a site midway between Malibu and Catalina Island. Cassidy said BHP and Woodside are also jointly involved in many projects around the globe, but it is too early to say if some sort of joint BHP-Woodside LNG terminal here is in the works.

Industry analysts note that BHP’s gas fields off Australia are far offshore, and that Woodside might have to level an endangered coral reef to build its Australian LNG gasification shipment harbor.

Two other firms are also planning to ask permission to unload LNG offshore, one at an oil-drilling platform in the ocean near Oxnard, and the other near some existing offshore oil rigs off Huntington Beach.

In Sacramento, a spokesman for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association said he was pleased the governor came down in favor of LNG imports in general.

“We appreciate that the governor agrees that we need LNG as a part of our energy portfolio,” said Gino DiCaro, the group’s spokesperson. “While we are disappointed he did not approve this project, we are confident that LNG is a safe and clean alternative.”

Council Gives Nod to Skateboard Event Week of July 4th

• Critics Query Timing and Traffic

BY BILL KOENEKER

Just in case there is not enough traffic and visitors this summer during the Fourth of July week, the Malibu Mother Nature Street Fair and Festival may be coming to town with the blessing of the Malibu City Council.

The council was asked last week to consider whether the city should host the festival on July 7 in what officials claim is an attempt to showcase Malibu’s environmental efforts and possibly benefit the Malibu Legacy Park fund.

However, one critic contends that the event is a skateboard festival cloaked in Mother Nature’s clothes.

The staff report indicates the event would include booths and activities throughout the day, promote environmental products and sales, such as sustainable housing, solar and wind energy, local water studies, organic cosmetics and solutions to global warming. In the evening the so-called worldwide concerts, which would be filmed in cities on seven continents that day to promote global warming awareness, would be projected onto an outdoor screen.

There was a mention in the staff report that the promoters suggested the “possibility” of a surf contest or skateboard contest to be held in conjunction with the festival event.

However, Point Dume activist John Mazza called the event no less than an international skateboard contest whose sponsors include Billabong and Element Skateboards. The event’s website claims Malibu is being targeted for attendance to match a London event that drew 20,000 visitors.

“These types of sponsors don’t do little events. The city needs to determine if it is going to promote an event on the July 4 weekend. This is not a small event. This is a corporate event,” he added.

Council members were told the fair and festival would be held at no cost to the city, that it is a family program, and Malibu would become part of the global warming event that same day. Festival organizers promise they would help with the fundraising for Legacy Park with the possibility of $43,000 going to city coffers.

Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich, who helped spearhead the request, acknowledged there are still issues concerned with parking, suggesting that Legacy Park could become the parking lot for the event and the city could charge $20 per car. “It would make money for the city,” she noted.

Festival organizers, who were on hand to promote the event, said their skateboard program is for amateurs and could not be considered a professional event. They touted the girls skateboard contest as an example.

Councilmember Andy Stern tried to minimize traffic concerns by saying that July 7 is not technically the Fourth-of-July weekend, although the Fourth falls on the Wednesday of that week and people may try to extend the holiday. That first July weekend traditionally draws large crowds.

Councilmember Sharon Barovsky said she could support the event since the city would not have to pay for anything and there was no staff time involved. “I am going to support a scaled back version,” she added. “I like the idea of girls at the skate park.”

“I don’t understand people [being] against girls skateboarding,” said Councilmember Ken Kearsley. “Mazza is against all skate boarding.”

After the meeting, Mazza dismissed Kearsley’s comments, emphasizing that what he opposes is promoting events in the middle of the summer when beach traffic is at its heaviest.

Stern and other municipal officials have often said the city hosts about 15 million visitors per year. There was no discussion why council members would want to encourage more visitors other than to add some money to the park fund.

Mayor Jeff Jennings said he had looked at the website and remarked there were references to London and Malibu being targeted for the crowd attendance.

Jennings, though, said he was impressed with some of the other event supporters, including the Boys and Girls Club, YMCA and the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.

The mayor noted the organizers would have to secure a temporary use permit and that any discussion of live music at the Civic Center could generate the ire of nearby residents.

“Live music in the Civic Center is a source of controversy and contention,” he added. “It seems to be focused on skateboarding, but skateboarding seems to go along with very loud music.”

City Manager Jim Thorsen said the short amount of time left for applying, noticing and possibly having a TUP appealed could be problematic for the organizers. “There is a limited time. It has to be done tomorrow,” he said.

State Collects Data on PCH U-Turn Accidents at Zuma

• Caltrans Explores How to Address Growing Concern

BY HANS LAETZ

Traffic engineers from the California Department of Transportation have asked for recent collision reports and other data for the stretch of Pacific Coast Highway at Zuma Beach where three people were killed in a pair of similar collisions blamed on illegal U-turns.

Caltrans engineers will also review whether existing pavement stripes are obvious enough directions to drivers that U-turns are prohibited along PCH where it fronts one of the busiest public beaches in Los Angeles County.

“We want to look at each location along PCH separately, to determine what remedies may be appropriate for any problems that we might find,” said Caltrans spokesperson Judy Gish.

“We want to work closely with the city and county to solve any problems and make that road as safe as it can be,” she said.

The illegal turns issue at Zuma Beach has hit a responsive nerve among Malibu High School parents, and several said they sent letters to Caltrans this week to demand installation of either yellow plastic paddles or a curb median.

“This scares the living daylights out of me,” said Mary Ellen Sherry, parent of a 16-year-old novice driver. “I don’t think the tourists have any idea how dangerous this parking and turning situation is.”

Parent Pam Eilerson said her family had one car destroyed and another car damaged in two separate Zuma crashes caused by illegal U-turns. The second crash was caused when traffic braked suddenly after a fire truck emerged from the shoulder parking lane and made a fast U-turn, without benefit of lights and siren.

Malibu Public Safety Commission chair Carol Randall said the installation of some sort of physical divider on a few select sections of PCH may be necessary. “But down here at this end of town it would be a disaster.”

Randall lives on PCH east of Malibu Pier, where a continuous center left turn lane runs nearly the entire eight-mile stretch of PCH. Given that some intersections are more than a mile apart, Randall said median barriers there would be a bad idea even if they had frequent turn lanes for midblock U-turns.

“We need to be able to turn into our homes,” she said. “But certainly out there [in western Malibu], there are places where medians of some sort are very likely needed.”

Western Malibu residents expressed concern last week when news of the second fatal wreck spread. Some had written to Caltrans in 1999, when a center median along a short stretch of PCH near the beach was removed for a repaving project. After citizen complaints, Caltrans reinstalled median curbs near Morning View Drive and at Trancas Creek, but left three quarters of a mile between those spots marked only with quadruple yellow stripes.

The four-lane highway has a 50 mph speed limit, and hundreds of visitors daily take advantage of free roadside parallel parking to avoid the $8 entrance fee at Zuma Beach County Park.

Fire department drivers reportedly prefer the paddles over concrete curbs, because the plastic devices can be driven over and will bounce back if a fire truck or ambulance needs to head into opposing lanes to move around stopped traffic. Curbs break truck axles, a sheriff’s deputy said.

Traffic collision and citation data are accumulated by local law enforcement agencies and forwarded to Caltrans on an annual basis. But Gish said the agency has been made aware of the recent problems by a newspaper report and wants to act quickly, if warranted.

In the two recent cases, motorists who had parallel parked on the highway shoulder elected to make sweeping U-turns across all four lanes of traffic and over the painted median. Two people were killed last December, and a third person was killed at the same exact spot May 8.

A similar U-turn killed two Malibu men on a motorcycle near Gladstone’s restaurant in Pacific Palisades last year, and a young Pepperdine University student died when he U-turned on a two-lane section of PCH north of the Malibu city limits last December.

Publisher’s Notebook:

BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port: The Ghost Ship Goes Down

BY ANNE SOBLE

The governor still drives a Hummer, but he sent the message that his environmental conversion is not just another photo opportunity when he dealt the final blow last Friday to BHP Billiton’s attempt to control the state’s energy policy, degrade its air quality and endanger regional marine life for up to 40 years. By every criterion other than the BHP bottom line, the offshore floating LNG ship dubbed Cabrillo Port was the wrong design in the wrong place at the wrong time. This quintessential case of corporate hubris should become a textbook study of how a behemoth can miscalculate the power of people to fight back when their communities are threatened. Malibu, Oxnard and their neighbors created a tidal wave that no amount of largess could quell.

Even though the media from Mississippi to Mumbai focused on entertainers, including some who were visible briefly, if at all, at events, let alone at the planning table, more than celebrity is needed to get beyond the first stage of the public policy agenda-setting process. Stars attract the spotlight, but it takes commitment and hard work to challenge an international powerhouse. It also takes heart. From the consultants to the attorneys, from the scientists to the high-schoolers, all of the testimony and every letter, e-mail, and hand-lettered sign made a difference.

We applaud the governor’s resounding veto letter to the U.S. Maritime Administration, but we do not endorse his belief that an offshore LNG facility is required to provide a bridge on the road to clean energy alternatives. Short-term crutches may be needed during the transition to renewable resources, but any project that calls for a decades-long contract, as Cabrillo Port did, holds the state hostage and slows down the creative application of real alternatives to put the planet on a sound environmental path.

It is imperative that Sacramento now undertakes a thorough assessment of the state’s energy needs free of special interest lobbying. This should be done with complete transparency to assure that the results do not become a precursor to one LNG project, or another, getting a green light while the environmental red signal is flashing.

City Leans toward Bluffs Package

• Could Add One Ball Field as Well as a Dog Park

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu City Council members had a chance to comment this week on the latest proposal by a developer who has offered to build a ball field and other park amenities next to Bluffs Park in exchange for permits to build five bluff top mansions on what is commonly called the Crummer property.

City Attorney Christi Hogin introduced the potential deal for the 24-acre parcel as an unusual way of doing business for the city, but said she wanted feedback for further negotiations if the council concurred, which it did.

“What are your recreational priorities? We are not locked in,” she said. “I will consider your comments direction to negotiate.”

Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich said she thought a dog park would be a good idea, and also a skate park and/or a soccer field. “I would love to see a teen/senior center. A tot lot may not be necessary, since we are already building one next to the Landon Center,” she added.

Councilmember Ken Kearsley said he opposes moving the skate park up to Bluffs Park.

The idea had originally been posed by John Mazza, who, after the meeting, said he did not believe the city had yet firmed up its skate park since there is a new owner of the property. The city does not own the skate park, its use was donated by the previous property owner.

Kearsley talked about priorities. “My first choice is a dog park. We have everything there for teens and youth. We really need something for a whole different group of people,” he said.

Councilmember Sharon Barovsky wanted to know if the ball field would be too small for soccer play. “I think it has great potential. We need a dog park. As for the skate park, why would we give up what we already have? It would be a net loss,” she added.

Councilmember Andy Stern, without explanation, said he had no comment.

Mayor Jeff Jennings said he had hoped the design could be done differently to extract one more field. “Could you move the entrance road closer to Pacific Coast Highway? I don’t favor moving the skate park. I am not wild about a dog park. It is not a great mix. People bring dogs to the fields already. My major reaction is can you squeeze more space,” he said.

The owner, Richard Ackerman, wants to build five single-family homes on lots varying in size from 2.5 acres to 3.75 acres. The residences would range from 9500 to 11,000 square feet.

At the same time the developer is building the homes he would build one Little League field (not three diamonds as previously reported), create two separate areas for public use, which could be utilized as picnic areas, tot lot and/or a dog park at the city’s option and expand the current Bluffs Park parking lot by adding about 35 additional spaces.

Hogin said the city would require an Environmental Impact Report and told council members although the homes are big they comply with current zoning laws.

Governor’s Decision on LNG Is Due by Monday

• Still No Word from Sacramento

BY HANS LAETZ

With a deadline approaching next week, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is not yet ready to disclose what he will do with the Cabrillo Port hot potato that was tossed in his lap last month.

But legal observers are shaking their heads and continue to say the governor has no power to approve the plant, and that even if he gives it a formal OK, the project’s state and federal applications will both remain dead.

At issue is the request by Australian energy conglomerate BHP Billiton to anchor an LNG receiving and gasification factory ship in the Pacific Ocean within sight of Malibu’s northern coastline. Although the $1 billion project was shot down by a pair of autonomous state agencies last month, federal law still requires action from the governor.

A spokesman for the governor’s office, speaking for background purposes only, said this week that the governor is expected to make a determination at the end of the 45-day review period, but a formal announcement of when that may happen has not been made yet.

Even a decision by the governor to do nothing is an affirmative step, as the federal government’s Deepwater Ports Act will view that silence as a pocket approval, one legal expert said.

Under several Byzantine and conflicting state and federal laws, the state permit required for Cabrillo Port was killed April 9 by the Lands Commission, along with the environmental impact report necessary for construction. Those decisions cannot be appealed to the governor, and attorneys say there are no grounds for a court challenge to the state panel’s judgment that the project is simply not desirable.

However, BHP Billiton officials continue to say they are considering their legal options.

Meanwhile, the companion federal approval process clock is also ticking, even though the federal permit is stalled after it was unanimously rejected by the state Coastal Commission April 12. BHP Billiton has until mid-August to ask the White House to overrule that decision, as the Bush administration has the power to revive the federal process.

Lawyers say the governor’s opinion on the presently dead state permit is due within 45 days after a federal Maritime Administration hearing that was held April 4. According to a statement by the governor’s chief deputy legal affairs secretary, Louis Mauro, on April 10, that action “is due by [Monday] May 21.”

Sixth U-Turn Fatality in Two Years Sparks Local Concern and Call for Caltrans to Address Issue

• Few Traffic Control Options Are Available That Can Prevent Driver Disregard of the Law

BY HANS LAETZ

Thirty-five miles of bright yellow plastic paddles from McClure Tunnel all the way to Las Posas Road may be the only way to keep motorists from making the type of illegal U-turns on Pacific Coast Highway that have killed six people over two years, one official says.

A 77-year-old woman was the latest casualty, killed at Zuma Beach last week when she was ejected from the vehicle driven by her 80-year-old husband as he made an illegal U-turn at the exact spot where two people were killed by another U-turn accident five months ago.

Locals had complained publicly in 1999 that the state’s removal of a curb median down the center of Pacific Coast Highway at Zuma would lead to an increase in deadly U-turn accidents.

In the past three years, six persons have been killed in accidents on the local stretch PCH caused by illegal U-turns. Records show that most of the drivers were from out of town, but one was a longtime Malibu resident.

“I don’t think there’s any of us in Malibu who hasn’t had someone make a quick, illegal U-turn in front of us to grab that ‘perfect parking place,’” said Trancas resident Lori Gray. She wrote a letter to Caltrans in 1999, and said she will write another plea now to demand that a median of some sort be reinstalled on PCH at Zuma.

Last week, Kim Hyong Mi , 77, of Los Angeles, was killed instantly when she was thrown from a Ford Explorer that was T-boned by a pickup truck traveling on Pacific Coast Highway near Guernsey Avenue, the Los Angeles Sheriff’s office reported. Mi’s body was so badly disfigured in the wreck that longtime motorcycle patrol officers said they were physically sickened.

Her 80-year-old husband and driver of the Explorer, Myung Ho Lee, was treated for cuts and bruises, as were three other passengers. All five persons in that car were Los Angeles residents who reportedly had just finished a day of fishing in the surf.

Segundo Herrera of North Hollywood was driving the Toyota pickup that broadsided the Ford as Lee pulled from out from the parking lane and crossed four lanes and a quadruple set of yellow lines. Deputies said he was also treated and released for cuts and bruises, as seat belts and air bags prevented more-serious injury.

Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Sgt. Philip Brooks said Lee could be cited for failure to yield and making an illegal turn, as state law treats double sets of double lines as a no-turn zone.

“Mr. Lee has not yet been cited, when we finish the paperwork, we will forward it to the District Attorney’s Office for them to determine if charges are to be filed,” Brooks said.

The prosecutor’s decision will weigh the fact that Lee lost his wife, who was ejected from the car and would have suffered only slight injuries had she been wearing her seat belt, Brooks said, as well as his advanced age.

Last December, 67-year-old Malibu architect John Martin made an illegal U-turn at the exact same spot as last week’s accident, a very-slight curve on the 50-mile-per-hour highway about midway between a pair of legal U-turn channels. Also in that case, Martin had been parked and pulled out to be T-boned by a car traveling at the speed limit.

But in that case, the other driver was fatally injured. Joan Carrillo, a 56-year-old woman from Santa Paula, died a week after the wreck.

Just a few weeks earlier, 18-year-old Chase Heger of Laguna Niguel was killed when he made a similar turn in front of a car on a two-lane section of PCH near Deer Creek Road, just west of County Line Beach. The Pepperdine University freshman was a photographer for the school’s Graphic newspaper.

And two Malibu High graduates and lifelong buddies were killed by a U-turning driver in 2005. Keith Naylor, 21, and Tyler Love, 22, were on a motorcycle that was struck by a car driven by an Orange County man in Pacific Palisades, a section of PCH within the Los Angeles city limits.

That driver, Mark Paozella, was charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter and is fighting those charges.

Veteran Malibu City Councilmember Ken Kearsley said the U-turn problem has vexed Malibu for decades. “When you have 14 million visitors a year using the highway, many will not realize how fast that traffic is moving,” he said.

“Maybe there should just be those paddles everywhere except where you can make a legal turn,” Kearsley said.

The paddle solution, Brooks said, may be ugly. But their installation near Geoffrey’s and a pair of restaurants on PCH at Point Dume has successfully reduced illegal turns and accidents, he said.

Reinstallation of curbed medians, or more-drastic freeway-style “Jersey barriers” is opposed by firefighters who must often cross the center line to respond to accidents, Brooks said. “They don’t like the curbs because they break their axles on them.”

Fire trucks can drive over the plastic paddles if necessary, as they bounce back, Brooks said.

The longtime traffic expert said the Zuma Beach stretch of state Route 1 is a particularly-dangerous section of road, because of the huge number of persons unfamiliar with the area who park there to go to the beach without paying the $8 charge in the parking lot.

“It’s a public beach and everyone has to have a place to park for free,” he said. “The Coastal Commission would not like it if you banned parking on the side of the road for safety reasons.”

When Caltrans repaved PCH at Zuma Beach in 1999, several residents wrote letters to the state to complain that the removal of the small curbed medians would lead motorists to make illegal U-turns. The state responded that the curbs were causing water to pond in the left lanes during rainstorms.

Even for local resident Gray, PCH “is very confusing—yellow things on some places, concrete curbs on others, and then just plain stripes at Zuma. “Maybe some people think it is OK to make a U-turn unless there is a median.”

Further confusing the situation is a ban on U-turns at some of the legal left turn channels, such as Morning View Drive.

And several of the legal U-turn bays feature power poles close to the shoulder, making it impossible for anything bigger than a motorcycle to complete the turn without stopping and backing up. Trancas residents said the U-turn lane on northbound PCH at Guernsey is a particular hazard of this type.

Caltrans eventually reinstalled a curbed median on PCH between Morning View and Busch drives, and cut drainage channels in it. But the three-quarters of a mile of highway along the rest of Zuma, which is heavily used by people who parallel park along the road, was not given a replacement median.

That stretch of highway includes the spot where the one person was killed last week and the two were killed last December.

CAPTION 1. Photo credit, MSN/Hans Laetz
PADDLE PATROL—Concerned residents are asking whether the installation of yellow plastic paddles to serve as road dividers is needed on stretches of Pacific Coast Highway where errant drivers are making dangerous U-turns.

Publisher’s Notebook:

Traffic Tribulations

BY ANNE SOBLE

Malibuites seem to thrive on no small element of contentiousness in their public policy perspectives, but one of the few areas of general agreement is that traffic problems abound on Pacific Coast Highway and the canyon routes that traverse the land slide of the PCH and spill into it. The PCH serves for all practical purposes as a mini-freeway without the freeway constraints. Whether it’s congestion, illegal U-turns, drivers under the influence, or the lack of convenient parking, the coast route is beset with so many woes that it has been classified as over capacity by every criterion of road evaluation. Whether the problem is locals with a sense of entitlement, commuters who don’t understand the signage or visitors awestruck by the ocean view, the accident statistics are cause for alarm.

In this week’s issue alone, concerns are being raised about the number of traffic accidents on the stretch of roadway across from Zuma Beach. Calls for the return of a median in the area or the installation of those bright yellow plastic divider paddles becoming increasingly prevalent wherever drivers think that traffic laws don’t apply to them are echoed by growing numbers of residents. In addition, concern about speeding motorcycles and cars is addressed from the residents’ and the accident victims’ points of view. Irresponsible drivers may be a very small minority, but they are a minority that represents a danger to everyone driving on local roads. Manufacturers market machines that far exceed legitimate onroad capacity, and the auto and biker media flog and flack a cult of speed and engine power, contributing to a mindset of driver recklessness. Anyone who wants to let a vehicle rip can take it to a track or other closed course. Drivers should stay off Malibu’s roads unless they agree to follow the law.

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the California Highway Patrol talk the talk about traffic safety, but until they ride the ride and are out on the roads in sufficient numbers to cite, cite and cite again, making it clear that local traffic laws are here for a reason, traveling through Malibu is a game of chance. A game where the odds are in no one’s favor.

Peafowl Politics Fly into City Council Chambers

BY BILL KOENEKER

Springtime on Point Dume means the mating season for the wild peafowl that roam the small peninsula. And as sure as the season arrives, there appears to be new residents who complain about them. The issue has come up several times in the past with Malibu City Council members repeatedly siding with the wild birds.

That was the case again this Monday night when Charlene Kabrin, a Point Dume resident who likes the birds, came to council chambers to inform them of the unfolding events.

Mayor Jeff Jennings picked up on what Kabrin was talking about. “The problem has come up before about the wild peacocks living on Point Dume for many many years,” said Jennings, who asked that the information be forwarded to the city manager for further review and handling.

Jennings was talking about in 1999 and again in 2005 when the council tackled the issue of the feral status of the birds.

On several occasions some homeowners have been cited for either feeding the birds or allegedly keeping them on their property. The citations were issued by the Los Angeles County Animal Control Department, which contracts for services for Malibu.

City council members during both occasions intervened, insisting that the peafowl were wild.

Members have repeatedly said it was most fitting that former City Manager Harry Peacock have the last word on the matter. Peacock, in a definitive statement endorsed by successive councils wrote, “If the peafowl are not domestic, what responsibility does any property owner have to keep them off their property? For example, there is a flock of green parrots in Malibu which fly all over the city. I am afraid your department has tumbled into a neighborhood dispute of some kind.”

The animal control department, at that time, then took a closer look at the legal interpretation of game fowl confinement and/or ownership, and concluded the birds aren’t being housed or confined in any way—that they are free to come and go at will.

The department head said his staff “acted in haste when we issued the order,” and the matter seemed resolved.

However, in 2005, the animal control department, much like this year, again issued an order. Councilmembers agreed, at the time, to issue their own set of policies about wild animals in Malibu. Those policies were again reiterated when the city renewed a contract for services with animal control.

Jennings, at this week’s meeting, said he thought it might be new staff who were not familiar with the city’s policy. “They may not be sensitive to how we have worked this out,” added Jennings, “We have gone through this before.”

Kabrin, who is a Realtor, has said in the past she believes that the complaints may be generated from new residents who do not read or chose to ignore the Malibu real estate disclosure regarding local wildlife, which is a mandatory disclosure given to all buyers of real estate in Malibu.

Tour de France Champ Fights for Title in Pepperdine Courtroom

• Hearing on Doping Allegations and Testing Process Puts Malibu in the World Spotlight

BY HANS LAETZ

More than 75 journalists from around the world are camped out at Pepperdine University Law School this week to see 2006 Tour de France champion Floyd Landis on trial for allegedly cheating during his miraculous bike race victory in Paris.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency has borrowed the school’s Darling Trial Courtroom to conduct a 10-day, trial-like arbitration hearing before a three-judge panel.

Newspapers, sports magazines and broadcast networks from the U.S. and Europe are in Malibu covering a story that might blow the lid off international efforts to police athletes who may be using illegal drugs to juice up their blood before competing.

Landis, who lives and trains in the wine country of Riverside County, arrived at the hearing as it started Monday and said he looks forward to clearing his name. He faced a scrum of reporters and proclaimed that he wants to expose what he called hypocrisy and shoddy science in the international sports world.

“We’re excited, and we’re ready for the whole world seeing what the details are,” the cyclist said as he entered the courtroom.

“We have a very good team, and we have an exceptional case.”

The hearing began with attorneys from the USADA explaining the highly technical scientific tests used to detect drugs that could increase an athlete’s capacity to absorb oxygen in the blood, and illegally increase endurance and stamina through artificial means.

Landis had injured his hip and finished poorly on the next-to-the-last stage of the 26-day bike race across France last summer. At the team dorm that night, he told National Public Radio, “Somehow a bottle of Jack Daniels appeared, and although that’s not the normal procedure before a stage, that’s what happened.”

The next day, Landis accomplished a remarkable feat by winning the final stage. Several weeks later, French newspapers reported that a blood lab there had detected synthetic testosterone in blood samples that were taken just before the final leg.

The French testing agency said the sample showed high levels of the hormone—an accusation that could strip Landis of the title and ban him from cycling competitions for two years.

The cyclist has traveled the nation and worked the Internet in a fundraising effort to help pay for the million-dollar-plus defense campaign he is mounting.

Michael Henson, the executive director of the Floyd Fairness Fund, said Landis “is working for the goal of fair sports and the accuracy of science.”

Henson told reporters that the subjective interpretation of misleading or ambiguous blood tests by laboratories that may have a nationalistic bias is the heart of Landis’ case.

“There is a consistent failure by the anti-doping agencies…that are funded by Congress—to deny him the due process rights he is entitled to,” Henson said just before Monday’s hearing began.

“This was never a positive test to begin with,” Henson said. “The science was extremely sloppy, and most of all, this is a case about science.”

Landis again said he would testify during the hearing.

The large contingent of journalists is expected to generate intensive coverage of the arbitration hearing throughout its duration. The hearing is huge news in France, Germany and other countries where competitive cycling is extremely popular, correspondents said.

The hearing is following U.S. courtroom procedures. Should Landis lose, the panel’s decision can be appealed to an international sports agency.

The Malibu law school, perched on the side of a mountain and overlooking the Pacific Ocean, has no connection to the cycling controversy other than hosting the event, a school official said.

The irony of the world’s reigning cycling chamption defending his title in Malibu may have been lost on those journalists who do not know that last year the City of Malibu refused to allow Pacific Coast Highway to be tied up for the Amgen Tour of California, the biggest bike race in this country.

CAPTION 1. Photo credit, MSN/Hans Laetz
NEWSMAKER—CBS Radio reporter Steve Futterman questions Floyd Landis as the cycling champion arrives Monday at Pepperdine University for a United States Anti-Doping Agency arbitration hearing that could strip Landis of his 2006 Tour de France title over blood doping charges.

Building Plans Near Bluffs Park Could Add Ball Field

• Developer Offers a New Diamond and Other Amenities to Get OK for Five Homes

BY BILL KOENEKER

Building plans and a potential development agreement for the so-called Crummer property located adjacent to the Bluffs Park are expected to be revealed by the city attorney at the Malibu City Council meeting next week.

The 24-acre property, once owned by the Crummer family and currently owned by AZ Winter Mesa LLC headed up by Richard Ackerman, has long been coveted by city officials to increase the size of the playing fields and improve the parking at the park.

In a somewhat unusual preview, City Attorney Christi Hogin has agreed to approach the council with the new owner’s plans, which include what Hogin is calling a “generous gift concurrent with development plans.”

The owner wants to build five single-family homes on lots varying in size from 2.5 acres to 3.75 acres. The residences would range from 9500 square feet to 11,000 square feet.

At the same time the owner is developing the homes, he would build a Pony League baseball field, create two separate areas for public use which could be used as picnic areas, tot lot and/or a dog park at the city’s option and expand the current Bluffs Park parking lot by adding about 35 additional spaces.

Malibu Mesa Estates would be extensively landscaped for privacy and to also blend into a park-like setting, according to Hogin. The plan includes landscaping to separate residential portions of the property from the public areas. The residential area would be gated.

The city attorney, in a memo to council members, acknowledges the unusual action of bringing the matter before them prior to a completed application.

“I want to bring this proposal to the city council’s attention because the owner is offering a generous gift concurrent with its development plans and as part of its planned development program. This aspect of the project falls squarely within the purview of the city council,” she wrote.

The city attorney makes it clear that Monday night’s presentation is an opportunity for the city council to consider whether a majority of members are at all interested in the proposal.

“You are not being asked to evaluate the specific development proposal. The city has not yet received a complete application and the city has not had the opportunity to evaluate any potential adverse environmental impacts. Before committing the substantial resources required, the owner has asked whether the concept is of interest to the city,” she added.

Hogin also revealed the same owner has purchased the property adjacent to the Crummer property known as the Cataldo property. That property is not part of the discussion and the city attorney indicated the owner is applying for permits to develop that property consistent with the current zoning.

Richard Volpert, who often represents media mogul Jerry Perenchio and community relations consultant Richard Lichtenstein of Marathon Communications are representing the owner, according to Hogin, who said Perenchio has no involvement in the matter. “I think Ackerman is using the best people in the business.”

Malibu Red Flag Alert: 40-Plus-mph Winds and Temps in the 80s

BY HANS LAETZ

Malibu weather has always been somewhat topsy-turvy, with frequent hot winds in the winter and cool fog in the springtime. With that in mind, this week’s hot and dry winds left the weather forecaster explaining the weird conditions as “a pattern of heat and dryness that we usually don’t have this late in the spring.”

Confused?

There is no other explanation for a reading of 83 degrees at Leo Carrillo State Beach last Sunday, when the normal high for the date is in the 60s, said weather specialist Stuart Seto at the Oxnard National Weather Service office.

“These strong offshore winds are a weather pattern that we usually don’t see much of after March, and surely not in May,” Seto said.

The pattern was all too familiar to Malibu residents. The Santa Ana winds that normally trail off in January just haven’t let up this year.

“I don’t like it at all,” said Point Dume resident Dawn Randall. “I want a little bit of a change of seasons.”

“I went up to Camarillo to run errands because it was too hot to walk on the beach,” said west Malibu resident Joni Efros. But she was quick to add that she wasn’t complaining: “I try not to have too many expectations.”

Winds Sunday maxed out at 64 miles per hour at Laguna Peak, just above Pacific Coast Highway at Point Mugu. Winds at a measuring station above Malibu were clocked at 46 mph, and, along the Malibu beaches, they frequently exceeded 30 mph on Sunday morning.

Humidity readings dropped to 5 percent at places that normally see 99 percent humidity on May mornings, part of a fire weather combination of heat, wind and dryness that triggered official red flag alerts.

Los Angeles County firefighters responded to the red flag warning by moving a strike team drawn from various Los Angeles-area stations to Agoura Hills. Five firetrucks staffed by 20 firefighters went onto temporary duty in the western part of the county as part of that move-up, along with 19 extra patrol trucks, nine water tankers, a bulldozer team and two helicopter tender units.

A similar chess move last January was credited by experts as being the crucial difference in stopping the fast-moving fire that demolished six houses along Malibu Road. The fire’s spread to the east and west along the Malibu bluff was prevented by the strike team after it crossed through Malibu Canyon.

“We just have to prepare for what has become a never-ending fire season,” said county fire inspector Ed Lozano. “Generally when we get five-to-six inches of rain in a season, we can call the fire season off.

“This year, we got three-and-a-half.”

The burn index, a mathematical formula that computes the weather and the condition of brush, stood at 88 early this week. “You divide that by 10 and that’s the average flame height we can expect in a brushfire,” Lozano said.

High winds diminished somewhat Monday, but not the red flag warnings. “It’s not just high winds that trigger fire weather,” said the weather bureau’s Seto. “It can also be a combination of very low humidity and high temperatures, which is exactly what we’ve got.”

Of course, not everyone objects to the hot weather. “I love it,” exulted Latigo Canyon resident Jon Gindick. “The heat and the solar energy heats up my pool that much better.”

Malibu Archaeological Find Is a Point of Contention

• Artifact Could Have Impact on North American Migration Theory While Roiling Local Waters

BY ANNE SOBLE

Malibu celebrity status can take many forms, but one of the more unusual recipients of local attention is a spearhead, or projectile point, that could have been used by hunters in the Clovis cultural era around 11,000 years ago to pursue a giant mammoth or buffalo in the vicinity of what is now Point Dume.

The so-called Clovis point even has its own media-savvy spokesperson, an archaeologist who consulted for the “Indiana Jones” film trilogy named Gary Stickel, who says the artifact is “a major discovery of national and international significance.” He also contends that the private property where the point was found, which has been designated Farpoint on the state archaeology rolls, should be the subject of additional research.

The point was found in September 2005 by Edgar Perez, a cultural resources specialist for the Tongva Tribe in Los Angeles, who was hired as the Native American monitor at a Point Dume residential construction site. Stickel said Perez was overseeing backhoe digging and spotted the spearhead in the bucket before it was crushed.

Dr. Stickel says that the crew’s elation at the find was not shared by the owner of the property, whose identity and address are not being disclosed to protect privacy as well as prevent vandalism of the site. He says the owner has questioned the authenticity of the artifact and prevents research from continuing at the site.

The archaeologist also contends that City of Malibu planning personnel have declined to cooperate with facilitating additional work at the location. He asserts that the city may have tried to block a press conference that Stickel scheduled last week on the grounds of the Page Museum with its backdrop of the La Brea Tar Pits, where examples of the animals that Clovis hunters stalked can be now seen.

Stickel says that a staffer at the museum told him that “the City of Malibu phoned,” then declined to elaborate further.

Malibu Surfside News calls to the municipal planning department for comment on Stickel’s assertions of what he calls “city censorship” were not returned.

Stickel says the purpose of the press conference was “to make the public aware of what we found and garner public support for more research.” He and colleagues stress the importance of the spearhead, the first example of Clovis culture found this far west, hence the site being named Farpoint. The significance of the discovery is reiterated in numerous communications from archaeologists and anthropologists at universities and museums.

The point itself has been authenticated by Dr. Dennis Stanford, the director of the Paleoindian/ Paleoecology Program at the Smithsonian Institution, who writes that he examined the point and “there is no question that the artifact was made using Clovis technology and thereby indicates that the site was occupied by Clovis people over 11,000 years ago.”

Stanford adds, “The discovery of a Clovis age occupation at the site is extremely important not only for the local archaeological record, but for understanding the earliest pre-history of the Americas. Hence the site is of national significance and requires an interdisciplinary research program and protection.”

The point and other site data are now housed at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History.

Stickel says the residence on the property has been completed, stressing he “never tried to stop it,” but he is now concerned that trenches dug for sprinkler systems have impacted the grounds.

The archaeologist says, “There are eight No Trespassing signs” on the two-plus-acre property, “some probably there for my benefit.” Still, he said he is pleased that the property has extensive surveillance equipment, because otherwise “crazies might come out and try to vandalize the site.”

Interestingly, some descendants of the post-Clovis Chumash, traditionally considered Malibu’s earliest residents, are wary of Clovis findings. Their oral histories may vary but, in some form, they subscribe to the prevailing coastal migration route theory that the first “Americans” were Asians who crossed the Bering Strait from Siberia.

Dennis Stanford, however, has put forth the thesis, which Stickel thinks the Clovis finds support, that the earliest migrants came across the Atlantic from southwestern Europe on ice packs that bound all of the land masses closer together some 21,000 to 16,000 years ago.

This is not just ivory tower quibbling, but highly-charged debate that is closely interwoven with ethnic politics and beliefs. The Clovis point is not some esoteric curio, but a potential confirmation of who initially populated North America after the Ice Age.

The question of who got here first not only has tremendous implications for history, but also for the professional careers of individuals who ally themselves with one theory or another. That is assuming one is willing to discount any possibility that both migratory patterns could have taken place simultaneously.

Stickel stresses that the “Farpoint Site may well yield more data critically important to our understanding of how the New World was first inhabited by the earliest people. Any portion of the site may contain a Clovis human tooth, and DNA analysis of it would help scientists to identify the human genetic origins of the New World.

“There’s a fantastic panorama of human occupation here and we need to understand it.”

He contends that “cultural resources should be treated like some mineral rights and granted special status. We need to find ways to facilitate obtaining this material so it is available for the common good.”

Stickel says that because of his emphasis on the importance of accumulating this data, he has clashed with City of Malibu personnel who he says are more concerned with expediting Malibu private property development than adding to the knowledge of who were the community’s earliest residents.

Last November, one of the many scholars interested in the Farpoint Site sent a letter to then Mayor Ken Kearsley, in which he urged the city to “allow Stickel and his associates to put in a minimally intrusive, time-limited, final observation pit close to the house for the purposes of completing their mitigation work.

“I predict that the owner and other responsible citizens of Malibu will look back and be very proud to have done so.”


CAPTION 1
PRESS CONFERENCE—Archaeologist Gary Stickel points out excavated areas on the Point Dume property where the Clovis projectile point, or spearhead, was found. The location has been formally designated by the State of California as the Farpoint Site. The second map marked with red lines represents what Dr. Stickel calls “destroyed site areas.” He is critical of the City of Malibu, asserting that planning personnel “are very negative” about archaeological research in the community and may “have tried to stifle the press conference” that he and colleagues held last week outside the Page Museum, home of the La Brea Tar Pits. MSN Photos/Frank Lamonea

CAPTION 2.
FIND—Edgar Perez, the Native American monitor at the Point Dume residential construction site, retrieved the Clovis point from a backhoe bucket during excavation of a trench on Sept. 25, 2005. Everyone quickly gathered around him because there was a sense that the discovery was important, and this photograph was taken to commemorate the event. The site archaeologist asserts that the owner has tried to impede continued research at the location and has even accused him of “seeding” or placing the point at the site.

CAPTION 3.
DIVERGENCE—Two competing theories of migration are at stake as more information is derived from artifacts such as the Clovis point. One theory is that the Clovis people immigrated from Asia over the Bering Strait; the other is they were people from southwestern Europe who crossed a differently configured Atlantic Ocean 16,000 years ago or more.

CAPTION 4.
SCALE—Ray Corbett, the Anthropology Collection Manager at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, holds the actual Clovis point, which is also shown on this week’s cover. Replicas have been made for research and educational use.

Cabrillo Port LNG Terminal Still Sailing Through the Process

• Governor Technically Still Has to Say Yea or Nay to ‘Ghost Ship’ by May 21

BY HANS LAETZ

Nearly a full month after BHP Billiton’s proposed liquefied natural gas terminal was all-but-killed by state agencies, the company still says it will not give up the ghost.

A company spokesman issued a terse “We have nothing to update” response Monday, when asked if the Australian company was preparing the documents necessary to appeal the California Coastal Commission’s decision to the federal government. The commission will not formalize its 12-0 rejection of the Cabrillo Port plan until its July meeting, giving the company until mid-August to decide whether to formally try to resuscitate its plans.

That puts all eyes on Sacramento, where Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must decide by May 21 whether to reject the Malibu LNG port, or send it back for redesign. The governor does not have any power, analysts say, to override the two agencies that killed the project’s current design plans.

Schwarzenegger is required by federal law to continue to process the project’s permit application, even though the company’s proposed Cabrillo Port does not now have a legal right to anchor, has no mandatory environmental study about its hundreds of tons of air pollution, and has no way to unload any cargo.

The governor, whose associates have several close ties to the LNG industry, has voiced support for greater LNG use in California but is playing his cards close to his chest on Cabrillo Port.

“I suppose the governor could approve the project in concept, but send BHP Billiton back to solve its problems with the State Lands Commission and the FEIR (Final Environmental Impact Report),” said Coastal Commission legislative analyst Alison Dettmer. Reopening the EIR would require extensive additional scientific work, public hearings and another vote by the two commissions, which could take more than a year.

By a 2-1 vote last month, the Lands Commission rejected the company’s request to lease state lands and approve its three-year-long, multimillion-dollar FEIR. Environmental lawyers say the State Lands Commission vote would likely withstand any possible court challenge. That decision was echoed 12-0 by the Coastal Commission, when it said Cabrillo Port unacceptably violated environmental laws in more than 20 important areas.

“I do not view my job as finished until the governor vetoes Cabrillo Port,” said Susan Jordan, executive director of the California Coastal Protection Network. Coastal Advocates, the group of Malibu LNG opponents, continues to urge its members to let the governor know about Cabrillo Port’s negative impacts.

And lawyers at the Environmental Defense Center continue to work on lengthy legal opposition comments to the federal licensing process, even though the U.S. Maritime Administrator and Coast Guard are as of now legally blocked from issuing the federal permits.

“We shouldn’t have to work on our comments for MARAD (the Maritime Administration) and the Coast Guard when they are legally precluded by California’s action,” said EDC lead attorney Linda Krop.

Company spokesman Patrick Cassidy declined comment from his Houston office, other than citing past statements that the company would “respect the regulatory process.” Those past statements were purposefully vague as to whether that would mean filing an appeal and a possible lawsuit.

Like everything else about Cabrillo Port’s current status, even the appeal is uncertain. Cassidy has said the company cannot file the appeal until the Coastal Commission takes a second vote to send a formal notice to Washington, but Krop says federal law states the 30-day clock starts when the feds “learn” of the state’s action. Since the federal law is brand new, attorneys are not sure when that clock starts.

“I personally think that what the Coastal Commission has to do in July is merely a formality,” said CCC staffer Dettmer. “But I am also assuming that BHP Billiton is going to appeal to keep their options open.”

Cabrillo Port’s weaknesses and failures, as detailed publicly by members of the two state commissions when they rejected the plan, have not been lost on other LNG hopefuls off the California coast. And a state senator who nearly won passage of an LNG bill in the state legislature last year is back with an even tougher proposal that he has introduced this year.

State Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, wants the state to enact very stringent standards for gas terminals along the California coast. His bill last year would have subjected the five active LNG port applications to a competitive hearing, and would have required an assessment as to whether LNG imports would drive consumer gas prices down, something that some analysts say would not happen.

“The message for the LNG industry here is be careful what you wish for because you just might get it,” Simitian said in a phone interview. “They told us it was improper to judge each project against the others, and that they would prefer to be judged against a firm set of criteria.

“Well, that’s what we’re giving them.”

Simitian’s new version of the LNG measure, SB 412, would require the governor to reject any terminal that significantly violates California environmental rules, taking away the governor’s leeway to approve a project because its overall benefit to the state outweighs its negative impacts.

Simitian said his bill failed at the very last minutes of the legislature’s term last year, but he expects passage this year. He said he has not yet talked to the governor’s office to see if it is acceptable to him.

Statewide LNG politics are of great import to Malibu, which is close enough to be directly affected by three of the four LNG terminals proposed for the California coast. Although BHP Billiton’s project off Malibu’s north end appears dead, other projects are about to be proposed for 12.6 miles off Oxnard, 22 miles off Malibu, and 15 miles off San Pedro. A fifth proposal, in Long Beach Harbor, was killed by that city but project proponents have filed a lawsuit.

NorthernStar Energy, a small company that also is proposing an LNG terminal in Oregon, is readying its paperwork for converting an unused oil platform 12.6 miles off Oxnard Shores into an LNG regasification terminal. Two LNG carriers at a time would dock near the rig and unload the cryogenically cooled liquid into vaporizers on the structure.

Those vaporizers would usually use warmth from the air to bring up the temperature of the -260 degree LNG, and convert it back into natural gas. That process is expected to be much less polluting than the combustion process that BHP Billiton would have used.

Exact emission levels for the project, about 30 miles upwind of Malibu, have yet to be determined. Joe Desmond, spokesman for what the company calls Clearwater Port, said the two main air pollution controversies at Cabrillo Port—whether the project would meet onshore smog regulations, and whether so-called hot gas would be brought ashore—have not been settled.

“A lot of lessons have been learned as we watched the hearings for the Billiton project,” Desmond said. “We had people at the hearings, and we know there have been some very good data sets for us to meet.”

The 50-year-old oil rig has been extensively examined and would be safe, Desmond said. LNG tankers would tie up to a floating dock near the tower, and would not put lateral stresses on the rig.

Desmond, a former state regulator, said NorthernStar has monitored the opposition to Cabrillo Port and learned. “We take a holistic look at the whole process, and we will work with advocates for the coast in designing our project,” he said. “This doesn’t have to be an adversarial relationship.”

NorthernStar also has plans for a floating LNG terminal 25 miles off Oceanside, but Desmond said that plan, called “Project Orion,” is on indefinite hold.

Closer to Malibu, another Australian company has plans to unload natural gas 22 miles off Point Dume. But Woodside Natural Gas officials plan to do away with two aspects of an LNG terminal that most rankled Malibu residents: smog and a large floating terminal.

Woodside’s proposal, which it markets as Ocean Way LNG Terminal, calls for a pair of buoys connected to natural gas pipelines that would come ashore at Los Angeles International Airport. The buoys would rest 100 feet below the ocean surface when not in use, and would be snagged and raised by LNG tankers to transport gas.

The tankers would carry their own regasification equipment, and like the Oxnard rig would use ambient air to warm the LNG. Some fuel would occasionally be burned to speed up the process, but Woodside officials anticipate that it would create about two-thirds less smog than would BHP Billiton’s Cabrillo Port.

Woodside officials are quick to point out that no large storage ship would be anchored at the site, located about halfway between Point Dume and Catalina Island. They have in the past even bristled at the term “LNG terminal,” as the ships would regasify the LNG on-board, and would unload natural gas into a buoy, which they said is not a terminal in the traditional sense of the word.

The Woodside project’s lead agencies will be the Coast Guard and the City of Los Angeles because the charter city owns the beach where the pipelines would come ashore. Clearwater Port, however, requires pipelines on state lands, as does the Cabrillo Port project, and will be decided by the State Lands Commission and Coast Guard.

NEWS ALERT

Burned Body Found inside Vehicle on Fire

• Authorities Are Treating Incident as Homicide

A preliminary autopsy by the Ventura County Coroner’s office revealed that a man was found burned to death on Monday morning inside a vehicle parked near the intersection of Pacific Coast Highway and Sycamore Canyon Road, north of Malibu.

“We are still treating it as a homicide,” said a spokesperson for the coroner's office. “We are not releasing any more information until we identify the individual and notify next of kin.”

The California Highway Patrol discovered the body at about 4 a.m. when firefighters extinguished the flames of the burning vehicle, according to a CHP spokesperson. The CHP turned the matter over to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department, which is treating it as a homicide.

The car in which the body was found was engulfed in flames and lit up the early morning sky, according to authorities.

Visit of First Lady to Malibu Is Low-Profile Media Event

• Secret Service’s Advance Work Assures a Complication-Free Seaver Graduation Program

BY ROBIN NASBY

Nearly 10,000 guests attended the Seaver College commencement program on Saturday, April 28, to celebrate this year’s 650 graduates concluding their Pepperdine University baccalaureate experience. A Malibu Surfside News intern takes a spectator’s look at First Lady Laura Bush’s speech to the enthusiastic audience of graduates, families and friends. It was a very different atmosphere from ceremonies at some other campuses in the nation where protests—silent and not so silent—took place during speeches by White House officials who perhaps are not held in the same high regard as the President’s wife.

It was a quintessential Malibu day—the azure sky was cloud-free and the temperature was early summer warm. The Pepperdine University graduating class of ’07 anxiously awaited the beginning of their commencement ceremony, and a phalanx of Secret Service agents moved into their assigned positions throughout the Pepperdine campus.

Parents and guests were asked to remain seated throughout the ceremony and no one was permitted to vacate the premises until the culmination of the reception. Vibrant flowers, balloons and sun dresses were in sharp contrast with the black-suited, sunglass-donning and somber-faced personnel assigned to assure the safety of the wife of the President of the United States.

But the agents’ presence quickly faded into the background as the gathering warmly welcomed keynote speaker Laura Bush.

The ceremony ran extremely smoothly despite the heightened level of security and greater than usual crowd. Anticipating the large-scale turnout, university representatives precluded the crowd-related problems that can occur, by pre-renting numerous shuttles and requiring guests to enter with color-coded tickets (as opposed to the open seating of previous commencements).

Bush was welcomed by the university’s president, Andrew Benton, and its chancellor, Charles Runnels. Bush was accorded a Pepperdine Honorary Doctor of Laws degree, the highest honor conveyed on dignitaries. The First Lady beamed as the hood with the colors of the degree was placed over her black robe.

After accepting her degree, Bush stepped forward to address the enthusiastic assemblage. The First Lady quickly won over the crowd when she demonstrated that research had been done on local student lore, including the locations of favorite off-campus hangouts for extra-curricular activity, and specific courses, both famous and infamous, on the scenic campus.

After the levity, the First Lady became serious and acknowledged the important philanthropic work of the graduating class, praising its members for making a difference with their participation in global affairs. Bush said, “Our country is also blessed with compassionate citizens who freely give to other nations in need. Many of these compassionate citizens are right here at Pepperdine.”

A number of students were specifically recognized by Bush for their service to children and education, two issues of personal importance to the former librarian and teacher.

The First Lady concluded her speech by reflecting on the Pepperdine motto, “Freely ye received, freely give,” and she challenged the graduating seniors to live their lives accordingly.

“Class of 2007,” she said, You’ve received the blessings of your time at Pepperdine. Now it’s time to freely give. Use your talent and energy to make a better world for people throughout our country and across the globe. You’ll find happiness along the way.”

Opposition Comes to the Fore After Scoping Session for Trancas Park

BY BILL KOENEKER

While panelists and the public at the City of Malibu’s Parks and Recreation Commission meeting last week talked about designs and improvements for a proposed Trancas Canyon Park, neighbors were quietly circulating a letter opposing any park in the west end neighborhood.

An unsigned letter circulated in the Trancas Highlands area over the weekend that urges local residents to send written opposition to the formal zone change planned for the 13.5-acre property.

The letter states, “During the hot summer months...individuals from outside the community in an op