Last week, the City Council showed shameful disregard for decades-long efforts by the Malibu Beach Esplanade nonprofit organization and its supporters in Malibu. These efforts and our creative work gave birth to the Malibu Beach Esplanade project, which is based on the concept of developing a unifying theme and design connecting central Malibu in a series of walkways, viewing areas and amenities. The project was approved by five government agencies with $1.5 million in funding.
The project was ready for construction of phase one of four phases when the funding agencies placed a condition on the release of the funds, which required the nonprofit to relinquish all rights to shepherd the project’s implementation. We declined, and the project wasn’t built.Â
Given the homegrown Malibu Beach Esplanade team’s hard and creative design work over many years, the approvals the project already received, its endorsement by past councils and the encouragement we received from current council members, it is disappointing that out of the 10 members the council selected for the Civic Center Design Standards Task Force, not one Malibu Beach Esplanade representative was chosen.Â
A great deal of time was spent in meetings and presentations by the nonprofit, only to have the process begin all over again with out-of-town consultants paid for by our tax dollars to reinvent the wheel.Â
Ann RyanÂ
Present and Designer of Record, Malibu Beach EsplanadeÂ