Joe is a big bearded man with a badge, a gun and a Smokey the Bear hat. He loves everything green - grass, trees and money, especially other people's money.
Ask famous U2 guitarist, David Evans, a.k.a., The Edge.
Evans bought 156 acres on Sweetwater Mesa above Malibu with the idea of developing a mini-enclave, including his own dream house, along with four other mogul-homes. It's good to be a rock star.
It's even better being Joe.
As in Joseph T. Edmiston, the Godfather behind America's most perfect political machine- the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority (MRCA)- which is quite a mouthful.
The Edge quickly learned building on the California Coast is no simple matter, even if you know Bono. Since 2006 Evans has been denied permits from the various regulatory agencies, including the fatal opposition of the California Coastal Commission (CCC) and Edmiston's hydra-headed SMMC/MRCA.
Joe and his wingmen at the Coastal Commission threw every possible obstacle in Evans' way, chewing up a fortune in revised architectural drawings and legal fees. Not content to simply bankrupt a challenger, Edmiston's playbook also calls for character assassination. He and/or his goons malign anyone who has the audacity to insist upon their property rights by inflaming the passions of class warfare.
A famous multi-millionaire rock star wants to rip up a pristine ridgeline so
he can party in the company of A-list neighbors, hogging a Pacific vista Mother Nature bequeathed to future generations! It's demagoguery 101.But The Edge is pretty sharp.
He realized the Coastal Commission is hopeless - a wild-eyed gaggle of ideologues and zealots who are impervious to reason. However, Edmiston's "principles" are negotiable.
In fact, they're cash and carry.
After fighting the project for years, Edmiston has suddenly agreed to keep the SMMC/MRCA "neutral" in the permit fight with the Coastal Commission.
He's also agreed to have the SMMC/MRCA "communicate support in writing" and "attend public meetings and hearings and speak in favor" of the very project he so vigorously opposed.
What's in it for him?
A cash payoff of $750,000 to the SMMC/MRCA and an additional quarter million for a consultant.
While the world watches Middle Easterners fight and die to cast off un-elected tyrants who rule by decree, thousands of acres of private lands in California have been either arbitrarily seized by Edmiston, or wrested away by the ruthless exercise of his limitless powers. An un-elected autocrat, Joe Edmiston has terrorized private property owners for three decades with no countervailing political checks and balances of any kind.
How does he get away with it?
Perhaps you've thrown a Frisbee at "The Michael Antonovich Regional Park" or taken in the vista from "Zev Yaroslavsky Mulholland Gateway Park" or jogged at sunset along "The Sheila Kuehl Beach Reserve?"
Politicians burnish their green credentials courtesy of Joe while private citizens are forced to fight him in court or buy him off.
Meanwhile fundamental property rights are routinely trampled by Edmiston's empire. The SMMC - and even more so the MRCA - represent a monumental mockery of the rule of law.
Obviously property owners don't have absolute rights. But neither does the government.
The basic objectives of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority might be noble- preserving California's natural beauty- but Joe's methodology is Machiavellian. These rogue agencies threaten the very notion of a self-governing people.
When Edmiston is allowed to use regulations and codes, joint power agreements, "Benefit Assessment District" taxes, the threat of expensive litigation and actual police powers - including guns - to enforce his will, we have lost the mantel of citizenship and are once again subjects to the whims of an arbitrary ruler.
The Edge's fight is our fight. Rock on.
Piper Perabo Zooey Deschanel Lisa Snowdon Ananda Lewis Asia Argento
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