Silverstein Pushes Anti-Camping Law, Clashes With Riggins Play

Malibu mayor Bruce Silverstein wants to further crack down on camping within city limits. He wants an ordinance to make it a crime to sleep in public, despite the fact that the elected L.A. County sheriff and the Board of Supervisors say they will not allow enforcement of any such law.

Last night, Silverstein criticized city council member Marianne Riggins for having failed to push his proposed law onto the agenda during her term as mayor.

"I drafted many months ago a new and aggressive anti-camping law following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Grants Pass decision. And we had an ad hoc position. I presented a draft of an ordinance to my ad hoc partner and the city attorney and I got no response, no comments other than 'I am working on it,'" Silverstein said, pointing at Riggins.

She attempted a reply. But Silverstein, acting as mayor, interrupted.

"Let's take a 10 minute recess," Silverstein said.

"May I?" Riggins asked.

"No, we're done with public comments," Silverstein replied.

"I would like to respond to something you said to me, please, with regards to the thing on anti-camping," Riggins insisted.

"I'm not gonna prevent you from doing that, but I will point out, this is not supposed to be a conversation when we do council member comments," Silverstein said. "It's supposed to be one at a time. We address the public and we say what we've been doing. And when I've not been mayor..."

"You know, you're taking more time than what I would have used to say what I had to say," Riggins interrupted.

"That's okay, I am just setting what our procedure is," Silverstein said. "Because I think going forward, I am going to enforce it. Because I've been the first or second one to speak and I just didn't get a chance to respond and that's the way our process works. But go ahead since you need to be different."

"And need to be difficult too," Riggins responded. "In regards to the anti-camping campaign, I absolutely have no problem with that and I asked our former manager. I apologize. It didn't get put on the agenda, but if you had called me and spoke to me about it, I would've worked with you to bring that forward."

The city council last night also took action on setting fines for parking and license plate violations. We'll have that news tomorrow.