=.  The cougar that ate a family dog at Pepperdine was wearing an NPS radio collar.

=.  That raises the possibility … the possibility … that this was the same animal involved in the attack on a little boy… five months ago and five miles up the canyon. 

=.   Ventura County is dropping its indoor mask requirements next week … LA County maybe in two weeks.

=.   No rain for 40 days … two brushfires yesterday on the other side of LA.

=.   Putting power lines underground is gonna cost 3.5 million dollars a mile in Northern California. 

This is Malibu’s Only Local Daily News … the Friday edition … I’m Hans Laetz reporting. 

Dog-Eating Cougar Was Wearing NPS Radio Tag, 5 Miles From Attack On Child Last Summer

A mountain lion ate a large pet dog in an apartment on the Pepperdine University campus last week, and it appears that the mountain lion was wearing a National Park Service radio tracking collar.

The attack was last Friday.  Pepperdine’s public safety department is down the street from where the attack happened … and they are warning people to remain vigilant … as mountain lions are frequently seen on the Pepperdine campus.

And last night .,.. social media pictures of two mountain lions strolling up a lane in Serra Estates … right across the canyon from Pepperdine.

Last night … a spokesman for California Fish and Wildlife says this particular mountain lion may be under radio tracking surveillance by biologists at the federal agency that studies them. 

The lush landscaping attracts deer … and deer attract mountain lions. State Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tim Daly.

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“Deer is what mountain lions prefer.

“And so that doesn’t mean they will die deer is what mountain lions prefer and so that doesn’t mean they aren’t open to the idea of taking small pets. 

“Very occasionally and thank goodness that doesn’t happen very often they might take a nick out of a small child out on a hike or someplace out on the trailer someplace. 

“When that happens we take those incidents very seriously we will find that animal and remove that animal because that is seen as a serious public threat.”

REPORTER:  “Did the (National) Park Service have a collared cougar in the area at the time of this ?”

FISH AND WILDLIFE:  “That’s what I understand. This is likely a mountain lion that is colored and known by NPS.”

Only five miles away … and only five months ago … a little boy playing in his yard was grabbed by a juvenile mountain lion on August 26th.

The boy was grabbed back by his mother … it was the first mountain lion attack on a human in LA County in 26 years,

That lion was shot and killed by state game officers … but the lion’s sibling and mother were also in the area of the attack.

The mother was identified as P-54 … and she wears a NPS radio tag.

Fish and Wildlife spokesman Tim Daly says the National Park Service has not disclosed if P-54 was at Pepperdine when the dog was killed.  

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“Each case is handled differently … each case in investigated differently.

“When someone loses a pet or suffers serious property damage… whether it’s bears mountain lions or whatever wildlife… we give them an opportunity to go into a process called ‘depredation permit.’

“They can ask us to get involved and do what we can to find the animal that is responsible and remove it. It is a very complicated and  lengthy process intentionally… that we don’t take lightly the idea of going out to find a mountain lion that is responsible for something like this.

REPORTER: “So no depradation permit has been sought in this case?”

FISH AND WILDLIFE SPOKESMAN: “I’m not aware of the reporting party asking that this animal be hunted down and removed… that’s not happening at this point.”

Pepperdine public safety officials say it appears that the cougar has moved on … but heightened patrols continue. 

And they are urging people on the Pepperdine campus to be very careful … particularly during the twilight hours when mountain lions are often spotted on the Pepperdine campus. 

Fish and Wildlife has scheduled a public educational session … at Pepperdine … for two weeks from now. 

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Support for KBUU Radio comes from the Malibu Brewing Company.

Malibu Brewing Company is a locally owned craft brewery, proudly supporting our community, and local public radio. 

Just released: a limited, holiday-spiced Winter Ale …  a perfect fireside companion.

It makes a special gift for the beer-lovers on your list.

Find Malibu Brewing Company premium craft beer in select retailers, or order direct at brew malibu dot com

 

This Week’s Malibu School PCR Tests Not Posted As Of Friday Morning, But New Cases Plummet

On the coronavirus front … test results from last Tuesday’s PCR testing in Malibu public schools in Malibu public schools have not been posted yet. 

Ventura County’s indoor mask mandate will be lifted next Wednesday.

COVID-19 infections continue to fall sharply.

California officials announced earlier this week that they will allow the statewide mandate to expire.

But the state has given local governments the option of keeping their masking rules in place.

That’s the rule in LA County … where the number of people hospitalized with Covid yesterday was 2597 …. Just over the magic 25 hundred threshold.

Los Angeles County is on track to move into a “post-surge” phase by next week, the region’s public health chief said yesterday.

COVID-19 rules requiring masks at outdoor large events and outdoors at schools and child-care centers are on track to be lifted by as early as Wednesday of next week.

Indoor masking rules could drop in two weeks or so …  assuming current declines stay on track.

Last Friday, there were upwards of 15,000 new daily cases in the county. By Thursday, it was 6,276.

Los Angeles County recorded 103 fatalities Wednesday — the highest single-day tally since last March. Another 81 deaths were reported Thursday.

And the death toll in Malibu in the Santa Monica mountains remains at 31.

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Brushfires in the Middle Of So Cal’s Rainy Season Hold Lessons For Malibu

Right now … Malibu is in the middle of the rainy season. 

It hasn’t rained for nearly 40 days.

Want to know how bad the fire danger is ???
Look at Laguna Beach.

Yesterday … a fire broke out in the hills west of Laguna Beach … in the brush … in the middle of the night. 

No cause yet … could have been transients … could have been arson … we don’t know. 

Bbut the Santa Ana winds were howling. 

No houses were lost …but hours later … two houses were lost to flames when a Brushy hillside caught fire in Whittier.

“If this is a sign of things to come, we’re in for a long year ahead,” said Orange County Fire Authority Chief Brian Fennessy in an interview with the Orange County Register. 

If January was bone dry … February was bone dry plus brutal hot winds. 

Up north… snow pack levels were nearly 10 percent below normal for much of California.

“This is going to be a critical next month and a half or so” … a National Weather Service told the OC Register.

 “Depending on how much rain we get, that will determine how dry the fuels are going to be in the summer and fall…Especially in the past couple of years, we have not been getting a lot of rain.”

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Support for KBUU Radio comes from the Malibu Foundation.

The Malibu Foundation underwrote the KBUU solar panels and batteries at the transmitter … which keeps KBUU’s FM transmitting on 99.1 during storms and blackouts… 24 seven… on clean renewable Malibu sunshine.

PG&E Estimates It Costs $3.5 Million Per Mile To Underground Power Lines, SCE Uses Insulated Lines

Putting power lines underground is going to coast 3 and a half million dollars per mile.

That is the estimate up north … where Pacific Gas & Electric plans to bury 3,600 miles of high-risk power lines.

Consumers in northern California are going to pay for that in in increased bills… on top of 9% rate hikes that we’re just approved yesterday by the California Public Utilities Commission.

The average residential customer in areas north of Bakersfield will an increase of $14 a month in PG&E electric bills.

“Completely outrageous,” says Mark Toney, executive director for The Utility Reform Network. “When you add this to the increase at the beginning of the year, this amounts to a 20% increase so far in 2022.”

And this may set a pattern for Malibu and Southern California Edison customers … already reeling from increased distribution bills from SCE on top of their generation bills from the clean power alliance… Which I have not gone up since last summer.

CPA generation rates are set to go down 6 percent next month.

Back to that 3 point 5 million dollar per mile cost estimate for putting power liens underground.

Southern California Edison is instead opting to replace bare wire overhead lines with cables wrapped in insulating plastic.

And it is wrapping many of its wooden poles with fiberglass … which may reduce the dangers of fire and rot. 

Maybe.

According to PGE’s critics … Southern California Edison says it can use insulated power poles and power lines for a cost of $551,000 a mile … which is one sixth of the PGE cost estimate of putting lines underground.

At 3 point 5 million dollars a mile … undergrounding all the power lines inside all of the Malibu city limits works out to about quarter billion dollars.

And that equals 44 thousand dollars per parcel in Malibu.

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Support for KBUU Radio also comes the the Malibu Association of Realtors.

When choosing someone to represent you when you buy … sell or rent a house … local knowledge is very important.

Malibu zoning rules … Coastal Commission rules …

Members of the Malibu Association of Realtors are local experts.

The Malibu Association of Realtors …  supporters of our local community … and supporters of local radio 99.1 KBUU.

VC Orders Another Search/Rescue/Cop/Fire Chopper

The yellowbirds over Malibu are getting reinforced.

Yellow helicopters operated by the Ventura County fire Department are frequent sites in the mountains of Malibu… Red Los Angeles County helicopters and yellow Ventura County helicopters frequently work together … providing back up for each other.

The Ventura County Star reports that county supervisors ahem just approved buying a medium-sized chopper … intended mostly for search nd rescue work.

The Bell 412 EPX helicopter can also be used for general law enforcement operations .… and in a pinch it can carry water for firefighting drops. 

The new helicopter will replace one of the unit’s current search-and-rescue aircraft, a 1969 Bell UH-1 Iroquois, better known as a “Huey.” The new copter 15 million dollar chopper is currently scheduled to arrive in October.

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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu.

Support for KBUU’s radio covers from Orbit Homes Inc.

Prefabricated homes are the future of construction. Easy to get permits. Fast to build and install. Cost effective … little construction waste.

In Malibu, Orbit Homes has a showroom between City Hall and the Malibu racquet club.

Fire victims can check them out in person … and visit them on the web at www.orbithomes.us .

Malibu, Years Behind On Earthquake Building Safety Rules, Starts Counting the Problem Buildings

The City of Malibu is going to study how many buildings exist that are at serious risk of damage in earthquakes.

The big worry… Soft structure buildings.

These are buildings with flimsy first floors housing carports … or garages with big openings.

Living quarters are upset

that can collapse in an earthquake, as well as old, vulnerable brick and brittle concrete residential buildings.

Mandatory retrofit laws for soft-story apartment buildings have been passed in Los Angeles, Santa Monica, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Pasadena and Culver City.

But not Malibu. 

At last weeks public safety commission meeting… I see official said these soft structure buildings collapse on the ground moves.

Susan Duenas is the city’s public safety director … and she cited the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

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“The Northridge Meadows apartments was a catastrophic collapse because of a soft-story structure type of construction. And we do have those kinds of buildings here, so if we had a large earthquake honestly that is where we could have some fatalities. Probably not anywhere else.”

Some of those soft structure buildings are sitting on top of wooden pilings … particularly houses and apartments on the ocean front in Eastern Malibu … man y of them more than 60 years old.

Duenas says the city may need to take action … but first … they need to see how many buildings may by earthquake hazards.

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“That’s kind of step one let’s see how many we have let’s see if we can come up with incentives. You know we hate to mandate things but it may come to that… We don’t know… We’re going to start with coming up with an assessment of how many soft structures we have out there.”

City public safety director Susan Duenas.

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You can hear the news live every morning until 9:30 on KBUU.

FM 99.1 in western Malibu.  Also: streaming at www.radiomalibu.net

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If humanly possible, the KBUU NewsScript is usually published at around midday at www.radiomalibu.net