[This newscast was broadcast Monday and posted Tuesday Aug. 27]

Broad Beach Presses Ahead With Threat To Auction Off Malibu West Swimming Clubhouse

Broad Beach homeowners are pressing ahead with their efforts to auction off the Malibu West Beach Clubhouse … in order to collect about 400 thousand dollars in claimed taxes assessed for a sand replenishment project.

And they are gong to write their own law to do it…. according to a vote by broad beach taxing agency Sunday.

But the Malibu West homeowners point to a state Court of Appeal ruling … they say the entire tax is illegal in the first place.  Malibu West has rersfused to pay about 400 thosuand dollars in assessments levied by the Board Beach tax agency … called the Broad Beach Geologic Hazard Abatement District.

The Broad Beach board of directors met Sunday.

And they were told that … the 110 year old law that allows a tax auction for unpaid assessments does not allow the auctions to be held for property owned by a nonprofit association.

Malibu West has a nonprofit association to operate its clubhouse … available to about 200 residents …. at one end of the Broad Beach sand district.

This special tax district was created back in 2011 … by the Malibu City Council.

The 128 Broad Beach landowners were given tax powers … and self control … and since then have grown into an agency that is collecting between 33 thousand dollars and 100 thousand dollars per year from each homeowner.

Broad beach has actual government tax powers … but in 2019 … a judge ruled against the legality of the tax.

An appellate court agreed.   They said the tax is illegal … because it provides a public benefit in the form of a public beach … but only the beachfront homeowners have to pay for it. 

Broad Beach has tax lawyers who think they have found a loophole. 

If state law does not allow the tax collection scheme … then the government agency that they control … the GHAD … can write its own tax code.

Tax lawyer Michael Collins works for Broad Beach … and he says they have found a way around the fact that the county will not enforce the tax bill against a nonprofit. 

70514 TAX ACCOUNTANT 

“The county is not obliged to enforce the GHAD assessment, and as to properties that are not on the tax roll, they may not wish to do so. 

“So if the county officials are not to handle this sale, our remedy for a taxpayer who has not paid the assessment is to initiate the sale ourselves.”

How do Broad Beach board members feel about selling their neighbors clubhouse for back taxes?

Shaul Kuba is one of those board members.   And at the board meeting Sunday … he said the Malibu West homeowners make a lot of money renting out the beach clubhouse for weddings and other special events.

70513 TAKE IT SHAUL 

“We are getting all the noise, the parking uses, everything that comes with operating that facility, we are dealing with that. 

“And so I don’t think we’re getting any benefit of having that club there.

“I think maybe we could just sell our claim to somebody else and let them go foreclose on it, buy it. I don’t know.

“Maybe there’s somebody out there who might be interested in our claims. 

“I think there’s gonna be a lot of people who would be willing to own that club on Broadbeach and would pay us money for that claim.”

The representative from Malibu West argued that the association has already had favorable court rulings in a trial court and in the state court of appeal.

Pamela Eilerson.

70512 MAKING IT UP PAMELA EILERSON

“What I am hearing is that you are sort of making it up on the fly… on dubious legality … to permanently alter the way that Malibu West is assessed, with the goal of forcing the sale of the Malibu West Beach club, to collect an assessment that has been determined by both a trial and an appellate court to be unconstitutional and unenforceable.”

But the Broad Beach board pressed ahead with its legal plan … to get around the rule that nonprofit don’t pay property taxes … 

Board member Shaul Kuba said Malibu West is making money with its beach house … by renting it out. 

And he urged the district to find a way to sell the tax debit to some third party … to avoid bd publicity. 

Shall Kuba

SHAUL KUBA 2222 

“You know that the media would love that headline, us fighting with them, and someone’s picture would be on the front page of the fucking paper. [[OBSCENITY BLEEPED ON THE RADIO, PER SUPREME COURT RULE]]

“I think they should pay, they are the one who actually running a real business, they are the only ones running a real business on the beach. 

“I would just sell the claim, get for it for whatever we can get for it, and then let someone else take this on.”

42,000 Truckload Broad Beach Sand Transfer Project Now On Tap To Start Next Year

Meanwhile, the sand district is pressing ahead with plans to upload massive piles of sand and Trancas Beach … and then use sand trucks to haul there sand up to broad Beach.

Residents at Trancas are objecting to the noise and dirt … or a gigantic industrial sand transfer station being set up outside their homes. 

Last July … city manager Steve McClary told the city council that Broad Beach needs to pull a city permit to do that.

74218 BB MCCLARY 

“In speaking with our public works director, it is our understanding that a city permit would be required if there were any trucks using city streets for the project.

The sand district’s lawyer … Kenneth Ehrlich … yesterday said he never heard that … despite the fact that he was in the audience and spoke just moments before the city manager made that statement.

70511 KE NO RECOLLECTION

“I have no memory of the city manager making such a statement or asserting jurisdiction.”

The city permit issue is key.  

Residents want protection from all night truck noise ….similar to the noise that  Broad Beach inflicted on them when it moved rocks in five years ago.

Broad Beach has plans to unload 42 thousand truckloads of sand at Trancas … after they are trucked in from Ventura County.  

The current plan is for one truck to arrive and unload every 90 seconds …for weeks or months. 

As of now … the sand trucks are not scheduled to start arriving for another year.  That’s because Caltrans is three years late and completing the Tranus Creek bridge replacement, and the state will not allow the sand district to build two new beach access roads … one at Guernsey Avenue … a second closer to the creek.

The district plans to unload the sand … stockpile it … and then reload it onto special trucks at the Guernsey lot … affecting homeowners next to Broad Beach … but not in it. 

Although the city council a decade ago signed off on the sand project … back then … the sand was going to come in from the ocean … not via 42,000 trucks at Trancas.

State law requires environmental study and planning for the trucks and the depot … asnwell as public studies of the alternates for sand delivery by barge.

To avoid as similar truck congestion issue at Malibu pier… the State of California plans to bring sand in to Surfrider Beach via barges… loaded at Ventura.

The Broadbeach Sand District has not studied that alternative.

This conflict of interest we must always note on this story.

KBUU and this reporter are in adversarial positions with Broad Beach over this.

Our home and radio studio are in the area that will be impacted by noise and dirt from the Broad Beach sand depot at Trancas. 

This gives us a conflict of interest … and an obligation to provide accurate reports about it.   

Population Up 10% This Fall At Point Dume’s Elementary School

Demographic changes are hitting Malibu once again … as enrollment in the elementary school on Point Dume is up 10 percent this year.

That reverses a trend dating back five years to the Woolsey Fire … when families with school age kids moved out of Malibu in large numbers.

26 new students enrolled at Malibu Elementary School this summer … and six of those arrived to registered for classes on opening day.

Malibu Elementary principal Chris Hertz says he is humbled and grateful that parents have selected the school for their child.

He says the district is fortunate to have had enough desks, chairs, instructional materials, and teachers.

There had to be some classroom assignments made to accommodate all the kids … those parents have already been contacted.

The Point Dume school is overcrowded with parents attending the Friday morning spirit rallies.

So many parents that teachers are having problems funding parking places before school.

The principal is asking parents to park on Grayfox … and use that gate to get on campus between 8 and 8:20 am.

Odds Of Radioactive Cloud From Diablo Canyon? About Same As Being Killed By A Car, State Says

What is the risk of the San Onofre nuclear power plant melting down?

Remember… Diablo Canyon is 120 miles up wind of Malibu.

In a catastrophe dot a radioactive cloud could start killing people in Los Angeles County within several hours.

The Los Angeles Times did some number crunching this weekend… and published a report that says you stand about the same chance of being killed in a car crash… as being poisoned by a catastrophe at Diablo Canyon.

Doable Canyon is the 40 year old pair of nuclear generators up near San Luis Obispo … operated by Pacific gas and Electric but funded by the government. 

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimates that each of Diablo Canyon’s two reactor units has a roughly 1 in 12,000 chance of experiencing a nuclear meltdown similar to Japan’s Fukushima disaster … in any one year.

The Times reports that there’s about a 1 in 127,000 of a Chernolbyl.

That would be a failure with massive amountdsof deadly radioactive material ejected into the atmosphere … before residents could evacuate.

That’s about the same chance that an average person has of being killed in a car crash.

Why is Diable canyon being kept alive??
The governor says California needs the electric power … Diabloe Canyon produces six percent of the state’s electricity.

But the cost of nuclear power is almost twice the cost of other low-carbon energy sources.

Drake Canyon was supposed to be shut down next week year … at the end of its 40 year life span. 

But gov GavinNewsom struck a deal on the very last day of the legislature in 2022 … 

to keep the plant running until 2030

That stunned anti nuke activists … who had made a deal with thestate to shut them down. 

The governor says … live with it … we need the power. 

Gov Orders Bev Hills To Approve Highrise Because It Has No Housing Element

In news from down the freeway … California Gov Gavin Newsom is ordering Beverly Hills to approve plans for a high-rise residential structure juts off Wilshire at Little Santa Monica Boulevard. 

Beverly Hills has failed to come up with an acceptable housing element for its general plan… To accommodate enough housing to satisfy a state requirement.

A developer there applied for a builders exemption… to build the tallest building in Beverly Hills by bypassing the city council. 

The proposed project includes 132 market-rate apartments, plus 33 affordable units for lower-income households and a 73-room hotel and restaurant.

The project far exceeds Beverly Hills zoning limits on density and height.

The state has sent Beverly Hills an order to process the application anyway.