Coastal Commissioners Rule Nighttime Sports Field Lighting Violates City LCP

• Unanimous Vote Takes District to Task for End-Run Campaign

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

The California Coastal Commission voted unanimously on Oct. 8 to uphold the City of Malibu’s Local Coastal Plan, and deny a Coastal Development Permit amendment request by the Santa Monica Malibu Unified School District to permit temporary athletic field lighting for Malibu High School’s football program.
The request was denied on the basis that it was not in conformity with the LCP, but the commissioners also questioned the validity of the findings in the district’s application and criticized the commission staff for allowing the amendment request to be placed on the agenda.
Malibu High School’s 2000 CDP included a special condition prohibiting temporary or permanent athletic field lighting. The school, despite the CDP, has for a number of years used temporary lighting for a limited number of football games and practices.
When plans for permanent lighting were revealed in August 2008 as part of the campus’s Measure BB-funded safety improvements, the district was informed that it would require an amendment from the coastal agency before it could pursue either temporary or permanent lights.
After a year of negotiations with area residents, the district agreed to limit the number of nights requested in the amendment application to 16—eight practices and eight games.
The cash-strapped district, which is facing a 12 million deficit, reportedly invested more than a half-million dollars in the attempt to amend the lighting prohibition.
Several commissioners expressed surprise at the district’s findings, which described the area as heavily urbanized, with street lights and an absence of wildlife. The district’s application also stated that no complaints about the illegal light usage were ever received.
Several revelations came from the district’s consultant and lobbyist Andi Culbertson. The district has maintained that it never signed the deed restriction prohibiting field lighting, which was part of the special condition on athletic field lighting imposed by the Coastal Commission in the 2000 CDP, and never filed the document with the commission.
Culbertson confirmed that the document exists and is on file at the commission. Culvertson also stated that the district was aware that the temporary lighting was illegal as early as July of 2008, before the permanent lighting plan was revealed at a public meeting in August, and that she herself reported the violation the Commission’s deputy director Jack Ainsworth in July of 2008. SMMUSD documents indicate that the district’s contract with Culvertson and Associates was not approved until Aug. 21, 2008.
Culbertson also clarified the district’s statement that no complaints had ever been received about the illegal lighting, stating instead that there appeared to be no formal complaints to the Coastal Commission.
“Malibu residents complained early and often,” Malibu resident Steve Uhring, who is the president of the Malibu Township Council, told the commission, refuting the school district’s statement.
He presented a letter from former MHS principal Mike Matthews, informing concerned residents that the newly formed football program would not require lights and a 2005 Malibu Park Home Owners Association agenda that included a meeting with MHS principal Mark Kelly to discuss the “ongoing” issue of night lighting, among other documents.
Uhring also provided a copy of a portion of the City of Malibu’s LCP that contained the prohibition against athletic lighting in the institutional zone and a recent letter to the editor of the Malibu Surfside News from a MHS parent addressing the need for equal field lighting hours for girls’ soccer under Title 9 requirements.
“When did we have the enforcement meeting?” asked Uhring. “Are we down to a point where anyone can do anything they like without ramifications? That appears to be what’s going on with the school.”
The application also attracted the ire of the Sierra Club. “Of all the irritating, obnoxious coastal programs that end up before you, this one should really make you angry,” said Mark Massara, director of the Sierra Club’s California Coastal Campaign.
“In lieu of penalties [for violations] we are treated to a half million dollar lobbying campaign to legitimize these lights and staff response of befuddled mystery over the plain language of the permit and LCP,” Massara continued. That’s the heart of the matter, teaching students and adults to live in harmony with coastal resources in compliance with the spirit and letter of the Coastal Act. This isn’t the wild west, where you do whatever you want.”
“The LCP could not be clearer,” Massara concluded. “The only mystery is what staff was thinking. By law, the executive director should not have allowed this proposal to get before you, because it explicitly weakens the LCP. It’s vitally important that you uphold the CPD.”
The Sierra Club’s Penny Elia had harsh words for the biology consultants hired by the district for the project. “We know what Glenn Lukos is going to say, ‘There’s nothing there,’” Elia said. “We talk at length about finite resources, these are finite resources. Once they’re destroyed, they don’t come back.”
“This has been a controversial issue for a long time,” Commissioner Sara Wan said. It’s not our job to see how many people support or oppose it, and our sympathy, my sympathy, for the football players, is not our job. It is our job to look at the Coastal Act issues, and I see four of them: habitat, visual impact, including the night sky, energy usage and zoning.
“I hate to say this, but I felt it necessary to go to the site. Dr, Engel [the commission’s biologist] did not go to the site. She relied on the Glenn Lukos report. I felt it was necessary to look at this myself. I looked at the area.
“I’m not going to argue it’s ESHA. Frankly, it doesn’t matter,” Wan said. “I read the biology report and I take exception to your tone,” Wan told the applicants. “If you look at the report it lists everything as if there’s nothing there. If that’s the case, it’s the only place in Malibu that’s like that. Malibu has lots of wildlife, whether it’s ESHA or not. [The report] specifically says in looking for barn owls and great horned owls there aren’t any. There is no possible territory in Malibu that isn’t occupied by owls. There’s no foraging? Excuse me? There’s 23 acres of coastal sage scrub, clearly foraging. Plenty of raptors.
“It doesn’t have to be ESHA to require a prohibition on lighting,” Wan stated. “There are impacts of night lighting cumulatively. This is not an urbanized area. It has a pretty good night sky. There is no way [the lights] won’t affect the night sky, no way not to have an adverse impact. There is a specific sports court lighting prohibition in [the] industrial zone. It is not permitted, and that brings you to a serious conflict. If you remove the prohibition in the LCP you are opening a can of worms. I don’t think you have much choice.”
“The law is clear,” Commissioner Esther Sanchez agreed. “The lights are prohibited. There are no changes in circumstance. There continue to be Coastal Act objections.”
Commissioner Ross Mirkarimi was mystified why staff placed the item on the agenda. “I think the rule is clear,” he said.
“I see this as a very rural area,” Commissioner Patrick Kruger said. “The lighting impact would be great.”
“Title 9 issue is a big issue,” Commissioner Mark Stone said. Stone was formerly on a school board. “I guarantee they will be back to ask us for more lights. It looks to me like Malibu has worked fairly hard to keep dark night skies. I don’t see how we can support this change.”
“The odds of seeing this back before us [because of Title 9] are very high,” Commissioner Mary Shallenburger said. “It is absolutely a prohibition on institutional lighting. The interpretation of the LCP has to be that there is a prohibition on institutional lighting as well as private. I think It’s important that we don’t put a heavier burden on the private property owners than on institutions.”
“I move to deny the proposed amendment,” Commissioner Steve Black said. “I think our views in regard to lights have evolved over time. We’ve gotten smarter. I request that staff maybe process this a bit.”
Several MHS football supporters expressed dismay about the Coastal Commission decision during public comment at the Oct. 12 Malibu City Council meeting. Earlier this year, in an effort to circumvent the City of Malibu’s authority, the school district took the unusual step of passing a resolution exempting MHS from the city’s authority in this issue. The decision to appeal or legally challenge the commission’s decision now rests with the school district, not the city.
City Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich, who at a later point in the meeting read the section from the City of Malibu’s General Plan pertaining to the city’s commitment to preventing urbanization and preserving Malibu’s rural character, told those attending the meeting that she would investigate removing the institutional lighting prohibition from the LCP.