KBUU News Fri Feb 4 – Santa Anas Next 7 Days – Pedestrian Claims Woman Aimed Car At Her At Zuma – Silverstein HR Investigation Released – Ventura County Farms Use Thousands Of Pounds Of Pesticides Near Houses And Schools, Environmental Group Says
Written by 991KBU on February 4, 2022
=. 7 days of Santa Anas in the forecast – 50 mile gusts expected at midday today.
=. A pedestrian claims a woman aimed her car t her at Zuma Beach … leads to a standoff at Zumirez.
=. 12 kids come down Covid positive at Malibu’s secondary school.
=. An outside lawyer says Reva Feldman did not have a valid claim of gender discrimnartion against Bruce Silverstein …
=. But the HR report finds that women at City Hall said Silverstein was unprofessional … rude and created a hostile work environment.
=. And tons and tons of pesticide is being used on all those pretty green crops just upwind of Malibu.
====
This is Malibu’s Only Local Daily News … the Friday edition … I’m Hans Laetz reporting.
Santa Anas To 50 MPH Today, 7 Days Of Occasional, Hot Winds Possible
More strong Santa Ana winds are expected this morning.
The National Weather Service says damaging wind gusts – up to 60 miles an hour at the mountaintops – will hit us in the late morning hours today.
On the beaches … gusts up to 45 miles an hour this morning.
This pattern of strong dry winds will return Saturday night … and all next week will see on and off Santa Anas.
Record high temperatures may be coming as well.
No rain is even slightly in the forecast for the next 7 days.
====
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.
Pedestrian Advises Driver aimed At Her At Zuma, Driver Arrested At Zumirez
A woman walking on PCH at Zuma Beach last night reported that a car’s driver deliberately aimed at her.
And there was a brief standoff near the Point Dume fire station when deputies stopped the suspect car to arrest the driver.
Deputies tell KBUU News that the incident began shortly before 7:30 last night on PCH at Guernsey Avenue.
A woman called 911 to report that the driver had aimed at her.
Deputies stopped the suspect car at PCH at Zumirez Drive.
The woman would not obey orders … was uncooperative.
PCH was blocked to other traffic while more deputies arrived.
The suspect was arrested … there was no gun in the vehicle.
Exactly what the charges might be was not released by deputies last night.
12 Covid Positive Tests Pop Up This Week At Malibu High and Middle Schools
The number of confirmed positive cases …. In Malibu … of Covid 19 … the official count … is approaching two thousand.
But the death toll remains 13 … plus 18 in the Santa Monica Mountains neighborhoods.
L A County officials yesterday said they will loosen up mark restrictions when the number of people hospitalized with Coronavirus drops to a certain level.
Once that level drops below 2500 cases for seven straight days… The omicron surge of this winter will be declared over and the mask rules will be loosened… But not eliminated. The goal is 2500 cases and as of yesterday there were 3400 Covid positive patients hospitalized across Los Angeles County. Public health officials say reaching the end of the omicron surge is at least several weeks away… Given the high number of deaths… Large number of people in the hospital… and the continued substantial contagion.
At Malibu High School … the weekly PCR testing detected nine additional positive cases .
Plus one case at the next-door Middle School.
And the school also had 2 additional positive cases reported to them . Making it a total of 12 kids who had been on campus and possibly contagious.
There are 682 kids enrolled at the two schools.
The principal has issued a list of class periods where the students circulated…and reminded parents that kids who attended those class hours must wear masks at all times on campus for 10 days … except when eating or drinking.
Individuals with an exposure should wear a well-fitting, non-cloth mask of multiple layers of non-woven material with a nose wire.
Test results for Malibu’s two public elementary school have not yet been posted by the district.
In the region … coronavirus infections detected in L-A County schools have declined about 70% since the start of the spring semester.
But overall rates remain significantly higher than they were before the current surge.
====
You are listening to the latest news from Radio Malibu … FM 99.1 KBUU.
===
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.
2nd Legal Probe Released: It Finds Silverstein Actions Were Perceived As Hostile, But Not Aimed At A Female For being Female
For the second time … an outside legal investigation into Malibu city councilman Bruce Silverstein has been released by the city.
And for the second time … Silverstein was faulted.
According to the report, Silverstein’s behavior was described by witnesses in city hall as “often reflecting hostility” and “harassment” … and creating a “hostile work environment.”
And those accounts were not contradicted by the The H-R report … from attorney Leslie Ellis.
Rather … it said Silverstein’s behavior towards Feldman was not aimed at her because she is a woman.
In fact … the investigating lawyer says Silverstein … quoting now … “indicated that, even if he acted like a jerk to her, doing so was not a violation of law or policy.”
The 25-page Ellis Report found that in order to prove a sexual harassment case … Feldman would have had to prove that Silverstein’s conduct involved animus towards based on the fact that she is a woman.
Silverstein has always maintained that his dislike of Feldman was based on her job performance… and the Ellis report agreed with that.
The Ellis Report is the second recent outside legal report to fault Silverstein.
Last fall … an investigation into allegations that Silverstein spread about Feldman and supposed city hall corruption found it to be worthless.
That was the affidavit … drafted by Silverstein and signed by outgoing city council member Jefferson Wagner.
Those charges were found by a different outside lawyer to be false … not accurate … and from sources with no credibility
Yesterday’s release was accompanied by a letter from Interim City Attorney John Cotti … who says he told the city council in secret session last year that Feldman’s request for a $300,000 contract buyout “did not allege facts that would support a claim of gender-based discrimination.”
Cotti says he told the council “employees are not entitled to a kind boss, but rather one who does not discriminate on the basis of gender or other protected basis.”
Yesterday … Silverstein’s political supporters seized on the Ellis Report as exoneration.
“Bruce did nothing that he was accused of” says one. … Joe Patterson … writing on the KBUU Facebook page.
He and others criticized the city council majority for agreeing to the buyout with Feldman … after the city attorney and consulting attorneys told them Feldman did not have a sex discrimination case.
The “three city council members continued to harass and defame Silverstein, implying he could be guilty of these accusations for 6 months after knowing the results of the paid for report exonerated him … “ Patterson told KBUU.
The report did not exonerate Silverstein … in the eyes of others.
They pointed out that the Ellis Report found Silverstein’s behavior aggressive and offensive to workers at City Hall, but did not rise to sex harassment because it was not aimed at Feldman because of her gender.
All five city council members – including Silverstein – voted last year to pay Feldman 300 thousand dollars to leave office.
Her contract with the city entitled her to the majority of that money.
All of this is still at issue now because … in a month or so … Silverstein’s supporters expect him to be elected mayor by the city council members.
Traditionally … the mayor’s gavel is rotated among city council members.
Not always … but usually.
But Silverstein himself says … he is not traditional.
The stated opinion of the three city council member majority ….as voiced at city council meetings last December … is that Silverstein’s aggressive and confrontational behavior is politically not acceptable.
Editor’s note: At midmorning Friday, Silverstein attempted to post a comment on the KBUU Facebook page that repeated his attempt at insulting the author, by calling him “Hack Laetz.” Silverstein has apparently taken a lesson from Donald Trump about calling reporters insulting names. For more than a year, Silverstein has been banned from the KBUU social media for name calling. Silverstein repeatedly asks to be allowed back, but KBUU does not print personal insults or allow insults to be printed on its Facebook or other Internet pages. In this case, this public official’s continued pettiness is in itself newsworthy.
Links:
- Ellis Investigation Report
- Ellis Investigation Letter to City Attorney
- City Attorney Memo to City Council
=====
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 .
Ventura County Farms Apply 4 Million Pounds Of Pesticide Per Year, Environmental Group Charges
In news from up the coast … an average of 4 million pounds of pesticides linked to respiratory problems were used annually in the county.
An Environmental Working Group study finds that Ventura County growers applied more than 32 million pounds of pesticides to fields over the six years.
In a report released yesterday … the report finds that potentially hundreds of thousands of Ventura County area residents were exposed to tons of harmful chemicals.
Oxnard in particular was singled out as a pesticide hot spot.
Growers applied pesticides 360,000 times within 2.5 miles of residents in and around Oxnard, a city with some of the highest poverty rates in the county.
Nearly 70 percent of Ventura County residences are within 2-1/2 miles of treated fields.
And 2 and a half miles is the radius in which recent studies by UCLA scientists have linked childhood cancers.
The pesticide hot spots span both poor and wealthy neighborhoods, including the Santa Paula-Fillmore area; tracts north and east of Camarillo; and the Oxnard Plain.
Pesticides linked to serious health risks were applied within a quarter-mile of 31,000 homes and 33 elementary schools countywide.
Air monitoring data on pesticides are sparse, leaving residents near farms in the dark over their exposure to pesticide drift or dust carried to their homes, schools and parks.
Newsom Recall Cost LA Taxpayers $20 Per Vote Cast, State Says
20 dollars per vote cast.
That’s how much it cost here in Los Angeles County to run the recall election against Gov. Gavin Newsom from office … a political exercise that bellyflopped in a spectacular fashion.
The recall election cost state and local governments more than $200 million, according to a final tally released Thursday by state elections officials.
The total cost of the statewide Sept. 14 recall election was a little more than $200.2 million.
That’s according to afinal tally by Secretary of State Shirley Weber, who noted that expenses were slightly below original expectations.
Larry Elder … the republican candidate… got slaughtered.
Out of 10 million votes cast … Elder got 2.7 million.
The story was reported in the Los Angeles Times.
====
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
