Dirty Tricks Get Dirtier in Malibu Election

“NOT AUTHORIZED BY A CANDIDATE OR A COMMITTEE CONTROLLED BY A CANDIDATE.”...

So states the disclaimer in bold type on what has to be one of the most repugnant mailers ever vomited up in a Malibu election, and a new low for the noxious nest of residents and real estate interests desperate to continue wantonly degrading the fragile coastal environment for a profit.

And beware those who dare oppose them, and that includes both reform minded residents and the rare bureaucrat trying to do the right thing.

Vilified in the mailer is Bruce Silverstein, who has been a stalwart councilperson using his legal skills to expose the continued abuses by recent woeful, witless Council majorities fronting for deep pocket residents and realtors, and as he continues to do in his campaign for reelection and the defeat of the duplicitous pro development Paul Grisanti.

It might be interesting to know who is underwriting this flood of foul flyers, though probably it is the same people who are paying local dolts to rip up the Silverstein and Steve Uhring lawn signs, and others to harass them at candidate forums and dox their supporters in the social media who at their risk are exposing Grisanti as a rapacious realtor.

The filth is traced to a small-time political operative in Long Beach, a Gary Crummit, who obviously didn’t design or distribute the mailer as a public service, and no doubt was paid, albeit probably covertly by someone most likely hidden in a fog of dummy accounts and pseudonyms. People who foster such attacks tend to be cowards as well as liars.

To put this venomous exercise so repellent to our democracy and Malibu’s conceit as a comfortable community in perspective, actually knowing who is funding this filth is not paramount.

What is key to the conundrum is who will benefit by these dirty tricks, or think they will

Obviously, it is those who want Silverstein defeated, and that clearly is the ever-grasping Grisanti and those scheming developers and their flunkys hungry for a buck, even if it means trashing and devaluating Malibu where they live with their families.

And who apparently think dirty tricks will fool enough voters to get Grisanti reelected.

Prominent among the dirty tricksters in support of Grisanti is Drew Leonard of Pinnacle realty, who as an appointee of maladroit Mayor Doug Stewart is now shockingly chairman of the Planning Commission.

But there is the faint hope that enough Malibu voters will see through and beyond the dirty tricks, the smear campaigning, and blatant lies, reject Grisanti as an unpalatable politician that he is, reelect Silverstein and Uhring, and maybe make the extra effort and write in Andy Lyon as the third choice. We can dream.