Meet The Candidate: Steve Uhring

MALIBU, CA —“One of things that I think drew me to Malibu, and I think other people, there’s a promise of a quality of life...we’re not gonna have development popping up all over the place,” said Steve Uhring, a Malibu planning commissioner who’s running for City Council. “One day you’re living in Malibu, the next day you wake up and you’re living in Laguna [Beach].”

Uhring, 72, who has served on the planning commission for four years and began paying attention to Malibu development 26 years ago during a large development project for the Civic Center that never materialized, places quality of life and development in the city at the top of his list.

“Malibu’s quality of life and unique environment are rapidly diminishing due to a continued lack of focus by our elected officials,” Uhring’s candidate statement begins.

Among Uhring’s many quality of life concerns for the city is environmental protection and overdevelopment. He feels that development needs to be “slow” and “balanced.”

“That’s really what I’ve been trying to do: keep a balance between protecting what we have, and if new stuff comes in, make sure it’s balanced between what the residents want, and what the city can use,” he said.

As president of the Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy, Uhring helped put together a ballot initiative that defeated a planned 185,000 square-foot shopping center — which he felt “would change the character of the city”— on the land that is now Legacy Park, and helped raise $500,000 to purchase the land. He also worked with residents, planners, and the city manager to negotiate plans for Trancas Park, and helped create a Dark Skies Ordinance to help slow light pollution. He is strongly against the proposed La Paz development near Whole Foods, which he finds perplexing given the city’s large number of empty storefronts.

Uhring cites under-regulation of short-term rentals as another impediment to Malibu quality of life, and says that they’re destroying neighborhoods. “You got some places that are like party houses - at two in the morning there’s a party going on….I have video where Saturday afternoon people are coming out of these party houses peeing on your front lawn,” he said. “That’s not exactly the quality of life Malibu residents are looking for.”

Uhring told the Malibu Times that he considers the city council’s nine-year battle to regulate these houses a “disaster,” and blamed lack of enforcement powers in the ordinance and proper communication between the different agencies. The planning commission put together a preliminary short-term rental ordinance modeled after one in Santa Monica that requires a designated property owner to be on-site at night, and requires permits to operate a short-term rental that can be denied or revoked.

Uhring said he believes this plan to be the most effective way to regulate short-term rentals, but wonders how long it will take to be implemented.

Uhring said that most people in Malibu consider Pacific Coast Highway a “death trap,” and said that more resources are needed for traffic and parking enforcement. He said that due to a rising crime rate, sheriffs are stretched too thin, a problem compounded by COVID budget concerns. He is also in favor of trying to find land in the city - away from the proposed Civic Center site - to house the city’s growing homeless population.

To address the city’s budget shortfall, Uhring favors taxing the sale of large homes, looking into cost-sharing with other cities, and examining other potential sources of revenue. He also advocates implementing new technology like a centralized database in city hall to reduce city staffing expenses.

He said that he is in favor of a separate school district for Malibu, but is not certain there would be enough enrollment for it to be self-sustaining.

Uhring said that he doesn’t have any easy solutions for the coronavirus pandemic, but said he supports the basic guidelines of social distancing and mask-wearing. He is unclear whether to close the beaches or enforce mask-wearing on the beaches, but thinks both solutions would be unrealistic.

“This is a very strange time,” he said. “Until either a vaccine comes through or some miracle happens and this stuff disappears, this is gonna be an ongoing problem, and I don’t know how long it’s gonna be ongoing.”

Uhring said he supports the initiatives the Council has taken so far to help small businesses, like providing small grants and allowing some to operate outdoors.

He was critical of the city’s Woolsey Fire response, saying that the city’s evacuation, communication, and preparedness were flawed.

“I think it was a mess across the board,” he told the Malibu Times. “There is a fairly large contingent of the Malibu residents who are upset with city manager, members of the city council and the way that was handled...they had done subsequent studies, Mikke Pierson and Karen did one, whatever, and I don’t know where the hell those things have gone, I haven’t seen any changes get made.”

Uhring then suggested that the council did not take appropriate responsibility for the failures, and threw them off on City Manager Reva Feldman. “City council’s in charge!” he told the Times. “You know, it’s sort of like, you know, you don’t have the CEO of the company blaming his secretary when stuff goes wrong.” In the same interview, Uhring suggested he may fire city staffers, pointing to his experience as a publishing executive in Chicago.

“I’ve let more people—I’ve let enough people go to last me a lifetime. Last me two lifetimes, OK! So I, I—however, if it has to be done, I know how to do it,” though he didn’t specify whom and how likely it was he would try to fire anyone.

To prepare for future literal fires, Uhring pointed to new planning commission requirements that residents must fireproof their homes. In general, Uhring feels like the city should better market its fire safety resources, like the city’s offering free home fire preparation advice from Fire Safety Liaison Jerry Vandermeulen.

Uhring said that it is crucial that out-of-town firefighters are briefed on locations in Malibu, and suggested more training and possibly new navigation apps. He also stressed the importance of making sure that all water pumps in the city have enough water, and a system of notifying every resident of evacuation plans, especially if the electricity goes out. He also said that the city needs to have supplies in place for people who choose to stay in their homes despite a mandatory evacuation order.