Plans for SMC Campus in Civic Center OK’d

• Return of Sheriff’s Substation Included in the Package

The Malibu Public Facilities Authority late Tuesday night authorized Santa Monica College to negotiate an agreement with the Los Angeles County to build a satellite campus on county land in the Civic Center. area.
The agreement includes construction of a new Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department substation as one of its improvements.
Santa Monica and Malibu voters approved a $135 million bond measure in 2004 that included $25 million for an instructional facility in Malibu. SMC has been in negotiations to find a site for this facility and has been working with Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to secure county-owned land in the Civic Center as a location for a 20,000-square-foot college satellite and an approximately 5700-square-foot Sheriff’s substation.
The county Board of Supervisors has to approve the use of the land, where a former sheriff’s substation had been located.
The MPFA, established through a Joint Powers Authority between the City of Malibu and SMC, includes two Malibu City Council members and two members of the college’s Board of Trustees. The SMC trustees joined in the praise for the agreement.
Mayor Sharon Barovsky, a member of the MPFA since its formation, noted that its vote is the first in several planning and approval processes that must take place. In the meantime, Santa Monica College is offering credit classes this year—its first offerings of this type in Malibu in two decades.
The college reported that nearly 130 students enrolled in one or more of the six classes it is offering this semester. The classes are held at Webster Elementary School and offer general education in art, English, geography, photography and psychology.