• Advisory View Vote Also Up
Besides choosing from the five candidates
vying for three Malibu City Council seats on the election
ballot next Tuesday, voters will be asked to tax themselves on
Measure D and in an advisory only initiative the
electorate is also being asked to weigh in on view protection
on Measure E.
The view protection measure asks the voters
whether the city council should adopt an ordinance that would
require the removal or trimming of landscaping in order to
restore and maintain primary views from private homes.
Measure D is binding and is a utility users
tax that would expand taxability to cell phones and other
electronic devices.
Even the mayor described the measure as
somewhat deceptive since it says, if it is adopted, it would
reduce the tax rate from five percent to four and half percent,
but it clearly makes known that it is casting a wider net by
taxing “modern communication technologies.”
No one is saying, not even in the impartial
analysis by the city attorney, but it would seem doubtful that
users won’t be paying more taxes, certainly not less
despite a somewhat lower rate. There are, somewhat
surprisingly, no arguments against Measure D or for it.
The view protection issue has garnered much
more attention. Many folks, especially on Point Dume and on the
hillsides, have been clamoring for the city to establish some
kind of law to preserve residents’ views of the ocean and
mountains. The value of views in Malibu can be weighed in the
hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The Malibu Country Estates became the first
neighborhood to obtain a view protection zoning law. The
program was initially established as a pilot program to
determine the benefits or drawbacks before any such zoning law
was enacted citywide.
After the MCE law was enacted, several
individuals came before the council and asked or demanded that
some kind of zoning be applied across Malibu.
Council members decided it might be a good
time to determine just how many folks would be in favor of the
city continuing on.
No arguments for or against Measure E were
filed by city leaders or the voters. There is an impartial
analysis of the measure by the city attorney’s office.
A simple majority is needed either way to
“advise” the council in the direction voters think
is appropriate, but the most important aspect of Measure E,
according to the city attorney, is that regardless of the vote,
it does not bind the council to any action and would not
legally require the city council to adopt such an ordinance.
Measure D actually proposes an ordinance
that would replace the city’s existing telephone utility
users tax with an updated version.
Currently folks are already paying a tax on
their telephones. The city raked in over a million bucks last
year.
The new tax, if approved by the voters,
would tax all types of communication services except if
precluded by federal law. So the feds now prohibit local
taxation of Internet services, e-mail, and broadband providing
service to the Internet. The tax would not be applied to
digital downloads such as music, games and ringtones.
The proposed ordinance has no effect on the
existing utility user tax applied to electrical, gas and water
services, according to the city attorney.
View protection has been a hot topic on the
city council campaign trail, with some voters asking candidates
if they will support an ordinance. It was said that at the
Point Dume forum, it was the most frequently asked question of
the five candidates.
Currently, the city’s land use laws
protect what the city calls primary views, the most impressive
scenes viewed from one view point. Only under certain
circumstances, such as when a new home is being built, the city
may approve a landscape plan in which new vegetation must be
sited so as not to block the primary views from the
neighbors’ house.
The city, if urged on by the voters, could
enact legislation that would restore views by requiring
neighbors to remove or trim existing landscaping to restore or
maintain their neighbors’ views.
Measure D, according to the city attorney,
might be struck down by the courts as it is currently written.
“Recent federal court decisions in other states have cast
doubt on whether the ordinance, as currently written, can be
imposed on long distance, celllular and bundled telephone
services. If the California courts determine such ordinances
inapplicable to those telephone services, the revenues
collected from the current ordinance would be reduced
substantially,” wrote City Attorney Christi Hogin.
“Adoption of the proposed ordinance would protect the
city from an adverse outcome in any such litigation.”
