=.  Armed guards may greet students at Malibu’s schools this fall.

=.  A nasty political fight is resurrected …. that is set to resume Monday night at the city council.

=.  Southern California Edison reliability is getting worse … the average Malibu house got 41 hours of blackouts last year.

=.  A Billionaires Beach house owner admits ripping off tenants to the tune of 12 and a half million dollars.

=.  Nice shape for waves today … surf contest this weekend at Surfrider … 

=.  And a nice little hurricane is moving west past Baja … maybe hurricane swells next Tuesday.

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

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Armed Guards May Be Stationed At Malibu’s 4 Public Schools, Under City Plan

What is this world coming to?  This:

On Monday … Malibu’s city council will consider a plan to put armed private security guards at the four school campuses in the city. 

The recent number of school shootings across the nation has alarmed council members.

Down in Santa Monica … the local school district relies on Santa Monica police for extra patrols.  But the L A County sheriff’s office blames a shortage of deputies … and they say armed deputies being used as on campus guards is not possible,. 

Captain Jennifer Seetoo recommends that the city hire a private security firm … like the ones she said were working successfully with the sheriff’s department at other school campuses. 

There was a meeting 10 days ago with school principals … teachers, and parent and community leaders to hear options proposed by Captain Seetoo.

A private security provider was brought in by Seetoo to discuss the role and responsibilities of a private security firm that is qualified to offer security services at a school. 

Mayor Paul Grisanti and Councilmember Farrer told the group that they planned to bring this before the Council … to have the city hire armed guards at the four school campuses. 

The two council members propose that the city spend up to 250 thousand dollars for a pilot project … a one year test.

Councilman Bruce Silverstein … at an earlier city council meeting … expressed support for added security at the schools as well.

But added security is not the only plan.

The sheriff’s office is strongly urging the schools and Boys and Girls Club of Malibu to implement the Sandy Hook Promise (SHP) programs at all schools. 

That’s a program that provides training for teachers, staff, students, and families on how to identify at-risk behaviors and intervene to get help. 

The city council will discuss the proposed armed security guards at Malibu’s four public schools … at its next meeting … Monday night. 

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Support for KBUU radio… For eight years now… Has come from Rancho Del Cielo. Perched high above the Pacific Ocean and overlooking Paradise Cove… Rancho Del Cielo is a partner bringing public radio to the Malibu.

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Uhring Wants Full Council To Resurrect Bitter Discourse On Helping County Libraries With Malibu Money

While there may be agreement on the school security issue … a bitter political battle will resume at the the city council meeting Monday night.. 

Councilman Steve Uhring wants the city council to reconsider its vote from a month ago … the 2-to-1 vote to give a 500 thousand dollar grant to the L A County Library system.

Uhring says all five city council members should vote on the issue … Bruce Silverstein and Paul Grisanti were absent that night. 

Uhring says the city grant of a half million dollars … to set up an endowment to fund library services countywide … is not allowed by the agreement with the county. 

And he argues that the $500,000 grant is a gift of public funds … and may be illegal.

At that heart of his argument … the money came from Malibu taxpayers and should stay in Malibu.

He said the half million dollars should stay in Malibu … to build a library in the western part of the city.

NEWSCART A73395 LIBRARY UHRING

“We gave $300,000 to the library foundation a couple of years ago. 

“So we’ve made our contribution. My sense is we’ve got this list of projects we want to get done … that aren’t done … right?

“So if we’re going to spend the money … let’s spend the money for the residents of Malibu … that’s their money.”

Add the city Council meeting a month ago … three residents said they agreed with that.  One of them was Jo Drummond.

NEWSCART A73397 DRUMMOND LIBRARY

““This is a half million dollar funding grab of funds allocated for a western Malibu library with meeting rooms or it could be a senior facility.

“All these funds need to be saved up to buy land and build western Malibu a library. The county has all our funds. They could ask them for it.

Malibu is unique among the 88 cities in L A County.  

It has a 16 million dollar surplus in its library account … which is property tax money collected by the county that is set aside for the city to use on library purposes. 

Former Malibu mayor Laura Rosenthal wants to use three percent of that money … 500 thousand dollars … to set up a countywide endowment. 

It would be the seed funding to attract major funding from foundations and endowments …  money that will be invested for kids … money that will come back to benefit Malibu.  

NEWSCART A73398 LAURA LIBRARY 222

“it will fund things like early literature and environmental programs that the county can’t reliably support. Our health and vitality are linked to that neighboring communities “People come here from throughout the county

“They work here they play here… Their children go to school here… They are essential to our lives and our community.”

At the last city council meeting … Uhring got visibly upset with that idea. 

So upset that he angrily interrupted Farrer as she explained her vote. 

NEWSCART A73396 KAREN UHRING LIBRARY 

FARRER: “I believe that the thing to do to improve the greater good which will also improve things in Malibu is to do this endowment and let this fund generate God knows how much money over the coming ears… Which will come back to benefit us.

UHRING: “How is it going to come back to benefit us?”

FARRER: “Steve I just explained it. I don’t need to explain it all over again.”

UHRING, INTERRUPTING: “No you didn’t!”

FARRER: “I made my motion … do we have a second?”

Uhring is not happy that Farrer and councilman Mikke Pierson were able to pass the grant on a 2 to 1 vote. 

His ally Bruce Silverstein was absent that night …. Silverstein has already spoken against Malibu subsidies to the county library system.

Malibu funds being used for the county’s library system.

Paul Grisanti was also absent that night … so the focus will be on whether Uhring and Silverstein can muster enough opposition to sway Grisanti.

Or … if this is just playing politics during an election season. 

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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. 

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You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu … FM 99.1 … KBUU.

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The People Concern Up For $770,000 Contract To Steer Homeless To Shelters

The People Concern is the name of the Santa Monica based homeless service provider that is hired in Malibu to help get people into shelters.

The number of homeless encampments in the city appears tribe dropping.

The city’s homeless services coordinator says only three encampments have been cleaned up as of the first six months of the year.

NEWSCART A73444 PEO CONCERN LUIS FLORE

“We have three so far we have three so far which is at the midpoint of the year 11 number than last year. So the People Concern continues to do that in kind of outreach and I’m continuously working with them on that sort of outreach.”

Public Safety director Susan Duenads told the city;’s homelessness task force that the people Concern’s contract with the city will come uop for renewal at the city council meeting Monday night.

And Duenas says it was a competitive bid process. 

NEWSCART A73445 DUENAD PEO CONCERN 

“We did a normal bid process. We had three proposals. We interviewed the top two candidates. 

“And we ended up choosing the people concerned based on a number of factors.”

The People Concern contract will cost up to 770 thousand dollars over two years.

It goes up for a vote next Monday night.

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Support for Radio Malibu KBUU comes from the Mark & Grether Real Estate Group.

The Mark & Grether Group is a small tightly knit team… based in Malibu… with full-time marketing and operations staff to deliver exceptional results and smooth real estate transactions.

Mark & Grether Group… a top producing team with 35 years of experience and over $1 billion of real estate sold and leased …. from Malibu’s coastline to the canyons.

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Average Malibu House Was Blacked Out 40.9 Hours Last Year, SCE Estimates

Southern California Edison is still doing a bad job of keeping the power up in Malibu … compared to the rest of its service area. 

And it’s getting worse.

That is the clear conclusion … looking at the latest SCE reliability statistics for Malibu.

KBUU has again analyzed the Malibu reliability reports … filed by SCE with the California Public Utilities Commission.

The number of power outages in Malibu … over the last three years … up 40 percent.

The length of power outages in Malibu … over the last three years … has increased by a factor of five.

Add all the power outages together … and the average Malibu power customer was blacked out  for 2,456 minutes.  

That’s 41 hours of blackout.

The systemwide average for SCE customers is three hours per year.

Why the disparity??? 

Intentional power outages are frequent in Malibu.

That’s when SCE turns off the power because the sustained winds are predicted to top 28 miles an hour. 

87 percent of the power outage minutes in Malibu are caused by intentional, protective power outages.

But Malibu winds have always been strong … and that cannot explain why the number and length of power outages are so high our here … after SCE has spent millions of ratepayer dollars supposedly hardening the grid.

Hundreds of miles of insulated wires have been installed.

Hundreds of wooden poles have been replaced.

Edison used to show up at the Malibu City Council every year … to report on its system reliability.

Haven’t seen them lately.

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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.

Their Happy Days Honey Blonde is a light dry traditional blonde ale… Brew with local wildflower honey from the Santa Monica mountains.

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

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Billionaire Beach Homeowner Ripped Off Thousands Of Tenants Of Apartment Deposits

The owner of a house on Billionaire’s Beach … a real estate developer who owns 15 thousand apartments across L-A … has been ripping off his tenants.

Geoffrey Palmer has agreed to pay $12.5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit brought against him.

Palmer is the guy behind those giant luxury … gated apartment complexes clustered around downtown LA. 

His company … GHP Management … has been caught withholding security deposits from more than 19,000 tenants … when they moved out of his apartment complexes.

The L-A Times reports that even tenants who left their apartments in spotless condition were no getting their money back.

Palmer lives in Beverly Hills … he hosted President Donald Trump for a gala fundraiser in 2019.

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9.5% Sewer Rate Hike Proposed For Commercial Properties In Malibu Civic Center

How would you like an 833 thousand dollar annual sewer bill???
That’s the amount that the City of Malibu is going to charge next year … charge the owner of the Colony Shopping Center … where the Ralphs supermarket is … in downtown Malibu. 

Sewer bills for the businesses connected to the Civic Center sewer are going before the city council next Monday. 

The city is taking the cost of building and running the new sewer system … dividing it by the amount of sewage generated on each property … and coming up with a cost per unit. 

And city staff wants to charge 9.5 percent more over three years. 

No houses are connected to the sewer yet … although the state water board has ordered homes near the Malibu Lagoon to hook into phase 2 of the system.

Malibu’s city hall will get a bill for sewer services … for almost 43 thousand dollars. 

Not all the bills are huge.

That little real estate office at the corner of PCH and Cross Creek?

They will get a 25 hundred dollar bill next year.

But getting back to that 833 thousand dollar sewer bill … the owner of the Colony Shopping center is Stan Kronke … owner of the L A Rams … billionaire commercial property developer,

Kronke is worth upwards of 11 billion dollars … by some estimates.

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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.

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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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