Final Seat on Council Decided by Four Votes

By a four-vote margin, slow-growth advocate Missy Zeitsoff has edged retired Judge John Merrick to claim a contested fifth seat on Malibu’s future City Council.

The winner had been in doubt because of a delay in counting several hundred absentee and write-in ballots from the June 5 incorporation election, when Malibu voters approved cityhood and chose a five-member council.

Zeitsoff’s victory represents a clean sweep of the council by slow-growth activists. Merrick, 71, who suffered a mild stroke three days after the election, was said to be resting comfortably at his home.