Malibu’s Council Election Plays Out Like a Bad Hollywood Script

Surf’s up, dude, and so is Malibu’s first election since voters in the trendy coastal community achieved independence last year.

So what do we have here?

For starters, there is a so-called grass-roots movement organized by a TV game show announcer that includes some of the most powerful figures in show business.

And the list of City Council candidates is as long and diverse as a casting call for a miniseries.

Among 20 contenders for the three seats up for grabs on Tuesday are a geophysicist, a Clint Eastwood look-alike, actor James Garner’s agent, an occasional TV actress, and a real estate broker who says he wants to dissolve the town before it goes bankrupt.

“I’ve been bankrupt. You’re going bankrupt. I’m your man,” intones Jack Corrodi to anyone who will listen.

But make no mistake. This is one election campaign that is as serious as it is colorful.

While a 1990 election in which 84% of voters approved cityhood was a referendum on self-rule, this time the balloting will decide how Malibu is to be governed.

Because the fledgling city has only begun to draft a General Plan to serve as a blueprint for development, whoever sits on the five-member City Council during the next couple of years will have an extraordinary chance to help shape Malibu into the next century.

Not surprisingly, Malibu’s warring political factions, whose differences are rooted in personal rivalries, each have pitched the vote as a plebiscite on development.

And with Los Angeles County no longer around as a convenient punching bag in its former role of opposing cityhood, the sides have turned their venom on each other.

It was opposition to the county’s plans to build a $43-million sewer system in Malibu, which opponents said would induce widespread development in the 20-mile-long community, that served as the catalyst for the incorporation campaign.

A motion picture advertiser, donating $10,000 of ad space and personal services, has spearheaded a blistering campaign in local newspapers chastising two incumbents allied with Mayor Larry Wan as part of the “Wan political machine.”

That, in turn, has sparked equally mean-spirited rejoinders from Citizens United for a Stable Malibu, a political action committee that has attacked Councilman Walt Keller, whom Wan last year helped oust as mayor, and the candidates he supports as the “Keller political machine.” Keller and Wan are not on the ballot--their terms run until 1994.

In noting the bitter mood, a local newspaper editorial last week described Malibu as “Beirut without bullets,” adding that “representatives of nations at war exhibit more civilized behavior than has this (City Council).”

Some of the bitterness has also spilled over into the community, which is home to scores of show business celebrities.

At a packed meeting of the City Council recently, actress Trish Van Devere, wife of actor George C. Scott, was shouted down by some of her neighbors after speaking on behalf of continuing a strict ban on home construction.

“You don’t even live within the city limits!” one man shouted.

“I do, too,” Van Devere replied.

“No, you don’t!” a third resident yelled. “It ends just past Charles Bronson’s house,” finishing an exchange that offered a brief respite from the council’s own internecine carping.

Political mudslinging aside, this is no ordinary small-town squabble.

Take the Malibu Grassroots Movement, or MGM, organized by Gene Wood, the off-camera voice of TV’s “Family Feud” and other game shows.

MGM has raised more than $21,000--not counting $10,000 worth of contributions from one of its members, advertising executive Brian Fox--to defeat incumbents Mike Caggiano and Missy Zeitsoff, whom it accuses of being too cozy with development interests. It has endorsed incumbent Carolyn Van Horn and two other Keller allies. Much of the money has come from 11 entertainment industry executives who live in Malibu, including H. Peter Guber, chairman of Sony Pictures Entertainment; Robert Daly, chairman of Warner Bros. Studios, and Jeffrey Katzenberg, chairman of Walt Disney Co.

“I picked up the newspaper one day and it looked like the wrath of Hollywood had turned on me,” quipped Zeitsoff.

In some places, such a potent lineup might automatically spell trouble for those they oppose.

But this is Malibu.

Caggiano quickly enlisted the support of a show business heavyweight, NBC Entertainment President Warren Littlefield, and garnered an endorsement from actress Ali MacGraw, a popular figure in the community.

All but three of the 17 candidates not endorsed by MGM accused the group of violating a city campaign finance law. Although MGM was exonerated, the fallout helped galvanize opposition to the group.

The result was a free-for-all scramble for support among the other candidates.

The Citizens United group, organized by a consultant with ties to Wan to countervail MGM’s efforts, shocked several of its own leaders when neither Caggiano nor Zeitsoff was among the three candidates it endorsed.

As a result of the endorsements, two of the six members of its steering committee quit, and even its co-chairwoman acknowledged that she was not consulted in advance about the choices.

In many respects, the topsy-turvy campaign has mirrored the chaos of the City Council’s inaugural year.

Despite its success in fending off the county’s long-sought plans to build an unpopular sewer system in Malibu, the sharply divided City Council has often floundered in dealing with other matters.

Critics say it has been ineffectual in dealing with growth issues and the city’s finances, while spending too much energy on such things as declaring the coastal waters off Malibu a “marine mammal sanctuary” and debating--to no resolve--whether to make it a crime to kill a monarch butterfly.

“Kill a butterfly--go to jail,” became the derisive battle cry of opponents.

Asked what she would most like to see improve if she wins another term on the council, Zeitsoff said: “May peace prevail on Earth and on the Malibu City Council.”