By Paul Taublieb
My reputation to write about my interactions, ponderings and musings about miscellaneous goings on about Malibu politics preceded the meeting at a local coffee shop with Haylynn Conrad, candidate for city council, as she acknowledged when we sat down. I may be many things, but mysterious I am not. And, of course, I mentioned that while I have no official role or even an official platform, I was meeting because I do write about local issues on social media, sometimes other platforms, hopefully bringing some professionalism to this as I am former award-winning journalist and current multiple Emmy-winning documentary filmmaker, trading in facts and accurate accounting.
So after some chit-chat about shared backgrounds as native Brooklyn-ites and her gesture of giving me a small jar of honey from her backyard beehive (to sweeten me up?), I tried to focus our conversation on substantive issues facing the electorate and in order to be as accurate as possible, took out a notepad to record her thoughts and comments.
At which point she shut down, saying something to the effect, “I thought we were just chatting and getting to know each other.” I said “Yes,” adding, “But I want to be accurate in what you say as we get to know each other.”
I explained I was okay with not recording the conversation but later I explained and communicated in writing, if she didn’t sit down for a true interview, I would have to write about this meeting as it took place, along with whatever other research I did.
But since then, despite a number of requests, she has yet to respond and commit to a time and place to reconvene. So here we go with what I have. To be clear, before this was published, I made attempts to arrange an in-person or phone interview, but have not heard back.
The bottom line: A façade of endearing charm and apparent sincerity about Malibu and it’s future, saying she’s running because she has Malibu’s best interests at heart, but her words belie a strategy to reveal as little as possible as to where she actually stands. Or perhaps reveal that her sentiments don’t yet have fully-formed, real-world reality attachments to her first foray in this world. But there were also odd deflections, contradictions and denials.
For example, I can confirm that at the outset of her running for office she met with the two leading preservation candidates, Bruce Silverstein and Steve Uhring and pledged to join and support them and their positions. I can also confirm she had numerous, in-depth conversations with a number of their supporters where she reiterated that support. She was also given extensive insight into the nuances of running for office in this town, as well as the strategic importance of three people running together from their point of view, with there being three seats available – and the perils of that not happening, at least as far as they were concerned.
These accounts confirmed that multiple times she said she would run as a “slate” with Bruce and Steve, and along with her assurances of being part of that team, she stated she was in agreement with their platforms. She even wrote, “I want the three of us to get into office” and “I’m happy to hand out flyers with our names on it.”
In fact, well prior to our coffee I had been contacted by pro Bruce/Steve supporters and been asked to sign her candidacy papers since they believed she had, indeed, thrown in with them, which I demurred from doing having not met her and didn’t want to be part of that process.
In any event, now a full 180-degree flip flop.
When confronted with this, she denied ever having made this full commitment, and stated her intention was she always wanted to be “independent.” And she has since demanded – in no uncertain terms — that in no way should her candidacy be considered aligned, or endorsed, by Bruce, Steve or by their supporters. In fact, she has written, “I am writing to respectfully request that my name, image, likeness, and campaign not be promoted as part of a slate of candidates by you or your supporters.”
Yet at the same time, a number of people have told me she says in private she does support Bruce and Steve. Heh, she may end up being a hard-core “preservationist”! She has no vested interest in development nor a conflict of interest of being directly in the development or real estate business, and she was a quick to emphasize that her husband is a life-long Malibu resident and wants to preserve the Malibu where he grew up, and she proudly called herself an environmentally-oriented surfer.
On the other hand, she is slated to appear at an upcoming meet-and-greet alongside Paul Grisanti, the absolute opposite of Bruce and Steve, and a man whose enthusiastic support of development is well documented, and in fact, a point of pride for his candidacy and documented by his voting record. But guilt by association is not directly damning and could simply be a strategic play to appeal to all sides with her “independent” approach.
In other words, where does she actually stand? Who knows, but clearly not willing to commit to the previous commitment she apparently made, and seemingly saying one thing in public and another behind closed doors. Maybe a question of character, maybe strategy, maybe naiveté, maybe a little of all in the murky pot of politics.
She was quick to say she would have voted against the “hotel as motel” near the pier, the project where Grisanti was the lone supporter of the doomed project. Frankly, an easy and politically expedient position to take as it’s been adjudicated (at least for the time being), and the people have spoken loudly on this issue.
But when asked about a possible future project of similar ilk, the substantively larger luxury hotel that has been proposed by Richard Weintraub (for the corner of PCH and Malibu Canyon) which would require extensive variances and materially add a huge amount of traffic to PCH — supposedly her signature issue — suddenly things were very different. Prior to our meeting, I had actually sent her two articles about this project in order to make sure she would be up-to-speed to comment on it.
Yet she still claimed complete ignorance even of the existence of this project, even though I also later found out that she had also been presented the scope of the project by at least one of the people in her numerous meetings with supporters of Bruce and Steve. With great sincerity and without blinking an eye, she simply unwaveringly maintained she knew nothing and could offer no opinion.
Later when texting her about trying to set up a formal sit down, I re-sent her the article about the proposed project, and her only comment was, “Oh my, it’s big” and went no further. No opinions on the needed variances, no expression of concern about the deluge of traffic on PCH that will accompany the project.
During our coffee meet I also asked her for her position on the massive, industrial-like Malibu Park mansion on Cuthbert that was at first denied, and later approved, after a series of high-visibility and highly-contentious public meetings. On one hand, after saying she had been religiously watching city council meetings and planning commission meetings for the past few months to educate herself about Malibu politics, she now unblinkingly and with conviction claimed she never heard of this project, and wide-eyed, protested she had no idea what I was talking about.
When I went into the details of the size, scope and questions about the project, including inquiring about her opinion on the idea of “neighborhood character” as one of the determinative factors, she would not share any opinion whatsoever, reverting back to expressing complete lack of knowledge about the project so not able to offer an opinion.
Interestingly, at one point she did say maybe thought this was a fire rebuild and the owners could easily build back plus 10% – hinting at some awareness of the project — but when I explained that while yes it was a rebuild, they wanted to make it a multiple of that size and it had the characteristics of a rehab or short term rental, once again, she smoothly reverted to complete ignorance of the project and would not take a position.
One other tidbit from the convo we had. When asked, she said she had no knowledge or understanding that Malibu has a “strong city manager/weak mayor” form of government, or a grasp on the idea that the council is more of “board of directors” with the city manager the “CEO,” thereby limiting the implementation of actions she might take (like “fixing PCH,” in her words.). I can’t be sure, but I believed her here.
So where does this leave us as voters with a critical election upon us? She is no doubt something of a cypher, charming but impossible to fully read, seemingly deep in the weeds of political doublespeak and when pressed, quick to feign ignorance, or perhaps, simply really not up-to-speed on these specifics, or perhaps even coached to be strategically neutral. Maybe her behind-close-doors support of Bruce and Steve and claims to care about maintaining the spirit of Malibu are where her proclivities truly lie, and should she be elected will be a stalwart against Grisanti-like, wanton development? Or maybe she’s a Grisanti-in-hiding ready to build-baby-build? Where one hopes for clarity in a candidate there is ambiguity and obfuscation.
Haylynn, should you come across these musings, as one former New Yorker to another, happy to sit down and discuss all this and more, and correct the record should it be necessary. But until then, this is what I’ve got.
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