Regional Task Force Members to Take Part in Malibu Paparazzi Meeting

• Supporters Rally for Two Local Men Facing Pap Battery Charges

BY ANNE SOBLE

A meeting called by Mayor Pamela Conley Ulich, in her role as the volunteer coordinator of the unofficial local paparazzi regulation effort, is slated for Thursday, Oct. 2, at the Malibu Performing Arts Center from 4 to 6 p.m.
Conley Ulich says the public meeting will address what she repeatedly describes as “paparazzi car chases on PCH, traveling in packs, running red lights, and making unsafe or illegal U-turns in the pursuit of their subject.”
Conley Ulich said the session will address “adoption [of a] a citizen’s guide for dealing with aggressive paparazzi; review specific legislation targeted at protecting school zones; explore the feasibility of licensing; and determine the next action steps.”
The meeting will provide the first formal look at five draft ordinances that are part of a package of regulatory materials prepared under the direction of faculty at the Pepperdine School of Law.
The mayor has invited the members of the Los Angeles Regional Paparazzi Task Force to take part in the two-hour session. The RPTF is a non-legislative, multi-city panel that is also critical of the paparazzi and calls for stringent local laws to curb their actions in the public arena.
That group’s chair, L.A. City Councilmember Dennis Zine, has emphasized that concerns about possible litigation over the media’s First Amendment protections should not impede efforts to control paparazzi, whom he has described as “wolves on the prowl.”
The Oct. 2 meeting is also becoming a rallying point for local residents and surfers who want to show support for Skylar Peak and Philip John Hildebrand, the two Malibu men facing misdemeanor battery charges following a widely publicized skirmish between beachgoers and paparazzi on Little Dume Beach in June.
The pair are slated for arraignment on Oct. 14 in Malibu. Peak told the Malibu Surfside News this week he is confident “that justice will definitely be served,” but he is concerned that the men’s legal costs are mounting.
A multi-website campaign is urging the pair’s supporters to show up at the Oct. 2 meeting as a sign of solidarity. Some of the supporters are expected to sport the T-shirts that are being sold to augment the legal defense fund for the men, who are best known locally as the co-owners of a popular special events production company called “Sicky Dicky.”
It’s not known whether the two most visible current “celebrity” proponents of stringent paparazzi controls, Paris Hilton and Balthazar Getty, plan to attend next week’s meeting.