Malibu Probes Anti-Mayor Video

The Malibu city attorney’s office is investigating whether the widespread distribution of a political campaign video narrated by actor Jack Lemmon violated the city’s campaign finance and disclosure ordinances.

At issue is a five-minute tape, mailed to thousands of Malibu residents last week, in which Lemmon’s voice-over depicts Mayor Jeff Jennings as a pro-development politician who wants to turn Malibu into another Laguna Beach. The tape endorses another candidate in today’s election, Tom Hasse, a Malibu resident who edits a Beverly Hills community newspaper.

City Atty. Christi Hogin said the investigation was begun after Jennings’ campaign filed a complaint Monday. She said her office is focusing on a local activist group that produced the video, the Road Worriers. The organization bills itself as supporting moderate development policies.

Malibu’s campaign regulations mandate that all campaign literature name the sponsors and limit individual and group campaign contributions to $100. Although some of the anti-Jennings videos mailed to Malibu households were marked with the group’s name, others were distributed without identification, Hogin said.

The video, produced with flashy graphics and ominous music, focuses on Malibu’s civic center, which contains 76% of all available commercial land in the city. Lemmon accuses Jennings--a member of the City Council who is serving as mayor this year--of wanting to build 1.1 million square feet of malls and hotels on the 120-acre site, “fouling the air and destroying the tranquillity that is Malibu.”

Such a development would turn Pacific Coast Highway “into a dirty, dangerous, congested nightmare running right through the heart of Malibu,” Lemmon warns.

Lemmon could not be reached for comment. He has long been involved in numerous liberal political causes, endorsing state ballot measures, supporting county supervisors and leading an effort that blocked construction of an immense mansion in a Beverly Hills neighborhood where he owned a residence.

Remy O’Neill, chairwoman of the Road Worriers, charged that Jennings’ campaign filed its complaint with the city attorney’s office in a desperate attempt to shift the focus of the election away from Jennings’ support of commercial developers.

The City Council has not yet voted on its Civic Center Specific Plan, which would create a framework for land use in Malibu’s town center.

Jennings denied the tape’s allegations that he favors unbridled commercial development.

“My stance is that I don’t want to see Malibu overdeveloped,” he said. “But if we deny people the right to build on their property, they will take us to court.”

Jennings, the only incumbent among four candidates on the ballot for two seats in today’s election, criticized the video as “small-town dirty politics.”

It was unclear precisely how many videos were mailed. A spokesman for the Malibu post office estimated that several thousand were delivered.