Third Time Around : Advocates of Malibu Incorporation Are Set to Try Again

Malibu cityhood advocates, who lost a close incorporation election in 1976 and who were rebuffed in a 1983 attempt for a referendum, are trying to revive the issue.

As in previous efforts, proponents say they want a municipal government because locally elected authorities would be more likely to stave off large-scale development along the Malibu coastline.

“There is an urgent need now to do something. There isn’t a lot of time. Events are really moving very quickly,” said Leon Cooper, chairman of a cityhood study committee established by the Malibu Township Council. The council, a civic group, represents about 1,000 families and has lobbied for limits on new construction in Malibu.

Regional Sewer System

Cooper cited the county’s plans to install a regional sewer system, recent county approval of a 300-room hotel across from Pepperdine University, the expected authorization of the university’s expansion proposal and continued delays in completion of a local coastal program of land-use guidelines for Malibu.

The impending increase in building has spurred enough concern among Malibu residents that “I think we have a better opportunity this time around,” Cooper said.

However, he predicted, “the divisions or factions will be just as bitter.” In the 1976 election, after developers and the Chamber of Commerce campaigned heavily against the ballot measure, 3,560 people voted for cityhood and 3,668 rejected incorporation.

Opponents argued then that a city government in Malibu would mean higher property taxes for residents.

Since then, merely getting cityhood on the ballot has become difficult.

Ruth Benell, executive officer of the Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCO), said her agency turned down a 1983 request for a Malibu cityhood election because of inflation and the passage of Proposition 13, which prevents cities from raising money by raising taxes.

The changes meant “incorporation for Malibu was just not economically feasible,” Benell said.

Financial Potential

In the two years since, “I’m not aware of anything that would change the report we did in 1983,” Benell said. But LAFCO will be required to take another look at the financial potential of a city of Malibu if the committee gathers signatures from 25% of the registered voters in the district and pays a $1,000 filing fee, along with 50 cents a signature.

Van Royce Vibber, who headed the 1983 effort, said he believes that LAFCO’s guidelines for determining a proposed city’s financial future are “arbitrary.”

Vibber said he questioned whether a city of Malibu should be responsible for some of the expenditures that LAFCO included in its 1983 report.

“Just as a for instance, Malibu is roughly 27 miles long and there are several miles of public beaches,” he said. “On a beach weekend, there’s a quarter- to a half-million people out there and most of them are not from Malibu.

“Is it the responsibility of the city to maintain that beach for the people of Southern California? LAFCO says it is. That’s a half-million dollars right there. But you could say those are county beaches; the county should pay for that.”

Without such expenses, Vibber said, “it’s possible to run a city here. I believe we could be financially sound.”

But Benell said LAFCO will continue to include such spending requirements. “They want to incorporate, but they don’t want to assume all the responsibility of a city,” she said. “They want the rest of the county to pay for the beach and yet they want to be able to call the shots in what happens in those areas. That wouldn’t be fair.”

Different Opinion

Tom Bates, land-use chairman for the Malibu Board of Realtors, said his group also disputes Vibber’s assessment. “If you had a decent amount of growth, if you had a tax base, it would probably work,” Bates said. “But the people who want the city don’t want the tax base.” Cooper said that the growth that has occurred in Malibu since the last cityhood election has widened the community’s tax base.

“The irony is that the very thing that we have fought against may be what makes cityhood possible,” he said.

“Sure, there is going to have to be more commercial development,” he added. “There has to be.

“But if we become a city, then we will control the rate of growth. We will make decisions as to where we will put hotels, what density and what height, rather than a greater group of bureaucrats who are physically remote. They do not have to drive back and forth on Pacific Coast Highway. They don’t know how congested it has gotten.”

In his 24 years as a Malibu resident, Cooper noted, none of the county supervisors representing the 4th District, which includes Malibu, has been a Malibu resident. “We are 5% of a supervisor’s constituents and perhaps 50% of his problems,” he said.

Peter Ireland, Malibu field deputy to 4th District Supervisor Deane Dana, said, “It’s really kind of premature for us to comment.” But he added, “This seems to surface every time the county does something unpopular in Malibu.”