Malibu City Council Needs Danny Smith

I will be casting a bullet vote for Danny Smith in the Malibu City Council election, as I urge my local friends. followers and other residents to do if they like me embrace and value a singular livable Malibu.

Clearly Smith's unique perspective as a fire victim yearning to rebuild his family home and life here, and his stated allegiance to Malibu's Vision and Mission Statement, will lend the too often conflicted council the experience and morality needed to fend off the covetous local real estate and commercial interests.

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Fortunate for the city, Smith stepped forward to be at least the one viable candidate for the upcoming two vacant council seats. They are being vied for by the two incumbents, Doug Stewart and Marianne Riggins, who despite their well financed if misleading campaign have proven in their tenure to be demonstrably unqualified, as is an anomalous fourth candidate of questionable motives.

Nevertheless, I reluctantly went to hear the four candidates at a forum at the Malibu Library this weekend organized by conscientious east enders, if only to reaffirm my local political prejudices, knowing from my long media experience dating back to when I was a bushy tailed reporter for the New York Times in the 1960s, that I would be lied to by the two incumbents for reelection.

There were no surprises at the polite forum; I was relieved to witness Smith continues to be his forthright self, thoughtful and candid, with a ready smile for his opponents, Though I must note it was not often returned. Notably nasty was incumbent Stewart who head bent down awkwardly read from a prepared tortuous statement, avoiding eye contact with the other panelist and the audience.

Stewart's dubious disposition reaffirmed why he should not be reelected; he tends to spout his commitment to the betterment of Malibu, while surreptitiously acting otherwise; case in point his surrogate on the Planning Commission, Drew Leonard, is blatantly, obnoxiously, pro development, as is Riggin's rep, Skylar Peak, an ignominious former mayor.

Both Stewart dourly and Riggins at least with a cherry demeanor, at the forum also were not particularly forthcoming in their replies to several audience questions concerning the convoluted city planning permitting process for the rebuilds, which if anything from my development experience has apparently hardened the city's bureaucratic arteries, despite its self aggrandizing, pricey public relations recitations to the contrary.

While the incumbent candidates both were quick to say why they couldn't act on various resident proposals addressing pressing city problems, including PCH traffic, and the permitting process, contending that it was beyond their purview. Not so Smith and the other candidate. Both pledged to be more aggressive dealing with Caltrans, the Coastal Commission , the MRCA and other recalcitrant State agencies.

So went the forum, for more than two hours. Though the questions raised and the discussions that followed were protracted and, at times, puzzling, it did frankly reveal the limitations of incumbents Stewart and Riggins. They do not warrant reelection. and should be retired, though one is obviously going to prevail.

But hopefully so will Danny Smith, for which a bullet vote is urged to focus the effort to at least add another arrow for reform in the Malibu City Council quiver.