Malibu City Council Backs Off Controversial Conservancy Plans

• Members Are Divided on Major Aspects of Proposal

BY BILL KOENEKER

As Santa Ana winds blew and television broadcast cameras lined up to shoot a standing room only crowd at this week’s Malibu City Council meeting, members got bogged down in the details of a highly controversial parks and trails plan sought by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and continued their deliberations until Wednesday, Dec. 5, at 10 a.m.

Nearly four dozen individuals spoke to the council on the highly charged issues, many of them urging the council to eliminate the overnight camping aspects of the plan that includes campsites at Corral Canyon and Charmlee Park.

Also there were the head of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, the superintendent of local State Parklands and SMMC Executive Director Joe Edmiston, who all argued that there is a need for more camping in the local mountains.

However, homeowners near Charmlee, Corral Canyon and other areas spoke about the threat of fire and how overnight camping, despite what city officials said would be just cold camping—that is only allowing propane stoves—was still considered to be too great a threat in such a highly flammable location as Malibu.

Council members also heard from Winding Way residents, who took issue with a parking lot planned for a meadow near their homes, and Ramirez Canyon neighbors, who spoke to the council about how any plan that allows more activities at Ramirez Canyon Park where the SMMC is headquartered would be unacceptable to them.

Some council members said the controversial issue about overnight camping had become politicized.

Councilmember Sharon Barovsky questioned whether the council could eliminate any kind of fire by prohibiting all cooking in derence to the community’s fears of fire.

“If you take fire out of it and it is still opposed, it is strictly Nimbyism,” she said.

However, Councilmember Pamela Conley Ulich, who said she would oppose any overnight camping provisions in the plan, which is a Local Coastal Program amendment, said she disagreed that opposition was just a case of Nimbyism.

“The last couple of weeks, the fires are so fresh. When it comes to overnight camping, it is not good for Malibu. I can’t support it in good faith,” she said.

“I agree with Sharon,” said Mayor Jeff Jennings. “If fire is a legitimate concern and, if we remove the flame, why is that not acceptable?” he added.

Councilmember Ken Kearsley said he thought the fire element of the issue was a red herring and was being used by “rabble rousers,” in the audience.

“I call it the Willie Horton minute, calling out ‘fire, fire, fire,’” said Kearsley, who was referring to plan critic Marshall Thompson’s repeated yelling of the word at the end of his testimony.

But the council never got past the comments about overnight camping and did not deliberate further on the matter, saying it would be addressed at the continued meeting.

However, it was when the council talked about how to establish limitations on the activities at Ramirez Canyon Park that the deliberations that continued past midnight broke down, and the city attorney suggested members needed a rest.

The council got bogged down in deciding how to proceed with establishing restrictions because of trying to encourage the conservancy to build an alternate road to Ramirez Canyon Park from Kanan Dume Road.

An intense back and forth between council members and Edmiston ended with the SMMC head suggesting he was being held hostage to a road that may or may not be able to be built because of financial or environmental considerations that are out of his hands.

The council was trying to find a way to encourage the SMMC, though incentives, to proceed with the alternate access as a means of allowing the conservancy more activities at the canyon park.

When the council could not agree on a strategy, it was decided to send the matter back to the staff for further refinement.
When Edmiston was asked for a response to the council action, he tersely said, “It is up to you to do whatever you want to do.”