MALIBU : City Stops Storm Work After Landowner Accuses Crew of Trespassing

City workers were ordered to halt geological boring and storm preparations in Las Flores Canyon last week after the attorney for a landowner accused the city of trespassing and destroying his client’s property.

Workers were drilling to gauge the state of the Rambla Pacifico landslide and excavating to prepare for storm runoff when Edward Burg, an attorney for property owner Jack Tuefal, complained that they were drilling in his client’s back yard. Burg said the workers were also removing a wall Tuefal had built to protect his home from floods.

The city then suspended the work.

“We told the city that in no uncertain terms are they allowed to enter our client’s property,” Burg said this week.

Malibu officials said they erred in failing to get Tuefal’s permission to drill on his property. But the effort to remove portions of an old wall on Tuefal’s land, they said, was justified as part of an effort to slow the landslide.

John P. Clement, Malibu’s public works director, said that during heavy rainfall, the wall directs rushing water toward the base of the fragile Rambla Pacifico landslide and adjacent properties. The landslide, which engineers say moved four feet toward Las Flores Creek during last month’s rains, is west of Tuefal’s land.

“Tuefal protected his property at the expense of his neighbors,” Clement said. “He also is creating a greater danger of the landslide.”

City Atty. Christi Hogin has said the city will use its emergency authority, if necessary, to resolve the problem. Storm preparation, Hogin said, is not a “situation where we are concerned about getting property owners’ consent, because it isn’t an optional project.”

Tuefal owns the only lower Las Flores Canyon home that did not burn in the 1993 wildfire. Represented by Burg, he and five other landowners have sued Malibu and Los Angeles County, charging that the landslide that has blocked Rambla Pacifico road denied access to their homes and kept firefighters from saving their houses in the fire.

A Superior Court judge ruled in July that the city was not responsible for Rambla Pacifico because it is outside the city limits. The landowners are appealing the case.

Last month, four other property owners in lower Las Flores Canyon filed a similar lawsuit against the city, blaming Malibu and the county for the lack of road access to their burning houses. Both groups of residents are asking for damages, including the value of their homes.

Burg said that the city should buy all six of the clients’ properties, a move the city is considering as part of a $21-million project to stop the landslide and flooding.

“If the city needs to do public works on my client’s land, then they need to follow the proper procedures for legal condemnation,” he said.