Website Is Part of Caltrans Effort to Keep Malibu Informed about PCH Construction Projects

• Malibuites Can Check Out Road Information at www.PCHPartners.org

BY ANNE SOBLE

Already facing a barage of questions from commuters fearing the worst when several construction projects start on Pacific Coast Highway this year, the state Department of Transportation and the cities of Malibu, Santa Monica and Pacific Palisades have announced the creation of an information website.
The governmental group has set up an entity it calls PCH Partners and designed its website to serve as the primary source of public information about projects planned for PCH. The projects are slated to start this month and complete in 2011. The projects are set for different locations along an 11-mile corridor of Malibu’s main artery between the McClure Tunnel and Cross Creek Road.
Whether the effort will be much more than Caltrans public relations window dressing will depend on the ability of PCHP to prevent major backups from happening. Local commuters have borne the brunt of major traffic delays during most of the recent state projects on PCH and Caltrans personnel hope to prevent this from recurring during this period of intensive road work.
PCH Partners will share information, as well as develop specific traffic management plans and post regular project updates on the website.
“The city of Malibu is very pleased to be part of the PCH Partners,” said City of Malibu Public Works Superintendent Richard Calvin. “We feel that this partnership will enhance the ability to inform the public as to what is happening in a timely manner for projects that may impact Pacific Coast Highway.”
The website is expected to provide and update the public with background information, news, maps and construction schedules. Contact information for each of the distinct projects will be provided to the respective oversight agencies to keep the public and commuters informed about status of work, lane closures and detours.
The group maintains that, “The traffic impacts will be reduced to the extent possible based on the construction site conditions and any unanticipated circumstances such as poor weather.”
PCH Partners will keep local elected officials, homeowner groups and community-based organizations informed of project progress and other construction related issues.
The construction projects, listed by their anticipated start dates, are:
City of Santa Monica Annenberg Community Beach Club (06/07-Spring ’09)
California Department of Transportation/Caltrans PCH Resurfacing (04/08-Fall ’08)
City of Malibu Corral Canyon Signal Project (07/08-09/08)
City of Malibu Carbon Canyon Underground Utilities Project (09/08-Spring ’09)
City of Santa Monica Palisades Bluffs Improvement Project (10/08-Summer ’09)
City of Santa Monica California Incline Rehabilitation Project (07/09-Summer ’10)
City of Los Angeles Low Flow Diversion Upgrades (07/09-Fall ’10)
City of Santa Monica Pier Bridge Rehabilitation (10/09-Fall ’10)
City of Los Angeles DC Electrode Replacement (12/10-Fall ’11)
More information about PCH Partners and the construction projects along Pacific Coast Highway is available at www.PCHPartners. org or 866-755-7679.

Market Vandalism under Investigation

Vandals who struck HOWS Trancas Market last Wednesday evening at about 10:15 p.m. may get more attention than they expected. It is possible that the store’s surveillance equipment recorded their activities.
“We are looking at it now,” said Lt. John Benedict, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Benedict confirmed that five round concrete patio tables valued at $2000 were destroyed by the vandals.
Benedict said deputies are currently analyzing recorded material from the store’s video cameras to determine whether any of the perpetrators can be identified.

PCH Rollover Accident Site Continues to Draw Visitors

MEMORIAL—Those who knew the 17-year-old killed in last week’s crash have left flowers, photos and messages at the accident site on Pacific Coast Highway west of Trancas Canyon Road. A paddle-out in honor of Cody Murphy was held at noon on Sunday, April 13, at Zuma Beach

• DUI and 90 mph Speed Deemed Factors in Driver’s Death

BY HANS LAETZ

Small groups of teenagers pull over to the side of the road. Most of them are 16, 17 or 18 years old. They speak readily with anyone who asks why they are there. They lost a friend, most of them say. They don’t always know the specifics of what has happened, but they understand the finality of death.
A 17-year-old motorist was driving 90 miles per hour, under the influence of alcohol and possibly marijuana, when the car he was driving cartwheeled down Pacific Coast Highway above Broad Beach on April 8.
A 17-year-old Camarillo girl who was riding in the back seat with two male passengers, also 17, remained in serious condition this week with head injuries but recent medical updates reported signs of improvement.
A fourth male 17-year-old sitting in the front passenger seat, walked away from the crushed car almost without a scratch. It has not yet been determined whether he, or any of the others, were wearing seat belts.
A large, empty bottle of Jägermeister, a potent German liqueur, and a marijuana bong and container were found in the upside-down wreckage of the 2007 Subaru Impreza that shut down PCH above Broad Beach Road’s western access for over 10 hours. Deputies are still awaiting toxicology results to determine what role the substances played in the crash.
Cody James Murphy, a junior at Newbury Park High School, was behind the wheel of the vehicle as it spun out of control, went up an embankment, flipped end-over-end, and then landed on its roof.
Murphy’s devastated parents arrived at the crash site early Wednesday morning to identify their son’s body.
Lost Hills Sheriff’s Station Traffic Sgt. Philip Brooks said the five, all students at Newbury Park High School, went to see a hip-hop concert in Hollywood but missed it.
“They went down to the Santa Monica Pier and drank their Jägermeister there,” Brooks said. A large, empty and intact bottle with its cap on was found in the car after it was flipped over in the morning.
“Also, we found a marijuana smoking device, a large blue glass pipe thing about a foot long, with hooks and curves, as well as an empty marijuana canister from a medicinal marijuana dispensary,” Brooks said. “It had a blue label from a dispensary, but it was empty.”
Murphy was at the wheel driving northwest from Trancas when the car drifted to the right just past the western Broad Beach road intersection at 10:20 p.m., Brooks said.
“I could see where he got a good centrifugal spin, he went up the embankment. The car then flipped head over heels several times, went back on the highway on its roof, and spun around on its roof before coming to a rest” in the left of the two northbound lanes.
The road was closed to northbound traffic until 8:20 a.m., Wednesday. Deputies were using laser beams, laptop computers and a sophisticated accident-reconstruction computer program to measure skid marks, points of impact and local survey points.
Damage to the front and rear ends of the car corroborated that it had flipped over end-to-end several times. Scattered about the roadway after the accident were backpacks, schoolbooks and a nearly new Dodgers cap.
Grief counselors were sent to the Newbury campus to assist students in dealing with the loss of a youth who was involved in school sports and viewed as popular.
The Subaru’s owner, the stepfather of one of the injured boys, told Brooks that the wreckage might become part of a temporary exhibit to educate students on the perils of drunk driving.

New Council Members Take Office Monday

BY BILL KOENEKER

Newly elected Malibu City Council members Jefferson Wagner and John Sibert and reelected member Pamela Conley Ulich will be made official at a special meeting Monday night at City Hall at 6 p.m.
The session, traditionally called the city council reorganization meeting, involves taking the oath of office, determination of the posts of mayor and mayor pro tem, farewell remarks by outgoing members and comments from incoming members.
Outgoing Mayor Jeff Jennings and Councilmember Ken Kearsley, who are both termed out of office, will be on the dais for the last time when their replacements take their seats.
As soon as the ballots were tallied Tuesday night, rumors started flying about possible changes in policy for the rotation of the largely ceremonial post of mayor.
Although city officials say there is an official written policy on the seating arrangements for the five members of the council, they indicate that there does not appear to be an official policy regarding mayoral rotation.
The current mayor pro tem, Pamela Conley Ulich, who was the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s election, would be next in line for the mayor’s post if a straight rotation system applies. But she will be passed over, if Malibu’s “unofficial” policy that each election cycle is a new beginning prevails. Conley Ulich was not available for comment.
Instead City Hall watchers say the gavel will be passed to one of the sitting council members, Andy Stern. “I assumed I was going to be mayor,” Stern told the Malibu Surfside News. He said he believes the tradition for Malibu is to change the rotation at each election cycle.
Municipal history on this is murky. The mayoral selection process in the first few years of Malibu incorporation was shaky.
In the original cityhood election in April 1991, Walt Keller, the top vote-getter, was selected by the council for the post. Then seven months later, a reorganization proposal was offered by Councilmember Missy Zeitsoff to change the selection process. In September 1991, a three-vote majority on the city council ousted Keller and the gavel was turned over to Mayor Pro Tem Larry Wan.
Upon being elected mayor by the council, Wan said he would serve a seven-month term and turn the gavel over after the April 1992 election, thereby putting the council on an annual timetable for the mayoral post.
However, seven months later, Keller again assumed the post when Wan nominated incumbent Carolyn Van Horn—the top vote-getter and the only incumbent to win reelection—but she declined and nominated Keller. Two newly sworn-in members also supported Keller.
Starting with this latest Keller term, the council agreed to rotate the mayor post on an annual basis as recommended by Wan the previous year.
The option of a separately elected mayor was overruled in favor a system based on a council of five citywide representatives at the start of the incorporation effort.