Malibu pauses lawsuit against LA County over Palisades Fire Play

Malibu's city council has decided to back off, for the time being, in a court battle with LA County over the Palisades Fire damages.

With great fanfare, the city last February launched a lawsuit against the County of Los Angeles, the City of Los Angeles, the State of California, and the Los Angeles city Department of Water and Power.

Last Friday, the city apparently put out a press release saying — never mind. At least, the city is backing off in its lawsuit against the county.

The mayor, Bruce Silverstein, says in the press release that the city is grateful for County Supervisor Horvath's partnership. And that the city is grateful for the supervisor's $250 million construction plan to improve water lines in Malibu.

There is nothing new in the county's plans. In fact, a county official has said they are overdue. The county has been collecting millions in water rate payments from Malibu for more than a decade, with the promise to install improved water lines to Malibu. A county waterworks official earlier this year apologized to Malibu for the slow progress in getting those already-paid-for repairs and improvements installed.

Malibu lumped the county in with its lawsuit against the agencies that, evidence shows, screwed up badly in the Palisades. The City of LA failed to put out the Lachman Fire. The City of LA allowed the small Lachman fire to explode into the massive Palisades Fire. The state interfered with putting out the fire on state parks land.

But the county did not do anything like that, and now the city has agreed to put its claims against the county on hold.

In his statement, Silverstein says the agreement gives the city and county room to continue working together on recovery while Malibu goes after the other defendants.

Last month, Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and Malibu leaders broke ground on a $14 million water main project along Carbon Canyon. But that project was in the works long before the Palisades Fire.

Malibu also pointed to the $2.2 million in state brush clearance money in the Santa Monica Mountains. Lots of politicians claiming credit for that.