KBUU NewsScript Mon Dec 13 – Big Storm Tonight – Asst City Manager Quits – Interview Notes Reveal Gossip, Innuendo and Nasty Rumormongering – SCE Audits Itself Over Thanksgiving Blackout

=.  Light rain today … very heavy rain and blasting winds tonight.

=.  Malibu is getting ready for its strongest storm in two winters.

=.  Another official leaves Malibu City Hall. … the fifth to leave in a little more than a year.

=.  Hundreds of pages of notes from the independent investigators are released.

=.  They show petty gossip … nasty innuendo … but no supporting evidence of any crimes. 

=. The Santa Monica schools have unveiled their new Samohi building … your tax Malibu dollars at work.

This is Malibu’s Only Local Daily News.

For seven years … every weekday … accurate and fair … and you had better believe that angers some people. 

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A very windy and very wet winter storm is blowing into Southern California… with heavy rain expected after midnight tonight.

L A County flood experts do not expect any mudflows in the Woolsey Fire area tonight and tomorrow.

Malibu city manager Steve McClary says city crews are staging maintenance equipment in the Malibu Park area just in case. 

Storm drains have been inspected for any clogs. 

Yesterday’s forecast … he said … downplayed the intensity of the storm a little bit. 

LA County beaches in harbors has said that sandbags will not be available at Zuma Beach… departure from years past. The city says sandbags are usually available at fire stations. 

As for the weather today …

There`s a chance of some light showers during the day today

By early tomorrow morning .. rain may be falling at the rate of more than one inch per hour in Malibu.

This is going to be a very windy rainstorm … with winds pushing off the ocean at more than 30 miles per hour.

Southern California Edison is not predicting any intentional outages tonight… But you never know.

This big wet cold front will move in with heavy rain by 6 in the morning tomorrow. 

Periods of very heavy rain are possible … maybe even a thunderstorm.

Rainfall totals may exceed three inches in Malibu from this one. 

The storm should blow out Tuesday night.

And that will bring very cold temperatures behind it … with lows on the beaches predicted to be around 42 degrees. 

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Yet another high ranking City Of Malibu official is saying sayonara to a city government simmering in disagreement and bitterness.

Assistant city manager Lisa Soghor is resigning early next year… to take a better job in Culver City. 

Malibu mayor Paul Grisanti says her financial acumen was important. 

NEWSCART 75777 GRISANTI when reva hired her.

“Lisa is a big loss for us as far as financial stuff goes she’s incredible.  Obviously she was hired by Reva and she was an excellent hire when Reva hired her.”

And the mayor says the swirling nasty poliics at city hall were not the only reason that the assistant city manager is leaving. 

NEWSCART 75778 GRISANTI 

“She is going to have a shorter commute now I think she has a 17 minute commute and they are paying her more money and it’s a more focused (job) … she’ll be the chief financial officer for a city.”

Malibu now have to hire a permanent city manager … assistant city manager … and city attorney.

City Councilmembers will interview potential city manager candidates on Thursday … in a closed door session. 

Current acting city manager Steve McClary has applied for the job.

Late Friday … notes that were kept by investigators looking into the Jefferson Wagner affidavit have been released by the two attorneys who did the work.

Hundreds and hundreds of pages of notes.

They show a city Council beset by personal animosity and bickering.

They show a city staff that did not trust one city councilman in particular … Jefferson Wagner comes in for criticism.

They show that Wagner and his domestic partner had a strong personal dislike for the city manager and some other fellow city council members.

Some nasty and frankly sleazy accusations there. 

They show a group of residents who deeply feel that City Hall had worked against them instead of for them … under city manager Reva Feldman.

The independent investigative report paints city councilman Bruce Silverstein as orchestrating Jefferson Wagner’s affidavit alleging allegations… 

Silverstein’s view is that these allegations have been floating around Malibu for years… and he says it is a good thing that he amplified the allegations and had them investigated in public.

Writing on social media… Silverstein correctly points out that he stated … when he released the affidavit… that he hoped it would not be true.

He also says he did not say that Reva Feldman should have been fired over the allegations … rather … she should have been dismissed for no given reason. 

The mark of a good litigator … says Mayor Paul Grisanti.

Silverstein’s very cleverly gave himself an out … Grisanto says … a cover story in case the investigative report turned out to be a gigantic nothing burger.

The interviews show plenty of petty small-town politics.

What they do not show is any shreds of evidence of any crime.

The investigative reports… and the summary… are sure to come up at tonight’s City Council meeting.

Silverstein’s’s political backers say that the investigative effort was sloppy… 

And they point to a correction that was issued last week by the investigators over whether one particular Malibu resident testified to them or not.

They said she didn’t… and that was a mistake.

Whether that mistake cast into doubt the entire report… a report that clearly shows the affidavit was full of untruths inaccuracies and non-believable rumors … well you’re gonna be hearing a lot of debate about that … starting at tonight’s city council meeting.

Silverstein and Steve Uhring have consistently turned down requests from KBUU for interviews. 

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8:20 AM Correction: an early broadcast incorrectly said the city manager interviews will be January 16th.  They will be on December 16th, this Thursday. 

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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: our limited, holiday-spiced Winter Ale is a perfect fireside companion, and 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 brewmalibu.com.

Malibu Brewing Company, Malibu California.

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Southern California Edison has quietly filed its official report with the state officials on what went wrong during the 44 hour Thanksgiving day blackout in Malibu. 

Holiday dinners were ruined and plans upset … but Edison says the power blackout prevented catastrophic line failures due to damage from fierce winds.

The company is supposed to disclose what it learned. 

So … what did it learn?
The company’s expensive high tech weather center blew the forecast.

The forecast did no predict 75 mile per hour winds until they were just a few hours away … on the day before Thanksgiving.

SCE pats itself on the back for forecasting the strong winds … but nites that this forecast came the day the winds arrived.

That meant warnings for intentional blackouts did not go out in many cases.

44 percent of the public safety agencies surveyed by SCE after the outage said SCE did a poor job sharing information.

Customers were being told power would be up in 3 to 8 hours … a big mistake that did not take into effect that power lines could not be checked for safe re-energization during nighttime hours,

Most shockingly … perhaps … is the calculations of risk to the public from shutting off the power.

Edison says it calculates that solely on an estimate of how many people might get killed by a fire that its lines might trigger in the particular blackout area.

Not entering the equation is the danger to lives caused by predictable and known impacts of the power outage.

For example … traffic crashes at blacked out signals.

And Edison uses a figure of 250 dollars per customer per blackout as an estimate for the financial impact of an intentional blackout.

Edison calculates that based on one person per residence. 

For Malibu … we will assume 2 people at each house … that works out to 2 dollars and 84 cents per hour per person.

That’s what SCE figures your time in the dark was worth … 2 dollars and 84 cents per hour.

Of course the company will not offer to pay you $2.84 per hour for sitting in the dark. 

They also won’t pay you for spoiled Thanksgiving dinners either. 

The Edison company says they will only reimburse food costs if the power outages due to their negligence. 

So let’s get to that. Edison was supposed to pay $33 million into a fund … with much of that money going to harden the power lines in Malibu. And Southern California Edison says that the troublesome Cuthbert circuit has been completely hardened… not to mention that 2000 poles have been replaced … and dozens of miles of bare wire have been replaced with plastic covered insulation … all across Malibu in recent years. 

So how did that improved overhead power system behave during the big wind storm? 

Actually pretty good. 

During the entire windstorm event… when parts of Malibu saw 77 mph gusts … Edison reports the total number of places where there was damage … where a fire could have broken out in Malibu … was zero.

A broken device was found on the Cuthbert circuit … the one supposedly hardened. 

But all that caused was a sagging line … which was not listed as a fire hazard. 

There were no fire hazards found anywhere south of the 101 freeway … according to the SCE report’s map.

A tree did come down on PCH at Heathercliff …. but it hit Frontier communications lines … not SCE lines. 

SCE also says it replaced a bird guard on one pole … and a crossarm on another … in Malibu. 

So why did it take so long for SCE to restart power to western Malibu … on Friday after the storm had long passed by???

SCE says repairs were required due to excessive wind-related damage found during restoration patrol affecting two customers.

And that was on the Cuthbert Circuit … the one that supposedly has been hardened against wind damage.

The nearest fire hazard damage to SCE overhead lines to Malibu?
A tree came down in northern Thousand Oaks … and a palm frond hit a power line in Simi Valley.

In the entire SCE service area … there were eight places where fire hazards developed on power lines that had been shut off.

Again … none of them near Malibu or even south of the 101. 

Finally … Edison is telling the state that it had it customer resource center operating at Bluffs Park on November 21st from 8AM to 10PM.

That date is three days before the storm was even forecast.

The customer service people were actually there four days later … and at 5:45 pm … not 8 a-m.

SCE has to file post blackout reports to the state. 

As KBUU has reported … they frequently are marked by inaccurate incomplete and sloppy reporting.

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Santa Monica High School held a ribbon-cutting for its new Discovery Building last week. 

The open-plan structure hosts 28 classrooms, 288 parking spaces, an Olympic-size pool, an indoor-outdoor cafeteria and rooftop classrooms.

The entire school board was there for the ribbon cutting…. Except Craig Fioster … the lone representative from Malibu.

Malibu tax experts say as much as 90 million dollars in Malibu property tax revenues has gone to finance new school projects in Santa Monica. 

Malibu and Santa Monica have now been split into two separate facilities district … so Santa Monica taxpayers are now off the hook for rebuilding Malibu High School. 

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Weather for the Malibu.

Rain tonight heavy at times. 

Heaviest rain should be after midnight… with downpours at the rate of 1 inch per hour possible. 

It will be cold with overnight lows near 43 in driving rain. Tomorrow morning will see a 90% chance of rain continue… With thunderstorms possible before four in the afternoon. Showers tomorrow evening… And maybe even a thunderstorm tomorrow evening … amongst scattered showers.

Very cold Wednesday morning … and still breezy.