=.  Malibu High School’s proposed new buildings get recommended for OK by the city council.

=.  Swimming pool lights become a non issue.

=.  But the bus barn relocation gets thumbs down.

=.  Loud equipment and reduced lanes … PCH at Trancas starts making noise tonight. 

=.  Late word about a Memorial Day motorcycle fatality on PCH … two nights ago. 

=.  And a beloved deli in Santa Monica is not going to reopen … 47 years of latkes are over at Izzie’s deli.

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

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Malibu High Plan Survives Planning Commission, Height Intact, But Swimming Pool Lights In Dark Skies Area Are Major Problem 

Malibu’s Planning Commission approved the proposed Malibu High School reconstruction plan last night. 

It made a few changes … but recommended that the city council OK both the multi year overall plan … and the exact plans for the high school complex scheduled to go up in the next year.

The height of that one building …not an issue last night.

The height of future buildings … an auditorium and gym … were a major problem.

But only for one person … and he sits on the planning commission. But John Mazza’s objections went down on a 2-1 vote, with Kraig Hill absent and Jeff Jennings sitting in the audience because his house is within 500 feet of the property.

At the meeting … school board member Craig Foster said the high school complex is a light at the end of the tunnel for Malibu’s school families.

Foster told the Planning Commission last night that Malibu’s school families have been battered for seven years … with school enrollment declining as a result.

NEWSCART A73410 MHSPLAN FOSTER 111 

“The overall plan for the new Malibu High School is Malibu’s vision… created by Malibu stakeholders… to support Malibu students as they ready themselves for college and career … with spaces that are safe and expressly designed to prepare them for their lives in the middle of the 21st century. 

“Seventy percent of the Malibu voters supported this measure… snd Malibu residents and district staff have moved consistently and diligently to move us to this point.”

Foster is the lone Malibu resident on the Santa Moncia-dominated school district.

But he stressed last night … the resurrection of the high school is not a Santa Monica district plan … it is a plan that came out of Malibu people.

And it’s not tainted by Santa Monica.

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“This is a vital project for all of us… All of us… in Malibu. “

“This is us.

“This is a Malibu project supported by Malibu voters … for Malibu families and kids. “There is no ‘they’ here, there is only ‘us’.”

There were no speakers last night against the school buildings.

The only opposition was to the parking lot proposed to a parking lot at the north end of the school … off Clover Heights. 

Terry Lucoff lives up there. 

NEWSCART A73409 LUCOFF

“I want to emphasize we are not building a new school. This is not ‘don’t build the school.’ This is about not putting the parking lot on Clover Heights. Putting a parking lot on Clover Heights will increase traffic in the rural Malibu Park residential community.”

Other residents spoke against the northern parking lot was well.

The planning commission agreed … it voted to recommend against it … 

Bu then the district changed its mind. 

Foster said neighbors don’t want it … so the district agrees it should be dropped. 

No speakers from the public talking about a 45 foot high performing arts center in the center of the campus… Replacing the 41 foot high auditorium jammed up against morning view Drive.

And not one person speaking against the new high school building… reposed for constrwtiuom this fall where Juan Cabrillo Elementary now sits.

Except John Mazza, 

He says the high school should get a 24 foot height limit … not 45.

Mazza reasoned … since the new Malibu College building is almost 36 feet high … at the Civic Center … the new high school should be limited to 24 feet. 

NEWSCART A73415 MAZZA HEIGHT 

COMMISSIONER JOHN MAZZA: “A school was built at the Civic Center at 35 feet 8 inches that is in a commercial zone … that had great objection from the public. And therefore the planning commission should consider those when it comes before the CDP.

COMMISSIONER DENNIS SMITH: “I for one am not for your motion.”

COMMISSIONER MARK WETTON: “yeah I can’t support that either. Those buildings need to be that height for the facilities that they are going to house. You have got to have regulation height for volleyball in the gym and you have a certain heights for performing arts.

“And this is not just for the school … this is for the whole community,.”

John Mazza …followed by commissioners Dennis Smith and Mark Wetton. 

It was a 2 to 1 vote in favor of the master plan … for a 45 foot high performing arts center and a 35 foot high gym,

Both of those buildings would be the approximate height of existing buildings that would be removed.

Under the master plan … the auditorium would be scooted back several hundred feet from the front of the school … where the old one is right next to Morning View Drive. 

The biggest controversy of the night was the proposed new swimming pool … a 50-meter pool that would replace the cramped and crumbling shark tank … also used as a pool open to the public … when the public can wedge in.

Swimming pools are reflective and bounce light up. 

School district official Steve Massetti said pool light brightness standards are set by state and county officials … and they may be brighter than what is allowed by the Malibu Dark Skies Ordinance. 

And many residents spoke last night …to the importance of the pool to Malibu High and the youth of Malibu. And the importance of having the pool open until 8 p-m. 

Colin Drummond is a volunteer with the Malibu Seawolves … he says the swim team needs to work early in the morning or late at night to fit around school uses.

NEWSCART A73412 POOL COLIN DRUMMOND

“Because we have to swim after the high school kids every night during the week… If for example dark sky was to reduce us to sunrise to sunset… ItIt would basically eliminate out club.

“And that would be putting 80 Malibu kids outs on the street.”

District construction boss Steve Massetti told the commission … when the new pool is built …

And he said the state and county require the pool to be light enough for lifeguards to see people at the bottom.

Massetti said elimination the lights would mean eliminating public use of the pool on school days.

NEWSCART A 734MASSETTI POOL 

“We could probably get all of our (school) uses in within the daylight hours, and that would leave zero hours of the community.  That is not what we want. We realize that this is an important facility for the community.  

“And so our plan is to create a workable solution, that may not be dark skies compliant but will be as close as we can get it.”

No one member of the public objected to the lights.  Only Mazza. 

He claims that Pepperdine University is operating its big pools within the Dark Skies rules … and within county rules.

City staff were not able to verify that. 

Pepperdine University … a private school … is not in the city.

It does not operate under state education codes or the Office of the State architect … both of which regulate public schools. 

It is not clear if Pepperdine operates under the same rules that public schools must operate under ….

The swimming pool lights issue … however,,,, now appears to be a non-issue. 

City officials last night said that any applicable state laws on swimming pool safety will preempt Malibu’s local Dark Skies Ordinance.

So if the pool needs to brighter than allowed under Malibu’s ordinance … Malibu’s ordinance says the state rules will prevail. 

Other changes from the Planning Commission:

All driveways and pedestrian access will have to be off Morning View Drive.  That might prevent the school bus barn from being relocated to a site near the Equestrian Center … off Merritt Drive.
Also recommended: the proposed electronic display signs would have to be pointed towards the school … and not the street.

The Planning Commissioners recommendations now go to the City Council for a final decision. 

That will be on June 15th.

This leaves the district timetable intact … and demolition of the old Juan Cabrillo campus is now on track for this summer and fall. 

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Late News Of PCH Fatality On Memorial Day Released By CHP

Another fatality on Pacific Coast Highway … this one at the end of the Memorial Day weekend.

33-year-old year old Alvaro Vivero Rojo of Camarillo was killed at around 6:45 p.m. Monday on northbound Highway 1 … right where the freeway begins …. approaching the Las Posas Road offramp.

Rojo was riding a 2008 Suzuki LS650 motorcycle when … for reasons still under investigation … he veered onto the right shoulder and hit a power pole.  The CHP reported the pole was damaged as Rojo was knocked off the motorcycle. 

Rojo, who was wearing a helmet, was pronounced dead at the scene, authorities said.

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Trancas Lagoon Flooded By Ocean Water, Demolition Site Under Water, As Major Construction Starts At 7 PM

Caltrans officials have released yet another schedule for lane closures on Pacific Coast Highway at the Trancas creek bridge.

Overnight work will begin at 7 o’clock tonight… As the road will be restriped and the traffic lanes will be scrunched over to the ocean side of the road

Concrete K rails will be laid down to protect the construction area… And to prevent cars from sailing off into the creek.

That work starts tonight at seven and will go overnight…

The new traffic signal at Guernsey Avenue and PCH will be turned on tomorrow.

Construction workers have been flummoxed by a huge amount of water that is washed in from the ocean into Trancas lagoon… 

Yesterday the lagoon was completely under water. 

The lagoon normally dries up almost completely in the summertime.

Workers plan to use dirt from the Trancas riders in Ropers lot to build a temporary dam between the ocean and the bridge… preserving most of the lagoon but making for a dry construction zone.

The dirt will be moved back to the lot north of PCH at some future point. 

As if that’s not going to be enough fun … tnd the noisy segment of the project arrives Friday.

Giant concrete saws will slice the old bridge … so the inland side of it can be demolished. On Friday.

Next … giant beams of steel will then be shoved down into the dirt … using pile drivers … so that the longer new bridge can be constructed next to the soil approach to the old bridge.

Then comes more pile driving … for the bridge supports. 

It’s gonna be a long June at Trancas Beach.

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