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money-soaked battle is bubbling up along the Malibu coastline, pitting
old-time liberals like David Geffen, Barbara Streisand, and Jeffrey
Katzenberg against, well, everyone else.
The elite property
owners of Malibu, who wouldn't be out of place at an Al Gore fundraiser
in Hollywood, have suddenly become the forceful defenders of property
rights — their property rights, that is — along the beautiful
Southern California coastline. And let me tell you, it's fun to
watch.
At issue is
public access to the sand and surf. But how does the suntan crowd
get to the sand if those living the life of luxury find outsiders
distasteful and block the paths to what is essentially a public
backyard?
Steven Spielberg,
Katzenberg, Streisand, Geffen, and Nancy Daly Riordan (the wife
of Republican gubernatorial candidate Richard Riordan), are all
prominent Democrats and Malibu homeowners who raise big bucks for
liberal causes to help "the people" — but prefer
that the public not actually roam too close to their fabulous homes.
The problem
here is that the beach ain't their property. As far as I can tell,
the actual ocean is not sold along with a seven-figure beachfront
home. So, entertainment moguls have taken up the fight with the
California Coastal Commission, which often wields a heavy regulatory
hand. Somehow I doubt that these claims reflect any great philosophical
longing for strong property-rights laws in California.
There are,
in fairness, real concerns about upkeep, sanitation, and parking.
However, these stretches of beach are generally out of the way and
not family friendly anyhow, making some of the arguments about congestion
problems disingenuous. And there are legitimate safety issues: David
Geffen has found random people in his living room who entered his
home along the beach.
As someone
who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, the San Fernando Valley,
I lived at the non-ocean end of Malibu Canyon and have, well, immersed
myself in the issue. Almost 30 years ago Californians passed the
California Coastal Act, ensuring that "development shall not
interfere with the public's right of access to the sea."
As a Valley
girl of 16, I finally had both a car and a high school located on
Mulholland Drive, which provided an important educational stop each
day on the way to the beach.
I spent many
an after-school hour (or sometimes during what I considered "non-essential"
classes) jogging, swimming, and maybe doing my homework on the beach.
At the secluded Broad Beach, which wasn't listed on any tourist
map, I was often asked to get lost. I used my 16-year-old legal
knowledge to stand my ground.
The beachgoer
is legally entitled to remain on the sand up to the mean high-tide
line. Of course, nobody really knows where that line is. So I often
found myself, when facing the ire of a bikini-clad homeowner, pointing
to the various color gradations between the wet and dry sand that
could mark the mean high-tide line. Usually, this meant I would
move my towel a foot or two before the disgruntled homeowner stalked
off.
Fess Parker,
best known for his lead roles as television's Daniel Boone and in
Disney's 50's-era Davy Crockett show, owns coastal property in Santa
Barbara, along with a winery and ranch land. The man who played
Davy Crockett has become king of another wild frontier, the California
Coastal Commission. He has been largely alone in fighting for private
property rights for years. Suddenly though, he has plenty of company.
Parker, who's
probably had to give up more of his own land than anyone in the
history of Santa Barbara, says that dealing with the state bureaucracy
takes "brain surgery" skills because so much can go wrong.
"Some people have a belated conversion," Parker remarked.
"It's always an interesting thing when your ox is getting
gored." Parker expressed amusement with the new converts over
"the sense of entitlement or the willingness to make an exception"
for themselves. That, he said, was "a little too much."
The Malibu
NIMBY Coalition — championing a much more fashionable cause
than trying to keep landfills or chemical plants out of their backyards
— doesn't want to brush shoulders with less well-heeled interlopers.
"Some of the best, most liberal people in Malibu turned their
backs on me over this issue," said Steve Hoye, a former head
of the Malibu Democratic Club and now a champion of open beaches,
told the L.A. Times. "They don't want people coming
in."
These days,
I swim with a group of friends near the tony restaurant Gladstone's,
at a stretch of beach where public access is legally guaranteed.
Every so often we get glares from the management for using the oceanfront
property, despite our propensity to splurge afterward on a $2.50
coffee. When they dare to suggest that we relocate to another venue,
we sic our swimming lawyer on them. It comes in very handy these
days to go to the beach with a lawyer. In fact, it's almost necessary.
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