Ronda Perez Withdraws, City Manager Selection Process Resumes At Square Two At City Hall

The shoe finally dropped at Malibu city hall Monday night.

Mayor Marianne Riggins.

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MAYOR RIGGINS: “May we please have a report on the closed session?

ACTING CITY ATTY RUSIN: “At 4:00 PM the city council session met in open session and then recessed to closed session 

“All five council members were present and no reportable action was taken, but the council unanimously asked me to share the following statement. 

“The City of Malibu has been informed that Ronda Perez has withdrawn her candidacy for the city manager position.

“The city thanks Ms Perez for her original interest in the position and wishes her success in her future endeavors.

“The city will now consider other applicants for the position and expand the search for city manager candidate.”

And with that … it sounds like the process starts over. 

All year … Malibu has been without a permanent city manager.

The city council has met in secret session more than a dozen times … interviewing candidates … debating … lord knows what. 

Days have been spent behind closed doors. 

Popes have been selected … died … and replaced in less time. 

Ronda Perez was a controversial figure in her hometown … up in the Antelope Valley suburbs of north Los Angeles County,

City hall politics in Lancaster and Palmdale are frequently vicious … and Perez had worked as a high-ranking city official in both cities.

She has scores of supporters… and many many enemies.

The Palmdale city council … her last employer … has started deep dive audit into expenditures that Perez allegedly authorized while Palmdale city manager. 

And there are salacious allegations of misconduct.

But no specific misconduct has been proven.

No charges of corruption or misconduct have been alleged by the cities … the LA County public prosecutors … or the state,.

Those allegations may be true … they  may or may not be proven some day in a court of law. 

But for now … Perez lives under that shadow of nondisclosure agreements … and she has chosen to remove that drama from Malibu.

Malibu’s city council met over and over and over again … going over the list of candidates for the job .. before settling on Ronda Perez.

Now … they will meet again behind closed doors to settle on a back-up choice. 

Malibu City hall .. meanwhile … does not have a chief executive.

Council Unhappy With Slow Progress Getting Grants From Feds And State

So why is having a permanent city manager important??

One lesson may have come last night … when the temporary city manager trying to keep the city going on a temporary basis was pressed to explain why Malibu is getting so little government money from the state and federal governments.

The issue is the contract with a grant-writing consultant … called Townsend Public affairs … to seek out federal and state money. 

Townsend is paid 65 hundred dollars a month to do that for Malibu.

Acting city manager Candace Bond has been in office a half year … and has tried to pick up the pace of getting successful grants. 

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“Upon arrival this position along with Richard Rogas (the acting deputy city manager) we realize grant writing riding was very, very important.

“And so we had to hunt down where the solicitations were going and they were being fed into a department going to one person and they were not being communicated.

“So we revised that structure so that they are coming to the front office.”

City council members made it clear they expect better results … and said they want to be briefed on what is being applied for … and what is being won. 

In other action … Malibu is going to sell the wooden ramps from old temporary skateboard park … and not destroy the ramps to make way for a parking lot at Bluffs Park.

The new permanent skate park is six moths away from completion … and Malibui skate parents are very not happy that the old ramps are in the way. 

City Council Walks Away From Silverstein Theory On First Amendment Rights In The Age of Zoom

Anonymous Zoom call attacks on Malibu city council members will -not- be shut off in the future.

The city council is going to tinker with some of the rules about city council meetings .. but no major changes are proposed.

City councilman Bruce Silverstein last night tried to end remote speaking privileges for people who do not live in the Malibu city limits … to ban them from calling in to city council meetings.

Last night … Silverstein said allowing people to speak via computer was a courtesy … not a freedom of speech right. 

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“I would go so far I’ve said this before I would go so far to require that to extend the courtesy of Zoom participation only to Malibu residents. 

“I do not believe we have a legal obligation to extend a courtesy to anyone.

“So when we extend that courtesy – as long as there’s a rational basis for a distinction between people – we are allowed to utilize that rational basis.”

And that legal term … rational basis … is important.

The rational basis test is a Supreme Court test for any rule that affects a fundamental constitutional right … such as opportunity to speak. 

The rational basis test basically means that a government agency has to have a damn good reason for treating one group of people differently than any other group of people … when it comes to a fundamental right like speaking in public. 

The city would have to have a very strong and compelling reason why nonresidents would be treated differently … afforded the right to speak anonymously, via Zoom … than people who live here. 

In the past … Silverstein and fellow council member Steve Uhring have been the subjected of repeated attacks … on Zoom … by anonymous people who apparently do not live in Malibu.  There has been a concerted campaign against the two council members … related to their handling of a former city Planning Department employee … Adrian Fernandez.

Both council members had sharply criticized Fernandez’s handling of projects coming before the city council … lost particularly a hotel that was proposed across the highway from Malibu Pier.  And the anonymous critics have clearly gotten under Silverstein’s skin … he has griped about them in public repeatedly.

Monday night … the other city council members walked away from Silverstein’s rather narrow view of freedom of speech … 

Malibu’s city council did decide to make a few changes about how it runs its meetings.

The popular Monday night public comment window will not change … and it will not move to the end of the meeting … late at night. 

They rejected starting city council meetings at 2 in the afternoon. 

No official votes were taken on this last night … it will come back around in four weeks. 

And one important note … the city council informally asked the staff to resume streaming city commission meetings on the Internet.

Inexpensive computer cameras that automate camera switching and microphone activation is available and in use all over the world. 

It may be coming to Malibu.

SCE Attacks LA Times After Times Reveals Power Company Is Up To Its Old Tricks On Fire Evidence

Southern California Edison is attacking the Los Angeles Times after newspaper revealed that the power company apparently misled investigators into a power line fire in 2019.

The LA Times reported that the same unused power transmission line that may have sparked the Altadena fire this year … may have caused a similar fire in the San Fernando Valley.

Hitting the other end of LA County on the same day that Malibu and the Palisades burned … the Altadena fire killed 19 people and destroyed nearly the entire city.

The LA Times relbvealed that the same power line structure … built 103 years ago and not used for more than 50 years … may have had there same grounding problems that apparently started the Altadena fire this year.

Of great interest to Malibu .. is the report in the LA Times that Edison has been repeatedly found to have failed to cooperate with investigators looking into the cause of devastating fires. 

The Times reports that SCE refused to provide photos and other details of what its employees found at the site where the Woolsey fire ignited in 2018. 

The Edison crew was the first to arrive at the scene of the fire that destroyed hundreds of homes in Malibu. 

Edison argued that the evidence was protected by attorney-client privilege.

That is exactly what Edison did at the scene of the Malibu Canyon Fire in 2007.

The company hid evidence … and claimed for years that their evidence of why power lines failed in 2007 was protected by attorney client privilege. 

After the 2007 Malibu Canyon fire … Edison promised to the state … not to withhold evidence of how power lines ignite … by classifying it as attorney-client privilege. 

Edison paid out more than 30 million dollars in penalties for using that defense illegally in the Malibu Canyon fire…. Which destroyed about 50 homes … including the landmark Malibu Castle .

Edison now stands accused of doing there same thing in 2019 in the San Fernando Valley fire. 

City Council Tells Edison: Malibu’s Good Will Can Be Purchased For 97 Cents Per Resident

Speaking of Southern California Edison .. the power company’s donation of 10 thousand dollars to the city of Malibu’s Public Safety Fair was approved last night by the city council. 

SCE had said in a letter to considered the expenditure a good way to win good will amongst people in Malibu … who generally are completely fed up with SCE’s abysmal service record.   Malibu gets blacked out more than 2-1/2 times as often as the average area served by SCE.

Several city council members indicated they would turn the contribution down … but acting city manager Candace Bond said she had reached out to Edison to solicit the money

That caused them to change their votes. 

Bond said she used to work for Edison as a community liaison … and knew that they have money to sponsor goodwill like the at the fair.

SCE sent a letter ..,. saying it was looking forward to the community goodwill that it was purchasing … basically … at a cost of 97 cents per Malibu resident. 

The council last night voted to take the money … with the understanding that there were no strings attached.