Supervisors Consider New Tactic to Delay Malibu Incorporation

Los Angeles County officials, forced by a judge’s order to allow a Malibu cityhood election to proceed in June, may try to delay the actual incorporation for up to a year if residents of the seaside community vote to form a city.

A resolution prepared for supervisors to vote on today contains a condition that would allow county officials to impose the delay. Ordinarily, once voters approve, incorporation occurs on the date results are certified, usually four to six weeks after an election.

The maneuver, spelled out in a copy of the resolution released this week, would give the county time to go forward with a long-sought sewer system in Malibu before a new local government has a chance to block it.

Slow-growth advocates, including many cityhood supporters, have opposed the sewer system backed by supervisors as a prelude to widespread development.

Elwood Lui, a lawyer for the county, called the document “not unusual” and said it was included “in anticipation of remarks that may be made for and against cityhood” at today’s hearing.

“We think state law clearly sets forth the supervisors’ right to set an effective date,” Lui said, “but that’s a decision that has to be made at the board meeting.”

Lawyers for cityhood backers, meanwhile, said that if the supervisors try to use the tactic to delay incorporation, they will immediately ask a judge to disallow it.

“I really wonder if they (county officials) can even sell three supervisors on going along with such a thing, but if they do, we intend to be in court immediately,” said Graham Ritchie, an attorney for the Malibu Committee for Incorporation.

A majority of supervisors have opposed Malibu’s becoming a city for years, saying that the sewer system the county wants to build there needs to be under way before any city is formed.

Supervisors have said they want sewers installed in Malibu, where homeowners now largely rely on septic tanks, because sewers are more sanitary and environmentally safe.

Facing possible contempt citations from a judge who ordered the supervisors to set a Malibu election date June 5, the supervisors two weeks ago sent word by county lawyers that they would comply. Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs has ordered that the issue be the first order of business during today’s Board of Supervisors meeting.

Cityhood backers insist that imposing a condition to delay the actual incorporation date would make a mockery of the judge’s order to stop stalling the election itself.

State law makes it possible for incorporation to occur up to a year after the certification of votes. Malibu voters will be asked to choose five city council members on the cityhood ballot.

But there is disagreement over whether the supervisors have the authority to impose a delay or whether that authority rests exclusively with the Local Agency Formation Commission, which oversees the transformations of communities to cities. County lawyers have expressed the view that supervisors do have such authority; lawyers for cityhood supporters say they do not.

Lawyers for LAFCO have agreed with Malibu cityhood supporters. “Our preliminary analysis is that only LAFCO can impose such a condition,” said Meredith Jury, independent counsel for the agency. “We do not believe that the county supervisors have the right to do that.”