Malibu Cityhood Backers Upset Over Bill for Legal Notice

Malibu cityhood backers knew that they might be asked to pay for a legal notice of the March 29 meeting at which Los Angeles County supervisors are expected to set a June incorporation election. But they didn’t expect the tab to be $6,208.

County officials, who normally would have placed the notice in a weekly Malibu newspaper at a cost of about $600, instead placed it in last Wednesday’s editions of the Los Angeles Times.

“We had no choice in order to meet the required (15-day advance notice) deadline,” County Executive Officer Larry Monteilh said.

Supervisors are under a court order to conclude an incorporation hearing and set a June 5 election as the first order of business when they meet March 29.

County officials said that after Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs issued the order last Monday, it was too late for them to place the notice in either of Malibu’s two weekly newspapers or in the daily Outlook in Santa Monica.

The notice had to appear Wednesday in order to meet the 15-day deadline. The Malibu papers are published on Thursday.

After paying for the notice in The Times, county officials sent the bill to Walt Keller, co-chairman of the Malibu Committee for Incorporation, along with a demand that the county be reimbursed by March 28.

County officials say state law provides that applicants be billed for notices such as the one for the March 29 meeting, when they involve hearings other than those originated by the county.

Keller, however, called the group’s being asked to pay for such an expensive notice outrageous.

“We don’t believe for a moment that if they had done what they were supposed to do, they couldn’t have arranged for the notice to appear in one of the local publications,” he said.

County officials said they tried last Monday to arrange for the notice to appear in Wednesday’s edition of The Outlook but were told they had missed a publication deadline. An official with the newspaper said that had the paper ran the notice, the cost would have been less than $450.

An official with the California Newspaper Services Bureau, which arranges for the placement of notices on the county’s behalf, said she called the Outlook early Monday afternoon to arrange for the notice to be printed Wednesday and was told it was already too late.

“They indicated that Thursday was the best they could do, and, of course, that wouldn’t work,” said the official, who spoke on the condition that she not be identified.

However, Dorothy Lauden, who coordinates legal notices at the Outlook, disputed that version of events.

“I don’t recall anyone inquiring about running the notice here, and it certainly would have gone through me,” she said. “In fact, if we had been asked, we would have bent over backward to accommodate them.”

Keller said the group has not yet decided whether it will contest paying for the notice.

Although the supervisors began hearing the matter Oct. 19, they voted 4 to 1 in November to indefinitely postpone a decision on incorporation--thus continuing the hearing--until a sewer system the county wants to build in Malibu is under way.

At the time, cityhood backers had asked that the hearing--required by state law--be concluded.

In December, incorporation supporters sued the supervisors, accusing them of violating a state law that requires such hearings to be concluded within 60 days. The hearing is the last step before an election can be set.

The lawsuit led to the judge’s order that the supervisors conclude the hearing and set an election. Although the supervisors ignored the March 9 deadline Janavs originally set, they have that indicated they will comply at the March 29 meeting.