Cityhood Fans Doubt County Has Given Up in Malibu Fight

Despite word from Los Angeles County supervisors that they will no longer oppose a June 5 Malibu incorporation election, cautious cityhood backers did not appear ready to celebrate last week.

“We do not believe they’ve given up the fight (against cityhood),” said Walt Keller, co-chairman of the Malibu Committee for Incorporation. “They’re tooling up to do something. The question is, just what?”

The supervisors had faced possible contempt citations for ignoring a judge’s order to set the election. They had stalled for months before a lawyer for the county told the judge that the supervisors are ready to comply.

“We’re not arguing anymore,” attorney Elwood Lui said. “The court has spoken.”

A majority of supervisors have opposed Malibu cityhood for years, saying that a sewer system the county wants to build there--and which many cityhood backers view as a recipe for widespread development--needs to be under way before the area becomes a city.

Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs, who had previously ordered that the election date be set by March 9, told the supervisors to conclude a required incorporation hearing and set the election as the first order of business when they meet March 29. She also ordered the county officials to give City Council candidates until April 2 to file the necessary papers with the county registrar.

Showing displeasure with the supervisors, the judge scheduled an April 4 hearing to consider possible contempt citations if the county officials do not keep their word.

But now that a June election appears likely and the supervisors appear to have abandoned their efforts to stall it, incorporation proponents are concerned that the supervisors may have another tactic in mind to thwart cityhood.

There is speculation that if the supervisors adopt a cityhood resolution March 29 as expected, they may try to attach a condition: delaying the actual incorporation date for up to a year after the election, assuming voters approve cityhood.

If successful, the move would allow the county precious time to go forward with its long-sought sewer system before a new Malibu government has the chance to challenge it.

Such a condition is possible under state law, but there is disagreement over whether the supervisors have the authority to impose it, or whether that authority rests exclusively with the Local Agency Formation Commission. County lawyers have expressed the view that the supervisors have such authority; lawyers for cityhood supporters say they do not.

“To even think of leaving a newly created political entity floating out there for a year, just because of some selfish political whim, is outrageous, not to mention unprecedented,” said Graham Ritchie, an attorney for incorporation supporters.

In an interview, Assistant County Counsel Bill Pellman said he was “not in a position to second-guess what the supervisors may or may not do.” Asked whether county lawyers had discussed the matter with any of the supervisors, he declined to comment.

In approving a bid by Malibu residents to vote on cityhood last May, LAFCO stipulated that the county be allowed to retain control over the sewer system for up to 10 years after incorporation. But county officials are afraid that a new Malibu government will try to challenge that provision.

The supervisors have frequently belittled the cityhood attempt as a thinly disguised effort by Malibu residents opposed to a sewer to prevent it from being built.

Indeed, the county’s sewer plan is certain to be a key issue in the election, with some cityhood backers already casting the election as a contest matching slow-growth forces against developers and others intent on turning the Malibu coastline into another Miami Beach.

But Keller, a veteran of two failed Malibu incorporations elections, in 1964 and 1976, insists that the third time will be the charm.

“I would venture to say that 80% to 90% of voters will vote for cityhood,” he said. “If the developers are really successful, they may pull that down to 75%.”

Although Keller’s group, which has 1,000 members, and the Malibu Township Council, which is about twice as large, together represent a veritable army of potential cityhood supporters, there is no clearly identifiable opposition.

Thus far, more opposition has been expressed in legal briefs than in the public arena.

Real estate broker Jack Corrodi has filed a lawsuit in an attempt to prevent the supervisors from setting the election before the sewer system is constructed.

The Adamson Cos., Malibu’s largest developer, which opposed the 1976 incorporation effort, joined with the county in its unsuccessful attempt to throw out a lawsuit filed by cityhood backers to force the supervisors to set the election.

It was that lawsuit that resulted in Janavs’ order for the supervisors to quit stalling and set the election.

An appeal by the supervisors challenging the judge’s jurisdiction in the matter is before the state Court of Appeal, which is not expected to issue a ruling before the election.

Although a decision for the county could play havoc with the June vote, lawyers for cityhood backers believe that a reversal of the judge’s ruling is unlikely, since the appellate court has already declined to hear a related appeal that would have prevented the election from being held.