Prospects for Malibu Porta-Potty Peace Pact Take Turn for the Positive

• Attorneys for Two Sides Agree to Discuss Outdoor Portable Toilet Dispute

BY ANNE SOBLE

Representatives of longtime Malibu property owner Bob Dylan have finally acknowledged the existence of a dispute with a Point Dume neighbor over a noxious outdoor portable toilet and arranged to set up a meeting to discuss the long-standing strife.
Attorneys who say they represent Dylan have contacted Frank Angel, the local counsel retained by David and Cindy Emminger after they went public with complaints that fumes from the movable outhouse that is reportedly used by security guards and other staff on the multi-parcel property are making family members ill.
Angel told the Malibu Surfside News that he received a conference call this week from Carlyle Hall and Jason Karlov from the firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, which says on its Web site that it is “one of the world’s largest law firms...with 800 lawyers in 13 offices.”
Hall’s name may be familiar to many in Malibu. For about three decades, his career centered on litigating key land use issues and environmental concerns as the co-founder of the Center for Law in the Public Interest. He joined Akin Gump in 2002.
Karlov’s specialization is entertainment law. According to the Akin Gump Web site, Karlov represents “a variety of clients in the entertainment and media industries,” advising them in the “negotiating and drafting of contracts relating to a wide array of entertainment-and-media-related transactions,” which now ostensibly include thorny disputes with neighbors over outdoor commodes.
Angel’s husband-and-wife law firm has a strong Malibu practice that has been predominately oriented toward group and individual representation on many of this area’s major environmental and land use issues in recent years.
The story line of the mega law firm versus a solo practitioner may have the makings of a David and Goliath scenario, given Angel’s solid string of local court victories, despite Dylan’s display of legal firepower.
Angel told The News that he has agreed that all preliminary discussions will remain private. No one at Akin Gump would do the same. When contacted by telephone, Hall said comment would have to come from Karlov, who has not responded to emails or phone calls requesting clarification of the nature of the firm’s legal representation in the porta-potty wrangle.
The issue of how to deal with the Emmingers’ complaints about the impromptu outhouse that have festered for months is compounded by the assertion of City of Malibu officials that there is no way to regulate permanent use of an outdoor portable toilet on private land, thereby leaving any disputes to private party resolution.
This issue has been looked at by Los Angeles County and California Coastal Commission staff who have indicated that a preliminary reading of nearly all regulations on the books indicates that porta-potty placement is allowed for temporary purposes only.
Without expressing any opinion on where the upcoming discussions between the two sides might lead, or whether there’s a possibility that any agreement to resolve the matter might be precluded from being made public as part of a settlement, Angel said that he is pleased to see “a dialogue having finally been opened.”
The counsel for the Emmingers paraphrased another musical icon of no small stature when he said, “We will give peace a chance.”