Topanga--Rugged Turf for Politicians

Why did Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana look so relieved when he lost Malibu to his colleague, Ed Edelman, in the recent redrawing of political boundaries?

And why did Supervisor Mike Antonovich walk away looking smug when he handed over Topanga Canyon, also to Edelman?

If you didn’t know L.A., you’d think politicians would hate to give up representing two such beautiful, affluent, politically active places.

Lovely, surfside Malibu is loaded with super-rich campaign contributors. Topangans are not nearly as loaded, and what wealth they have is masked by their New Age tastes. But sharp fund-raisers can sniff out affluent contributors over a vegetarian meal or a cup of herb tea.

But Malibu and Topanga residents--self-appointed guardians of two of the prettiest places in the Southland--also are the most hard-to-please of voters. They are obstructionist, temperamental, self-centered, uncompromising and paranoid.

And when they think someone is threatening their beach or their canyon, they know how to make themselves heard.

Calming these dedicated people would seem to be a perfect job for the judicious Edelman, an attorney and former federal labor mediator. With his conservative suits, horn-rimmed glasses and careful, lawyer-like statements, Edelman epitomizes common sense and caution.

But even he hasn’t succeeded in settling a dispute between Los Angeles County flood control officials and Topanga residents over the future of Topanga Creek, which runs down the canyon into Santa Monica Bay.

In dry times, it’s hardly a creek. But in wet years, Topanga Creek can become a torrent. In 1980, Topanga’s worst storm of the century washed out parts of Topanga Boulevard and damaged homes and businesses.

After that, the county Public Works Department began revising its maps that show potential flood spots for the county’s many canyons. Loading past storm data into a computer, the county engineers projected a scenario for Topanga much worse than the ’80 flood.

The new flood map envisioned a storm worse than anything in the memory of the oldest old-timer. Water would thunder down the canyon, destroying bridges at School Road and Topanga Center, wiping out many homes and that popular center of New Age cuisine, the Inn of the Seventh Ray.

When Rabyn Blake, an artist and her neighbor, Angela Slater, saw the maps, they exploded, as did other canyon residents.

The map showed Slater’s recently rebuilt and expanded house completely underwater in the event of the worst case flood. “When I built here, I did everything the geologist requested,� she said, as we talked last week in the living room of Blake’s creekside house. “I put in lots of concrete for a flood.� If her house were destroyed, the new map, and accompanying safety laws, would require her to build its replacement on stilts, above the projected flood line.

She and the other canyon residents protested that the new requirements would make it difficult for them to sell their houses and would drastically lower property values.

The Topangans also saw this as a plot by development-oriented county bureaucrats to clear the way for more residential development in Santa Monica Mountains, above the canyon. The engineers, residents said, want to drive them away from the buccolic creek and turn their land into a flood control channel for mountain subdivisions yet to be built.

Nonsense, said Mike Anderson, head of drainage planning for the Public Works Department. He said the county is simply trying to warn the public that “they are in risk from a major flood . . . But they don’t want to know.�

County flood control experts have a point. Canyon floods can be ferocious. I covered one in a San Gabriel Mountain foothill subdivision where water and mud pushed 18 cars down a hill into someone’s front yard.

But the Topangans are smart to be suspicious. Anyone familiar with the history of Los Angeles County knows that flood control projects have permitted development in both the flatlands and the mountains.

The Los Angeles River was turned into a concrete drain from the San Fernando to the harbor, clearing the way for construction of San Fernando Valley’s subdivision. No thought was given at the time to preserving any of its beauty. The same thing happened to the San Gabriel Valley’s rivers.

That’s why this is a tough call for Edelman. For when Topanga residents say no, they are saving some of California’s beauty for the rest of us.