Why, as a Malibu surfer wanting to clean up the most polluted beach in the Santa Monica Bay and Malibu’s world famous Surfrider Beach, would I vote “No” on M? Because it misrepresents the facts and will cause more pollution. Now we have a few individuals trying to minimize the Malibu Community Action Network’s hundreds of members and portray Malibu CAN as a bunch of “fear-mongers” while working to promote M by misrepresenting the facts. Example: Ms. McBurney, who is an endearing person that is full of histrionics, states, “We have the possibility of creating a treatment plant on one acre of that (Chili Cook-Off) land, as a great step in cleaning up the lagoon and ocean.”
The City/Malibu Bay Company Development Agreement states, “MBC will be a willing seller to the city of the Chili Cook-Off site for wastewater treatment and park purposes for $25 million. If the city purchases the Chili Cook-Off site and thereafter designs and constructs a wastewater treatment facilities to serve civic center properties, any above ground buildings or wastewater facilities shall not exceed 28 feet in height or approximately 30,000 square feet.”
By buying the Chili Cook-Off site and building a sewage treatment plant, the City of Malibu is subsidizing development in Malibu.
Let’s be realistic. The “facilities” will be maximized because there is approximately 900,000 square feet of civic center properties planned for development in addition to existing commercial developments that will be piped into this centralized sewage treatment plant. Now add all the traffic, parking lots, and the generated run-off that won’t be treated and what do we have? Worse conditions for current businesses from unnecessary competition, diminishing residential property value from an over-crowded highway, increased water pollution and a precedent-setting wastewater deal virtually eliminating on-site wastewater disposal requirements that constrain development.
Jamie Dixon