Malibu Cityhood Election May Not Occur This Year

In a setback for Malibu cityhood advocates, the Board of Supervisors’ executive officer has set a hearing date on the proposal past the deadline needed to place the measure on the November ballot.

The board must hear the matter no later than Aug. 11 in order to make the November ballot. However, it was learned Monday, Larry Monteilh, the board’s executive officer, sent a memo to the supervisors late last week saying that he was scheduling the hearing for Aug. 18.

Monteilh’s memo said he wanted to give the board “ample time to review the matter,” even though the board’s action is simply a formality.

The board is required to set an incorporation election once the state’s Local Agency Formation Commission approves a cityhood petition.

Petition Approved May 25

On May 25, LAFCO approved Malibu’s cityhood petition by a 6-1 margin. In an unprecedented action the following week, the Board of Supervisors voted to ask LAFCO to reconsider its vote and allow the county to retain control over sewers and all current landslide assessment districts in Malibu if the coastal community votes to become a city. LAFCO will consider that request at its hearing July 13.

As a result, unless Malibu cityhood backers can quickly persuade the board to move up the hearing date, the incorporation measure could not be set for a vote until March at the earliest.

Incorporation proponents are upset because the delay would give several Malibu landowners time to launch a well-financed anti-cityhood campaign and give the supervisors another chance to place a costly sewer system in the area--a move that triggered the incorporation drive.

“Since the board’s only role in this is to set it for an election, then I think the only reason to delay the hearing would be to delay the election,” said Madelyn Glickfeld, a state coastal commissioner from Malibu who supports incorporation. “If anything was absolutely clear at the LAFCO hearings, it’s that LAFCO wanted to make sure that this got on the November ballot. It flies in the face of what LAFCO really wanted.”

The action stunned several LAFCO commissioners, who said they had received assurances from Pete Schabarum and Ed Edelman, the two county supervisors who sit on LAFCO, that they would push for a November election if LAFCO upheld its approval at a July 13 reconsideration hearing.

‘Very Disappointed’

“I can only say that I’m very disappointed about the delay,” said Tom Jackson, LAFCO’s chairman. “A great deal of people put in a tremendous amount of time and effort to meet the November deadline. That was our whole objective and we were assured by them (the supervisors) that they would act in an expeditious manner to get it on the ballot.”

Schabarum, Edelman and Supervisor Deane Dana are traveling in London on a trade mission for the Los Angeles Economic Development Corp. and could not be reached for comment. Monteilh was off Monday and could not be reached.

Although Dana has led the fight to build a regional sewer system in Malibu, he said earlier that he wanted to let voters have a chance to decide the cityhood question. However, Dana’s deputy, Dennis Morefield, said the timing of the election was never a consideration.

“The county never set the timing for the election,” Morefield said. “This action doesn’t preclude an election. It just means that it probably won’t happen in November. Deane never mentioned November as a key date.”

The community of Diamond Bar’s cityhood proposal also will be heard by LAFCO that day, and Schabarum has repeatedly assured incorporation leaders there that he will make sure to place the issue on the November ballot.

“How would the supervisors manage to justify expediting one incorporation effort while delaying another?” asked Walt Keller, co-chair of the Malibu Committee for Incorporation.

Keller said the group plans to lobby supervisors to persuade them to change the hearing date. The board has a hearing scheduled for Aug. 4, which would meet the November election deadline.

The Malibi cityhood campaign follows attempts by the Board of Supervisors, dating back many years, to install a sewer system in Malibu. Such a move would open the area to widespread development by builders, sewer foes have argued.

Last October, more than 1,000 angry Malibu residents showed up at a supervisors’ meeting to protest a proposed $86-million sewer system, which would have been billed to Malibu property owners. In the face of the protests, the board postponed action indefinitely. The cityhood drive began the next day.

In a related development, a Malibu landowner Monday filed a lawsuit to halt the incorporation proceedings until LAFCO conducts a full environmental study of the proposed 21-square-mile city.

Chris Kolodziejski alleges in the lawsuit, filed in Superior Court, that LAFCO ignored the impact cityhood would have on the area and says the original cityhood petition was inadequate because the signatures on it were not dated. LAFCO officials said they cannot comment on the suit until they have had time to review it.