Malibu Needs More Compassion

Enough of the city’s corruption of its codes in its continued deplorable denying of the permit allowing the Riddick family of West Malibu to build a 414 square feet ADU to house an ailing grandparent.

Time for the city to show some compassion, if not competence, and drop its vain attempts to legally block the permit, the latest an appeal to the State’s Supreme Court. What a waste of municipal funds and time.

If these persistent efforts by the city’s interim legal consultants demonstrate anything, it is the city's ineptitude, and explains why its permit process and code enforcement for relatively modest homeowners are to often tortuous, arbitrary, and interminable.

That is except if select chummy, generous City Hall “facilitators” are involved, representing deep pocket applicants. This while the Council continues to be dominated by a shallow, pro-development majority, and a bloated bureaucracy that with few exceptions is unable to see beyond its payroll, perks and pensions.

And also a local electorate that too often cannot see beyond the thin smiles, empty promises, and lawn signs of a conniving clique, and instead should be voting for those pledged to serve Malibu and not special interests.

By the way, the tip of a journalist eye shade to Barbara Burke for her article on the plight of the Riddicks that appeared in a recent Malibu Times.

It was a welcome deviation to the drift that paper has displayed toward a disturbing reactionary bent. Hopefully Burke’s article will herald more veracious local coverage and less derivative drivel.