Malibu Deserves Its Own Destiny

Few would shed tears over the woes of Malibu. This is hardly an underprivileged area. But Malibu folk have a legitimate beef with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors over the board’s reluctance to allow them to vote on whether to incorporate their coastal enclave as a city.

The Local Area Formation Commission last May approved the petition of Malibu voters to decide on cityhood. The way most people read state law, the county supervisors then had 60 days in which to schedule the election. But the supervisors voted 4-1 last November to postpone the decision indefinitely. Now a Superior Court judge has ruled that the supervisors acted improperly and should set the election for June 5. They should do so with dispatch.

The hang-up is over Malibu sewage. There is no general sewage system in Malibu. Homes are served by septic tanks, a lamentable state of affairs in the 1990s. The area must have a modern sewage collection and treatment system. But the supervisors are insisting that Malibu have a system that would permit explosive new growth--precisely what the Malibu incorporators want to avoid. A condition of the incorporation is that the county retain jurisdiction over the sewage issue for 10 years. Still, the supervisors are afraid that Malibu will somehow manage to build a smaller system if the community wins cityhood. That, frankly, should be Malibu’s option, as long as the system can handle present demand and allow for a reasonable amount of growth.

This is not a case in which only the county board stands between Malibu and a massive public health crisis. If there were a health threat even now, the Regional Water Quality Control Board could take command of the situation. And the state Coastal Commission is the proper body to determine what sort of growth is appropriate within Malibu’s coastal zone. The supervisors should allow Malibu to determine its own destiny.