Staff Announces Plans To Speed Up Traffic In Construction Zone, As City Draws Up List Of Traffic Calming Efforts It Can Sneak Past Caltrans, As

Part of Malibu city government is talking about reopening closed lanes on Pacific Coast Highway to speed up traffic, while at least one city council member wants to add lane closures to slow it down.

And the city council is going to hire a public relations company …. to convince people to drive slower and look at the road. 

Dozens of ideas are on there table Monday night … and the city council voted to have the city staff put together a line item list for it to vote on later this winter.

Pepperdine students attended the meeting … to demand changes.  One city council member gently reminded them that Pepperdine students are frequently seen speeding on PCH …

And a parent who lost his daughter on PCH last October called in.  Barry Stewart:

NEWSCART B70043 BARRY STEWART 

“My daughter, Peyton Stewart, was one of the four Pepperdine students killed by a reckless speeder in Malibu last October 17th. 

“You need to decrease the speed limit on Dead Man’s Curve. If you cut it from 45 to 35 On that 2 mile stretch it would take 45 second longer to drive through there if there’s no congestion.

“You can declare an emergency and do it. Why don’t you?

You need to pull up some traffic calming measures like barriers … roundabouts … narrow lanes to prevent reckless drivers from driving 104 miles an hour through residential neighborhoods and killing our daughters. 

“You know it you can do it.

“You declared an emergency – why don’t you do it?

He called Caltrans a hidebound bureaucracy .. and demanded speed limits be cut. 

Last night … the council asked its staff to sort and prioritize various steps brought up at last night’s public hearing on PCH safety.

Caltrans has been slow to do anything other than add 4 point 2 million dollars worth of new paint and replaced signs. 

The city says it has a shortage of 24 million dollars for safety projects that they want to see built.

And the city council wants a priority list of “doable” items. 

Last night … city council member Bruce Silverstein argued for pressing the legal limits … for Malibu to take over as much control of the state highway as legally permissible. 

Silverstein says Malibu should dare Caltrans to sue Malibu for taking control of the state highway. 

He even argued for stationing Malibu’s hired cops at the city limits at night … to question cars entering the city …and for cops to hassle drivers of exotic cars as they entered. 

NEWSCART B70037 BSHASSLE 

“Check whether they’ve got their license. Check whether the car is registered. Check whether the car sound is at the right level. Check whether they’re inebriated. 

“And if it’s a hopped-up sports car … follow them. 

“We can do all of that lawfully.”

That led councilman Doug Stewart to ask Silverstein if he realized th impossibility of doing that. 

NEWSCART B70038 DSBS COPS

DOUG STEWART: “Bruce, how many police officers do you think we have in Malibu right now? 

BRUCE SILVERSTEIN:  “Don’t have a clue not enough. 

STEWART: “Three.

“My point in this is: it easy to say you’re going to put one (deputy) at each entrance when what you are really saying once you get through that entrance, the.street’s wide open.”

During the meeting … Silverstein says he is happy when he sees lines of cars inching along PCH … because those people are not causing crashes while they are stuck.

He argues that people commuting through Malibu … the so-called Z commuters … need to stick to the 101.

NEWSCART B70036 BS ZCOM 

“Those people are using Malibu as a throughway. 

“So we need to make it not worthwhile to use Malibu as a freeway. 

“If it takes longer to get through Malibu, then it does to go the other way that you trying to avoid the traffic, then you are not going to go use Malibu as the throughway, you are going to get where you’re going, then you are going to use the not as fast as you like it but not going through Malibu as a throughway. 

“So we need to find ways to slow it down.”

But … slowing down traffic is not universally popular in Malibu. 

Local officials have been flooded with complaints about traffic delays this month … caused by construction crews installing a fiber optics line near Topanga Beach. 

And the city has just announced plans to speed up traffic in the construction zone.

They are going to eliminate lane closures to .. you guessed it … speed up traffic. 

City public works director Rob DuBoux…

NEWSCART BB70039 2LANES RdB 

“We have put together a plan that will maintain two lanes of traffic in each direction. We have submitted that to Caltrans, and we are working closely with Caltrans to try to get that new plan implemented as soon as we can. 

“With that new traffic control measures will be put in place and will have two lanes of traffic in each direction during the construction.”

So … to review … we have one city council member and a vocal part of the population … demanding lane closures and other traffic control measures to slow traffic dramatically.

At the exact same time … other motorists are furious … that temporary lane closures have slowed traffic dramatically.

So much for deliberately making traffic jams worse … to make commuters stay out of Malibu. 

Malibu Cops Say Younger Drivers – 90% From From Outside Malibu – Are The Greatest Offenders

Last year … deputies wrote 7,580 traffic tickets last year in Malibu.

90 percent of the tickets were written to people who live outside Malibu.

Half of those were to drivers younger than 34. 

But two of the most-serious crashes in Malibu were caused by very young men … aged 22 and 18 … who grew up in Malibu and still live here.

One of the more-serious recent crashes in Malibu was back on January 4th.

Sgt Chris Soderlund told the Malibu city council last night … detectives expect to make an arrest  in that nasty crash … which happened in the Big Rock curve. 

NEWSCART BIGROCK CRASH CS

“The driver was driving at a high rate of speed eastbound and lost control and went into the westbound lanes and hit a car. Fortunately, it wasn’t head-on. It was a sideswipe. He ripped his car in half, but he was still able to get out and walk away.”

Soderlund says detectives are still working the case … and have identified a person of interest.

 

Big Waves = Big Crowds = Big Opportunities For Car Burglars

The big waves from earlier this winter led to a big swell of crime.

Sheriff’s Sgt Chris Soderlund says that while surfers were taking advantage of the waves … crooks were taking advantage of the surfers. 

NEWSCART B70042 SURFERSROBBED 

“We had 12 vehicle burglaries, and that was due to the big swells that we had at the end of December, when all the surfers came out. A whole bunch got their cars broken into.

“In one of those incidents that I actually went to, a surfer told me, he dug a hole in the ground, in the dirt, put his key fob in the hole, and put a rock over it. And he thought it would be safe there and that no one would be watching.”

Of course … a burglar was watching .

Nad the burglar was apparently standing right near a brand new sign that the sheriff’ deputies had put up … warning beach visitors not top leave valuable in cars.

The sudden rash of car burglaries at the end of the year erased what had been an overall decrease in crime for the year here in Malibu.

For the entire year … reported crime in Malibu was down 1.6 percent.

 

Your Tax Dollars At Work: Santa Monica District Spokeswoman Attacks Malibu Activists 

The tax-supported bureaurcrats at the Santa Monica Malibu school district are attacking Malibu.

Again.

In a statement released late yesterday … the official spokeswoman for the Santa Monica school board ripped into Malibu acitivsts’ efforts to use a state law to force voting by district.

The Malibu effort would guarantee that Malibu would have the largest voting blocs in two of the seven school board districts.

As expected … and as is their right … Santa Monica school board members are opposing that.

But … employees of the school district are also attacking Malibu.

Yesterday … district spokeswoman Gail Pinsker put out an alleged news release about the Malibu effort … that quotes only the views of the Santa Monica board majority.

In it … she says the Malibu petition is … quoting now …  based on untruths and misstatements.

The tax-supported spokeswoman accuses the Malibu residents of proposing maps that are  “not lawful nor respectful of community boundaries.”

Pinsker accuses the Malibu residents of creating voting districts that “are not geographically contiguous and appear to have been intentionally designed to achieve the unlawful objective of gerrymandering.”

The Malibu residents pointed out in their legal filings that the entire district is not contiguous … split into a Santa Monica section and a Malibu section… which is the entire problem.

That part of the argument is not left out of the so-called news release … which is actually a summation of the board majority’s opinion and nothigbn else. 

Again … Pinsker is there tax-paid spokesperson for the school district … not the political spokesperson for the school board majority. 

Some residents in Malibu are asking … why Malibu taxes are paying for a bureaucrat to attack Malibu??

We asked Pinsker in an email for comment.

She apparently posted her opinion piece just before going out on a medical leave. 

We wish her a speedy recovery. 

 

Civil Rights Activist Dies In Malibu: Cancer Claims Dexter Scott King, 62

Dexter Scott King … a Malibu resident … died at his home last weekend.

He was the youngest son of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King … he died Monday after battling prostate cancer. 

Dexter King was named for the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where his father served as a pastor when he led the Montgomery bus boycott.

Dexter King was just 7 years old when his father was assassinated in April 1968 while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee.

He was 62.

A memorial service will be announced later, the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta said.