From the Publisher: The First Step

This coming Sunday, Nov. 25, from 4-6 p.m., The Malibu Times will host the first Operation Recovery meeting at the Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue, located at 24855 Pacific Coast Highway (just west of Pepperdine). We hope this will be the first of many regularly held meetings to assist our many neighbors, who have lost and damaged homes, both in Malibu or in surrounding county areas, to begin their first steps to recovery.  After this first meeting, we will be inviting the new leaders who have emerged from our ashes, taking the initiative to organize their friends and their neighborhoods, to take ownership of Operation Recovery and make it their own. Until such time, we offer our guidance and support.  

We are inviting everyone who has been burned out or whose home or apartment was rendered unlivable to attend—be they owners, renters or business owners. The purpose of this first meeting will be to provide an opportunity to vent, to tell your stories and to inform on what happened and didn’t happen in your neighborhoods. 

Step one will be to make this an opportunity to share your justifiable anger with others, begin moving beyond anger into action and to acquire the basic information needed. Fire, sheriff and government officials will not be part of the agenda for this first meeting. Nor will we be having other professional experts. However, at a later date, their information, expertise and resources will be called upon to help everyone rebuild quickly and safely. 

Step two will be providing the opportunity to organize into groups and to form operational committees, including insurance groups for all the major companies who have written fire insurance in our area, such as Allstate, State Farm, Farmers, California Fair Plan and others. The purpose of the groups will be to share information. 

Step three will be creating neighborhood groups because there were many problems unique to particular neighborhoods 

Step four will be creating a group that will take responsibility for analyzing what worked and what didn’t work in terms of evacuation or staying, firefighting, resources, environmental policy, building codes, etc. 

Step five will be creating a group that will interface with the city and county government as well as state agencies such as the California Coastal Commission, fire department and others, which will impact the time and money required in your rebuild process. 

The Malibu Times has established an Operation Recovery section in the newspaper (page A9 in this issue) and online that will report weekly on the group’s findings, progress, and other resources and information as these become available. We will also be communicating via our social media channels, including a Facebook page. 

Finally, if you would like to volunteer to help us produce, staff and manage Operation Recovery as well as record the event to stream or post to YouTube, we invite you to contact us ASAP at frontdesk@malibutimes.com. 

Our staff worked round the clock to put out last week’s edition of The Malibu Times, which contained much important and helpful information re: first steps; if you didn’t have a chance to read it, you can do so online at malibutimes.com. 

We look forward to seeing you on Sunday for a great exchange, fellowship and refreshments courtesy of Donna and Richard Chesterfield of Monrose Catering!