BRITTANY YEAROUT
Assistant News Editor
The winners of this year’s Malibu City Council election race were announced Wednesday. Pamela Conley Ulich, Jefferson Wagner and John Sibert will take their seats on the Malibu City Council on Monday, when they will also decide who will be the city’s next mayor.
Voting began Tuesday night with the final count showing Conley Ulich with 2,115 votes, Wagner with 1,686 and Sibert with 1,419.
Wagner, the owner of Zuma Jay’s surf shop who is one of two concessionaires of the Malibu Pier, said his motivations to run were to renovate the pier and begin the cleaning process of the waters in Malibu. Wagner described the elections as a good learning experience.
“I think it was a fair process,” Wagner said. “I have no complaints. It was a great deal, discovering a lot about politics. I’ve never gone through anything like this before, but discovery is a learning process and I’m happy about that.”
Sophomore Mia Sullivan, who works at Zuma Jay’s, said Wagner is passionate and informative about the water quality in Malibu.
“I think he will be a really good addition and I am happy for him,” she said. “He is a business owner. His job here is a lot different from the other candidates, which makes him unique.”
Five Malibu residents ran for the three open seats on the city council. Besides the three winners, the other two candidates were school board member Kathy Wisnicki and Susan Tellem, who served as an adjunct professor at Pepperdine, teaching a public relations course for Seaver College students. Wisnicki and Tellem could not be reached for comment.
Sibert, who has been on the Malibu Planning Commission for nearly six years, said he tried to run a positive campaign and had hoped to work on the city council with Wisnicki.
“I got elected so I am happy, but I am not happy that Kathy Wisnicki didn’t get elected because I would have loved to serve with her,” Sibert said. “We have a lot going on and I am looking forward to working on the city council. We have to find a way to do rational development, recognizing property rights on the one hand and trying to sustain Malibu’s residential way of life. Public safety and fires are my other main concerns.”
Sibert also said he was troubled by the amount of people who voted.
“The other thing that I am concerned about is that we only had about 30 percent of the electoral turnout,” he said. “Local issues are so important — we really need to find a way for people to recognize it.”
Ulich, who was the mayor pro tem, said she wants to make it a priority to get Pepperdine students involved in helping the community.
“I’m really looking forward to having the Pepperdine students continue to participate in Malibu,” she said.
Ken Kearsley, who has termed out in the Malibu City Council, said he has called all five candidates and that he was a little surprised with the results. He said he thought Wisnicki would win because of her representation of the “Malibu mommies.”
“It is a time to govern now and vary the sword,” Kearsley said.
04-10-2008