City Hires Public Relations Firm to Try to Improve Its ‘Image’ Issues

• Some Ask Whether Firm’s Ties Might Be a PR Issue

BY BILL KOENEKER

Malibu city officials have hired a public relations firm that not only has close ties with other business interests in Malibu, but also worked with one of the city’s foes, an LNG firm that had attempted to locate an offshore LNG facility within Malibu’s line of sight.
Fiona Hutton and Associates, which worked for Malibu-based Weintraub Financial Services, when the real estate firm moved through the approval process for its Malibu Lumber Yard shopping mall on land owned by the City of Malibu, was hired by the city on a three-month trial basis, according to City Manager Jim Thorsen.
Both Thorsen and a spokesperson for Hutton brushed aside the notion that some of those former or current clients might pose PR problems for the city or the PR firm because they are connected to municipal policies that environmental groups are critical of and have taken legal action against.
“We have a strong and productive relationship with the environmental community,” said Laura MeCoy, who is a strategic communications advisor for Hutton and a former journalist.
The PR firm also worked for Los Angeles Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, who has homes in Malibu, when he first purchased the team.
However, it is Hutton’s long-term association with Woodside Natural Gas, which chose Hutton, according to the PR firm’s website, to develop its strategic planning, communications and media relations for the entitlement and environmental review process for its OceanWay LNG project that might raise questions in the offices of the groups that fought hard to oppose the now scrapped project and are also in the thick of local environmental issues, especially wastewater management and water pollution.
MeCoy said Woodside is no longer a client of the firm. She noted Hutton and Associates are still affiliated with Weintraub, but are not working any longer on the Lumber Yard shopping center.
Thorsen said Hutton was hired to work on many issues but also especially the weaknesses on the environmental front that plague Malibu City Hall.
“It is not strictly related to environmental. But we have huge issues on the environmental [front]. We need a better PR presentation. There is nobody on the staff that can do that. I’ve known her work,” said Thorsen.
The city was sharply opposed to the Woodside LNG ocean facility that would have been located within line of sight of the Point Dume’ shoreline and pitted Hutton against council members who testified against the proposal.
Thorsen was asked about that, but dismissed the notion of any potential problem when he was asked if Hutton’s work would be handicapped by this association “No, not at all,” he said.
MeCoy said Hutton’s work through the years has given the firm strong ties to many of the environmental organizations throughout the state.
Other public entities on Hutton’s client list, according to the firm’s Web site, include the Metropolitan Water District, the Los Angeles Zoo, the City of Santa Clarita, The Delta Wetlands Project. The firm has also handled various initiative campaigns, including the Indian gaming propositions on the 2008 ballot; Yes on 71, a stem cell research measure; Yes on Prop 84, a conservation bond measure; and Yes on 50, a water bond measure on the 2002 ballot.