Next time the fire comes, let Malibu burn to the ground.
It's the right thing to do for so many reasons.
It will be a giant ecological victory. Large-scale development in Malibu has all but destroyed what was once one of the region's most beautiful and pristine places.
Road building and grading has led to the erosion of shore and hillside. Sewage and landscape runoff from Malibu's mansions and homes have fouled the water table and ocean. Malibu citizens who claim to be environmentalists won't have to contribute to "Heal the Bay" anymore. Instead of trying to be part of the solution, they can actually stop being so much of the problem.
And consumers will win, too. No intelligent person would voluntarily live in Malibu. The place is built in a dangerous, high-risk fire and flood zone. Thus, its property insurance rates are higher.
Its wealthy citizens are willing and able to pay the higher rates for the luxury of living where they should not. But you and I subsidize their lifestyle. Insurance companies spread the high costs of paying out for Malibu disasters by passing the costs to all Californians in the form of statewide rate increases. No more Malibu means no more billion-dollar insurance payouts to millionaire and billionaires who should know better than to live in such a Godforsaken place.
Want to lower your taxes? Getting rid of Malibu is a good start. California spends millions of dollars to fight Malibu's fires and floods, to clean up its mudslides and maintain its roads. But thanks to Proposition 13, many Malibu mansion owners pay far less than they should in property taxes. Forcing them to move after their homes are destroyed into a more current tax bracket is an elegant solution.
How about ensuring access to our state's beaches? By law, the California coast belongs to all of us. Yet only a fraction of it is accessible because tightly bunched Malibu homes and colonies prevent anyone from reaching the sea.
For years the California State Lands Commission and private groups have urged Malibu homeowners to follow the law and provide easements and rights of way to beachgoers. Yet Malibu homeowners remain notoriously unwilling to comply. How lovely it will be when the beaches of California are open again in practice rather than in theory.
Burning out the residents of Malibu will also serve an even higher good. Call if justice, though in Malibu, I believe they call it karma.
When it was merely suggested this month that the firefighters who would be called upon to risk their lives and limbs to save Malibu property might be housed in Malibu, the good citizens of Malibu arose like a people wronged.
You'd have thought the British were trying to billet troops in the Malibu Colony. Angry citizens organized, passing out anonymous fliers to their neighbors warning that a prison was going to be built in their backyard, the blog barricade was thrown up to inundate the media with their wrath, as well as their contradictory claim that they support firefighters. Just not, apparently, all firefighters.
Like a full one-quarter of all the state's firefighters, the firefighters to be housed in Malibu were prison inmates, the minimum-security-risk type; those who have been convicted of DUI and minor drug possession - you know, the sort of small-time crimes quite a few citizens of Malibu have been convicted of in the past.
Selected to become inmate firefighters precisely because they were convicted of nonviolent crimes, these firefighting inmates have been screened by prison officials, who ensure that they have clean records in prison and good behavior. They were to be housed near where they would be needed because their previous camp had been burned to the ground during the last major fire in the area.
These firefighter inmates have a remarkable record of hard work and bravery. At least one of them was killed in 1999 while fighting a fire in Ventura County. They also have a proud record of not committing other crimes while on the job.
No matter. The citizens of Malibu used their wealth, political clout and media access to kill the proposal on the grounds that they didn't want a prison in their backyard, even if it isn't a prison, and even if it could save their lives and homes. The poor and dispossessed do not have a monopoly on ingratitude and stupidity. Shame, thy name is Malibu.
When the cleansing fire comes, as it must, we must of course do all we can to save the lives of the good citizens of Malibu. No doubt they would do the same for us, so long as it didn't interfere with their property values or lifestyle. Let us commit to helping them rebuild their lives somewhere a bit farther away from the sea and tinder-box canyons, perhaps in some land where decency and common-sense mean more than property value and a lovely view. |
