Ben Marcus Rules

There’s been a lot of online chatter from Malibu about that first installment, and as gleaned from all that: Development is the #1 concern of Malibu. Growth. People want to know where you stand on that.  Whoooooo are you, who? Who? Who? Who?: “Why doesn’t Haylynn take a stand? Join a side!” “Declare your major” as Sam and Matt George like to say.
I won’t join a side. I’ve never joined a side. And lucky for me I really don’t need to in this election. I can be who I need to be as an independent person. I’m on what’s best for Malibu's side. 

A lot of the comments are along the lines of: “Either a candidate stands up and says ‘I will fight to protect the fragile environment that makes Malibu special…’ or they don’t. I wish Haylynn would be more clear on where she stands.”

So it’s like how Iceman challenged Maverick in Top Gun: “Whose side are you on?”

Again, I  am on Malibu’s side.  This election there's three seats and people seem to want me to run my campaign as if there was only one seat to be fought for, and that is not this election. 
I repeat: there are three seats open. 

I may be serving on a council with these incumbents for four years trying to negotiate deals with them. It is very short-sighted for me to smear them. 

Truly I am your first second or your third vote so it doesn't make sense for me to put people down. Doesn’t make sense to bullet vote either. I’ve said this a hundred times now. 

Okay I had to consult the oracle on “Bullet vote.” Chat GPT says: “A ‘bullet vote’ refers to a voting strategy where a voter only selects one candidate in a multi-candidate election, even when they are allowed to vote for more than one. This is often done to increase the impact of the single vote on the chosen candidate, without splitting it among other candidates. This tactic is common in elections with multiple open positions, like city councils or school boards, where voters may be asked to select multiple candidates. By only voting for one, a voter maximizes that candidate's chances relative to others.”
I don't agree with some of the policies and tactics of the other candidates but I can agree to disagree respectfully.  I also don’t have to run on a slate or as a duo or trio on one side or the other to get elected. 
Yes it’s a majority once in City Council but that just means everyone in this election has to work really hard to get reelected. 
I do not agree with bullying tactics, witch hunts, car clubs or having financial motives and that’s the beauty of this, we the people get to decide. 

I just read - and responded to - a long email which claims you committed to team up with Silverstein and Uhring in August when you started campaigning, but then changed your mind. I said: “Haylynn is learning from the ground up, and it’s the prerogative of a woman - and a politician - to change her mind.” Clearly you didn’t like what you saw or heard or were being told. So now you are independent.
That is true. I don’t need to take on other people’s baggage. I am suitcase free. I travel light.

I compared you to Anton Chigur in No Country For Old Men. After he probably murders Carla Jean, he walks out and checks his feet because he didn’t want to muddy them. Malibu politics is similar.

Exactly. Thank you. I don’t want to align with anyone but myself and the truth. I mean, this is what’s going on now, a pretty bloody smear campaign against Bruce Silverstein. A very graphic graphic sent around accusing him of all sorts of fiendish things. But I don’t want to dwell on it. It just perpetuates the messaging I’m trying to get away from.

Well I don’t think you’re in this for the bucks although the peanut gallery has accused you of being in cahoots with this person or that person, or you’re the smiling front for a cabal of developers.
I’m friends with a lot of people, but just because you're friends with people…  That doesn't mean that I'm gonna do a backdoor deal or I'm gonna get my palm greased. My palm isn’t out. There's nothing you can grease. I've got all the grease I need. I've got my life. I don't need anything from anybody except for a better, safer Malibu, and when I say better, I mean something that makes sense. Common sense rules me.

From the scuttlebutt responses to your first interview, it appears Malibu City Council is a house divided. Stewart/Riggins/Grisanti are seen as pro-development...
They are seen as pro-development but I could argue against that. We’ll leave that for later…

…where Silverstein/Uhring are classified as preservationists. Once again I ask what Iceman asked Maverick: “Whose side are you on?”
Are you asking if I am pro development? I’m not. Why would I be, right? 

I don’t see how anyone who knows and loves Malibu could be pro development. I think they should do to Malibu what they did with Point Dume. It’s the Point Dume State Marine Conservation Area (SMCA) and the Point Dume State Marine Reserve (SMR). And where that means no fishing or lobster diving and just leave it alone, I say do the same thing to Malibu. Make it California Uncluttered Small Town Environmental Reserve (CUSTER). Put a wall around the place to keep the cluttered, dense world out. But that’s me.
I’m not pro development. I'm smart growth. I’m not no-growth. I’m not pro-growth. 

Does this mean I’m running with the preservationists?  I support a lot of their policies but not always the methods in which they or their supporters get there. We are different and that’s rad. 

I will not bully people into submission or misery. These are fellow humans at the end of the day. 

Yeah that doesn’t seem like your style. But can you be a nice person in politics? In Malibu politics? The parameters of what is acceptable behavior have been nuked.
I’d rather not get elected if that’s what I’ll have to do. I don’t believe that is the way we have to operate to get what we want. We get more with honey. 🍯 it is just the harder road but it’s worth it. 
If I wanted to live in Beverly Hills or Laguna Beach - I would. But I choose to live here. In Malibu. Raise my kids here, have my friends here, 10 years ago I opened a school here,  volunteer my time here, I pay taxes here. 
People ask where have I been for the last 15 years? 

Well, I’ve been busy. Having young kids I’ve been occupied in making sure the most important job I’ll ever have was done right. That will always be my most important job. 

I’ve been studying.

Studying tube riding at Surf Ranch?

I minored in tube riding. I learned how to knit, I painted, I ride horses. Studying all kinds of things. I’m a reader, I like to learn. But I don’t need it shoved down my throat by the public education system.

I’ve been on two HOAs and volunteered most days a week as a class parent, helping out on lunch rooms and field trips, helping on AYSO soccer and helping friends.  
I’ve been honing hobbies, serving on boards..

Surfing on boards! Tube riding!!!!

…. helping charities run and creating art. 
Like other busy people I haven’t been snarking on NextDork… sorry, NextDoor all day long or at every city hall meeting screaming from the rooftops what I want. 
I was here for Woolsey. I was here for Covid.
My husband has been here for more than 50 years. I want Malibu to be the friendly small town he grew up in.

Allow me to jump on the soapbox a moment: I have traveled a lot and so have you. I’ve been all through the west and the north: Idaho, Montana, Alberta, BC, the Yukon, Alaska from top to bottom. I don’t like cities and I don’t like suburbs but I do like small towns. Malibu is a lot of things, but it’s also one of the best-preserved small towns I have ever seen. When people ask why I like this place, I answer: “Because this is what all of California was like when I was a kid: Properly populated, prosperous, clean, orderly, law-abiding, for the most part.” That is no longer true in a lot of California. Most small towns are boring and unsophisticated, but that’s definitely not true of the ‘Bu.
My husband reminisces about a Malibu where all of the kids went to local schools and all of the parents knew each other. The kids would hang out at the movie theater at Cross Creek and Swenson’s ice cream.. 

Malibu put the UNITY in commUNITY. Generations could afford to stay and live here and raise their families here. There were generations of families who knew each other. He could walk on the PCH and his friends’ grandma would pick him up and take him home.
A place where they rode something called the Grey Bus that resembled a submarine which drove up and down PCH from neighborhood to neighborhood and let kids hang out with their friends with their surfboards and/or skateboards and/or bikes.
There were horses on trails still in Point Dume and you could ride a horse on the beach and not get arrested.  I’ve heard that horses were a way people would get around. I have horses and I dream of having hitches at local haunts and joints and using them as transport.

Make Malibu Horsey Again. That sounds nice. Whole Foods has a hitching post, and people actually use it.
Really?

People from Serra Retreat use the hitching post, yep.
I was and always will be a public servant. I’m lucky to have the opportunity to do this. I have committed to donate my city hall salary to local foundations. That’s a gift that I want to give back to a community that has given me so much. I believe in charity. I believe in public service. 
Alas,  I’m here now and that’s what matters. 
I've always been a case by case person, and I'm not going to vote against something if the residents want it and I don’t. My job is to listen. 
I am a great listener and love learning. I had breakfast with assemblywoman Jaqui Irwin on Thursday. She wasn’t a career politician. She was a soccer mom, PTA parent and got into politics after they grew up. She was on the City Council for Thousand Oaks and now she represents the 42nd District.
I’m not sure why that’s so weird for people to wrap their heads around. 
This is my job as a council member. For the residents. It’s not what I want, it’s what the people of Malibu want. This is me putting my stuff aside and saying I am representing the whole city. Not one side of the city. I am a part of a majority vote. Inherently, we need to work together as a team. It’s not us against you, us against the city staff, us against each other. That’s the wrong mindset. 

If you ask me  personally “What does Haylynn Conrad the Malibu mother, wife and resident want?” 

Okay: “What does Haylynn Conrad the resident of Malibu want?”
Thanks for asking. Personally, I would like a city that makes sense and is an even better city then we have. There's always room to improve.
It’s progress not perfection. 
A lot of facets of Malibu don't make sense here and when things don’t make sense humans try to create sense which then often ends up with theories of malfeasance. Is it that or is it government incompetence? 

I’d like Caltrans to do construction at night. I'd like to get a morning alert telling me where the construction is so I can avoid it. Now I just sit in it. I just pay my taxes and get shafted. 

I’m honored and humbled to be endorsed by the Sierra Club. I also believe that I’d like this city to be a public transportation-friendly city. I’d like to be able to walk to a store and buy groceries versus driving. 

And avoid using the Pavilions parking lot. I heard they closed Guantanamo Bay and now threaten to make terrorists park in the Pavilions parking lot, or send them to the Santa Monica DMV. Or Disneyland in the summer.
I’d like my kids to be able to ride their bikes to surf versus me having to drive them. I’d like people to stop double backing into parking spaces and causing rear enders and jay walking. 
I would like a pedestrian sidewalk. I would like the racing on PCH and other streets - like Las Flores - to stop. On Las Flores and all over Malibu it’s shameful the amount of noise and the smell of burning brakes. Take your cars elsewhere to race. Not on my streets. 

I’ve written stories about Speed Cameras and when I ask people where to place them, a lot of them say Las Flores - and all the canyons. Apparently it’s loud and dangerous.
I don’t live there but my school is there and it’s just a pity the kids have to hear and smell and witness that day after day. 

Just sitting at Scott’s Malibu Market on the weekends and getting smog and sound-polluted by Lambos and Bugattis. And the idiots who use Malibu Road like a dragstrip. Dumb. I get it.

I’d love to see more beautiful plants along the highway and less litter. I’d love to see less hideous chain link fences. Less construction apparatus. Less maintenance equipment. 

I’d love to see a school system that doesn’t use fear and control to educate kids - just like the council operates. 

I’d love to see the council as a group of truly inspiring adults who the kids can grow up admiring. But first the council needs to grow up themselves. 

I’d love for education to be inspiring and encourage collaboration and critical thinking which is what Sycamore School was founded on. That’s our future with AI coming and robots and whatever else is around the corner.

These are the days of miracles and wonders.

What’s that from? I like that.

Paul Simon. Boy in the Bubble. “"These are the days of miracles and wonders, This is the long-distance call. The way the camera follows us in slo-mo, The way we look to us all."

We need to be teaching our kids differently. 

I’d love to operate at a collaborative and cooperative level together running the city as a creation rather than all this ego, destruction and fighting. 

I’d love for council meetings to be shorter. I’d love to give residents of Malibu a voice rather than having echo chambers of the same 17 people. 

I would like to not have to worry about my son - who is about to start driving - dying or getting injured on PCH. It’s a road and inherently it will be dangerous, but let’s stack the safety cards in our favor. I’d love to implement meaningful, beautiful change that reimagines a different roadway. I’d love to stop fighting about it and just do it. 

I like the CalTrans plan to build a roundabout at Webb Way and turn PCH into a boulevard through town. Kind of how Laguna Beach does it. But we’ll get into that in the next episode.
I would like to find a solution to the homeless issue. I would like the RVs to not dump their waste into the ocean. Moving them into the Sunset Mesa area and saying it’s fixed cause it’s NIMBY doesn’t work for me.

That’s still my backyard and the same ocean they are dumping in and then I swim in and get ear infections. 

I’d love to get straight As on our ocean cleanliness ratings. I’d love to make the trails horse-friendly again and gallop through the mountains. I’d love to see more horses on the point and people living with horses together like they did in the 70s. I’d love to be proud of our city. 

Like Hope Ranch. That place is horse-friendly like England. You can go from one end to the other and all in between and down on the beach on horses.

I would love for MRCA to respect the residents of Malibu and realize that putting hikes through our neighborhoods isn’t safe for anyone.

And that suing the residents isn’t the answer - it just circulates more hatred. 

Let’s really live by the mission statement and not talk about it. Or make empty pledges that don’t make sense. 

Let’s realize that there is some falsity to the narrative that we are environmentalists, yet allow the trash to float down stream. Use poisons that kill our hawks. I want poison-free people, oceans, animals and Malibu. 

When people ask, "Do you support poison free?" I look at them like “Do you need to ask that question?” and I realize of course they do cause I’m going to gather that in the past people haven’t. Which is shameful. 

I’d like to get control of our backyards cause we are the folks who live here and will care for it better than anyone. Look at our personal backyards - many of them impeccable, thoughtful, environmentally conscious. 

Then you leave your gates (this isn’t me saying I endorse gates) and the city looks like a dump. Let’s treat our city like it is our literal back yard. 

Let’s make it so beautiful we won’t want the hedges and gates. Let’s work with local artists, and landscapers and get creative. 

I’d love for people to stop fighting each other and start banding together and fighting for the environment and animals. Creating together. 

We are loving our resources to death. We aren’t protecting our natural  habitats but we are trampling them while we argue about them. And it’s just not safe. 

I'd love for the city to celebrate and support the mom and pop shops so we have them stay. Or we will endure more vacancies. 

Yep, Radio Shack went and took Xavier with it, then Malibu Kitchen and now apparently Rip Curl is closing the end of October. Citizens banded together for Lily’s which was great. I work part time at Malibu Newsstand which is a lot of fun, and one of the unique corners of Malibu.
If European Shoe Repair closes shop, there will be riots.

They put the flavor in our community. Malibu will have its own unique hip identity. Not something that the outside developers dictate to us. We decide. 
We will have local places that support each other. Not more expensive retail. Retail is dead. We need to move away from this notion that we need more retail here. 

When The Park at Cross Creek opened - after a more-than-decade-long battle - I sent an email to Steve Soboroff and said after all the trouble and strife, that Whole Foods was well done because it’s not visible. It’s like Ramirez Canyon or Serra Retreat - there but not there. Hidden away, but useful.
Can’t say the same for Cross Creek Ranch. I don’t know how others feel about that place, but to me it smacks of Agouraphobia.

We need more creative spaces, more social interaction, more places we can interact in. Let’s celebrate the businesses trying to survive in this very hard-to-survive city. Let’s champion those businesses with the spirit of Malibu. Let’s get the spirit of Malibu back. 

Just some of What I don’t want; I  don’t want another #$%% mall. I do not want another shopping center. I don’t want vacancies. 

I don’t want more people dying on PCH. I believe we are at 62 deaths. When will the madness stop!?

The four Pepperdine girls were killed a year ago, and they just approved speed cameras for Malibu. No bueno. This is California in the 21st Century.

I do not want more congestion on PCH. I don’t want car clubs or motorcycles. 

Yeah one person on NextDoor had a real bee in their bonnet about the Cars N Copters rally coming up this Sunday. 

I don’t know much about that.

Let’s consult The Oracle. Chat GPT says: “The Cars N' Copters 2024 rally and event will take place on October 12-13, 2024. This family-friendly gathering features over 400 cars, including hypercars like Koenigseggs, Bugattis, Paganis, and McLarens, alongside several helicopters from private collections and local authorities. Additionally, there will be a rally hosted by Malibu Autobahn on October 13, starting early in the morning from Los Angeles and ending at the Cars N' Copters event in Huntington Beach.
Super cars and helicopters. Swell.

I think they want you to get outraged like the Malibu Sheriff in The Big Lebowski: “We got a nice, quiet little beach community here, and I aim to keep it nice and quiet." But I don’t think Malibu has control over car shows on PCH. I think that’s a CalTrans deal. 

What else does Haylynn Conrad not want?

Thanks for asking. Honestly I don’t want  more campaign signs littering PCH. Yes I’m guilty of it but I hate it. If you can’t beat them, join them but I don’t agree with it. 

No more racing on PCH or even parking for that matter. No more building at this moment on PCH until we make it safer. 

I don’t want to be accused of being in bed with someone cause I’ve met with them. I don’t kiss anyone’s ring. I do research. I listen. I respect people who have been here before me. I find value in history, so sue me if I do my homework. 

I’m not being manipulated by anyone. I’ve run my campaign on my truth and at the end of the day that’s all we have. I am proud of myself and I don’t regret any of it. I never want to disappoint my kids and if I can do this with that in my mind then I’ll always do what I believe is right for their future here in Malibu. 

I’m sad that this is all we have to say for ourselves. Disparage and disgrace, threaten and disrespect. We are better than the country's politics. Let them be ugly and awful. I don’t want that energy in MBY.  Let them sling arrows and rant and rave but let us be better. 

We are too small to be so small minded. Our land is too beautiful for the humans to be this ugly. Wake up. Enough is enough. If I don’t get elected that’s Malibu's fault and it’s a huge missed opportunity cause it will be the same status quo we have always had but so be it. I’ve tried and I have had fun doing it. 

I tell my kids if it ain’t fun it ain’t worth doing. Some things are hard but if it’s meaningful it’s priceless. 

Four more years of fighting and decision paralysis. We can’t have four more years of this destruction. 

Last I heard we have something like 30 vacancies in the staff at city hall. We have 10 vacancies in planning. 

It doesn’t take a genius - Why do you think it takes three plus years on average to build a non-controversial home here?  I don’t need to disparage prior council members; they themselves do it for me. Just open your eyes. 

It’s a racket and we are all falling for it. Let’s make it better. 

It’s criminal and we are all just complaining about it and pointing fingers. Help me fix it. 

There’s a European architect here who believes/hopes/prays AI could be implemented to make the planning and coding faster and more efficient. He said: ““To me, the key is to improve the code and the planning processes by bringing tech and reducing the need of ‘human count.’ Let's make it easier to get good projects approved - the ones that are undoubtedly aligned with Malibu's mission statement to keep the rural character and not ask for anything extra or discretionary - and harder for the ones that want to push the envelope. Much harder.

That approach should be welcomed by everyone: pro (good) development and slow-growth. Let's fix the planning department! Let's bring some good tech to help, we live in 2024 and in California, the land of Silicon Valley/Beach!!”
I don’t want our city council to be the laughing stock of our neighboring cities and state. And we are. We are the city people see coming and they shake their heads in disappointment and disbelief at what’s going on here. 
I don’t want our city staff and council members to keep suing each other. I don’t want to govern our city with smear campaigns and fear. 

Was it F Scott Fitzgerald who said “The national passtimes of Malibu are screwin’ and suin’?”
We are shameful. We are a disgrace. I want to bring back elegance and civility to civics. I want my daughter to not be afraid of running for government - our son to see it as inspiring and fun. It’s a creative expression. 
Why do you think no one steps up? Why have we always had the same types of people in office over and over? This perpetuates that notion. It’s self fulfilling. And around and around we go. Another four years of the status quo. The choice is yours.

HAYLYNN CONRAD HAS MORE THAN ONE LOOK 

Haylynn doesn’t like “talking about the modeling stuff” but it’s important to know who she is and where she came from and what she has done and how fortune has smiled upon her more than once.

Before she was a Malibu mom, Haylynn Cohen was a 15-year-old daughter of a single father growing up in the density of Coney Island. She figured she would live there her whole life - and maybe end up in New Jersey or Long Island if she got lucky.
At 15 years old she skipped school and took her skateboard to downtown Manhattan to skate around. While buying a hot dog, a woman approached her with a Polaroid camera and asked if Haylynn would model for a Gap ad shot by Mario Testino. Haylynn was shy and not interested, but she took the woman’s number. She consulted with her dad, they did the shoot with Naomi Campbell and that launched a 16-year modeling career that took Haylynn for beyond Long Island and New Jersey - all the way to The Malibu.

You have to have a backbone made of steel and I have that after my 16 years of modeling and growing up the way I did - well prepared me for this perfectly. Sure I’m not an incumbent but what have they done for you? Some will say a lot and that’s great honor that and vote that way but you need a third vote for a majority no matter which side of this city you are on. That’s just the facts. 

I’m happy to do this very hard but fulfilling job, but it’s not sustainable if we want meaningful change and don’t change. 

We became a city in 1991. Now let’s act like one. Enough of the nonsense.  

How is this the best Malibu has to offer? How are these people who we have representing the Malibu identity? 

In this amazing city full of creative artists, surfers and animal protectors?  Where is everyone, why is no one stepping up ? You know what I hear: “Cause you’d have to be crazy to want to do that” call me crazy. But I’m not destructive. 

There are lots of things I would like to see, but I need to know what the residents want, and then I can only hope to work hard to implement it case by case basis as to what makes the most sense. Together deciding what’s best for Malibu. 

Okay, glad I asked. 

Thanks for asking.