Malibu Unites states that it wants the district to remove hundreds — maybe even thousands — of linear feet of caulk in Malibu schools. But shouldn’t we all agree instead that we want to completely rebuild and remodel our schools? Why undertake such a redundant enterprise as replacing caulk when our district has passed two bonds and earmarked $100 million dollars to rebuild Malibu’s dilapidated schools? Malibu Unites would be happy to replace the caulk and put kids in relocatable classrooms. I am not.
The citizens have passed significant bond monies to create 21st century places of learning in Malibu. No one should be happy with the idea of spending large amounts of money replacing caulk and warehousing students in woefully inadequate relocatables when that money should create permanent, world-class solutions for our students. With limited resources to manage, we must not get distracted from the true goal of building new, state-of-the-art facilities or waste precious funds on stopgap measures.
The mystery is why Malibu Unites does not demand that the district move forward with already approved demolition and rebuilding plans. Why? Because members of Malibu Unites have brought an appeal against the new school building plans and would rather not see these new buildings break ground. Malibu Unites is not being straightforward about its connection to this appeal to the Coastal Commission that is the only obstacle to breaking ground today on new MHS buildings — saying goodbye forever to those windows and their bad caulk.
The building plans have been approved by the school district, the Coastal Commission, the City of Malibu and the Division of State Architects. That process took seven years. Granted, their last minute appeal was allowed under the law and, naturally, Malibu Township Council and Malibu Community Alliance members (now Malibu Unites members) took full advantage of their right to delay this project.
If only Malibu could unite with a desire to start building now. Let’s get down to business and create the environmentally safe schools we imagine for our kids.
Heather Anderson