“Time to break ground” deflects from the failure of the city, the district and the people who signed this letter to execute on the priorities embodied in BB bond measure money, including improving the schools and making them safe for our children and our community.
Had the BB bond money been used for its intended purpose, the source of the toxins found on campus could have been discovered in 2010 and the remediation perhaps already completed. Resources have been diverted from the health and safety that impact our students and staff every day and, instead, these monies were designated for parking lights on ridgelines, a press box, stadium seating, field lights and AstroTurf. These resources should be used to rebuild Building E. And because of misguided agendas, the school is now under regulation by Toxic Substance Control Act under the Environmental Protection Action. The only reason everyone thought the site was shovel-ready a year ago, is because valuable and potentially harmful information was concealed.
Six months after the contamination has been made public, we still don’t know the extent of the problem. What we do know is that in the last six months, the district has spent more than $500,000 in lawyers and toxicologists to continue to evade the work necessary to find out.
Are people advocating letters to the Coastal Commission really seeking permit approvals in order to build the school on a potentially contaminated site without proper remediation?
We need to start working together to find the source of the contamination, stop further contamination and understand that if the priority is to just get the shovel to the dirt and ignore the problem, we may be spreading around some very harmful soil. Why would anyone want to continue to cover up the issue and build a school on a potentially hazardous site where children and adults may continue to get sick?
BB is, and always has been, a health and safety bond, and it is truly unfortunate that the goals of the bond were, and continued to be ignored by those with different priorities.
When the Malibu Community Alliance (MCA) found out about this issue last October, we immediately wrote to both the Coastal Commission and the City Council expressing our concern and notifying them that we would not object to any immediate new construction or remediation that would remove toxins from the campus.
In retrospect, it’s fortuitous that the MCA appealed the lighting design to the coastal commission. It has led to an understanding of the real issues surrounding the campus and the true involvement of the community. The MCA is comprised of parents, grandparents, active community members and people who should want the same thing as you: clean, healthy schools. We all have to work together responsibly to achieve that goal. We support the efforts of Malibu Unites in resolving this issue properly so we may finally have a new, clean, safe school environment. We strongly urge you to do the same for the health and well being of our community.