Mere weeks after voters passed a whopping quarter-billion dollar school bond, SMMUSD chief financial officer, Winston Braham, has resigned, generating speculation that the district’s financial health is in jeopardy. This should be a wake-up call to all the voters who just blindly entrusted their tax dollars to this dysfunctional district.
Only three obstacles continue to inhibit Malibu’s democracy and independence as a city: micromanagement by Peter Douglas and the California Coastal Commission (CCC), land-use meddling by Joe Edmiston and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy (SMMC) and our unfortunate and ongoing enslavement to the obsolete and unworkable Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District.
The first two can be remedied only by broad legal efforts at making the CCC and SMMC accountable to voters-giving the people power to elect commission and board members who will remove Peter and Joe from their overlong tenures and send their wealthy, lobbyist friends packing. The latter can be remedied more immediately by realizing Malibu’s oft-sought goal of forming its own district.
The fundamental problem is that Santa Monica renters and Malibu homeowners do not share the same interests. Yet Santa Monica renters represent the largest block of voters in the district. In the recent election, every candidate endorsed by Santa Monicans for Renters Rights (SMRR) was a winner. If every homeowner in Malibu voted as a block, they still could not overwhelm the might of SMRR. It is our great fortune that Malibuite Kathy Wisnicki was previously able to get elected to the school board despite SMRR opposition. But she remains our lone representative, and we cannot expect to maintain such representation in the future. While Santa Monica adds low-income housing and grows its renter base, Malibu seeks to hold its population in check. With each passing day, we lose clout.
If we want the best education for Malibu children, it’s time we free ourselves from Santa Monica and its self-imposed problems and take matters into our own hands. The time to form the Malibu Unified School District is now. We have the money. We have the talent. All we require is the will.
Wade Major