As chairman of the PCH/Heathercliff Property Use Blue Ribbon Committee, I was quite perplexed when I read your cover story last week entitled “West City Hall ranked low by panel.” This article went to great lengths to explain that the committee “will recommend open space as the preferred use for a potential purchase of land by the city, ranking as a city hall No.14 on the list of 15 recommended uses.”
Nothing could be further from the truth. The committee was created by the City Council on June 23, 2008 to assist in obtaining input on uses of the property and was not charged with the task of making recommendations. At no point did the committee even discuss recommendations to the City Council. The report will be formatted with the lowest environmental impact uses listed first and thus the city hall use will come later in the report but we will not rank uses in order of preference.
The committee did hold several hearings and took input from the public. Many uses were identified that could be of great value to the citizens of Malibu although some uses were objected to by some citizens. The City Council will make the final decision and it is unfortunate that your paper misrepresented our deliberations since this will possibly lead to confusion when those hearings occur. I hope your paper will correct your reporting when the final committee report is released.
John Mazza