I attended my first Malibu City Council meeting in years a couple of weeks ago. I attended it because it concerned a group of us that live just beyond the reach of all the bickering that goes on within the city boundaries. It concerned making a portion of Corral Canyon Road that is within the city into a one lane road. I have lived and owned property in the Malibu Bowl area for more than 30 years. What the city road department staff and the council fail to realize is that when a fire comes to Malibu, Corral Canyon is one of the places the fire department usually takes a stand. During the ’70s there was one fire that the fire department forced into Corral Canyon to save the homes around not only Pepperdine but the school itself. Until this year they could drive trucks up the Puerco fire road and up Corral. I don’t know if the council realizes it but Puerco is closed due to a massive slide that took the road out. Corral is the only way to get to the back or to the other side of the canyon. If they put in a new one lane road with stop lights and gate off the old section of the road for fire truck access only, the old road is still going to slide like Puerco did, and when that happens there will only be the new single lane road for fire trucks, homeowners and emergency vehicles. Of course one would not expect whoever is in charge of maintaining the city roads to look at that situation ever happening. Especially after spending $180,000 to patch a road that everyone knew would just keep on sliding. What a waste of money! The only way to assure not only Corral Canyon residents their safety but also several other parts of Malibu their safety is do the right thing the first time and build a new two lane road. It is really less expensive doing it now than doing it after more money is wasted.
One other thing was brought up at the meeting by councilpersons House, Hasse and Keller. That was that if we were annexed into the city then the city would get our tax dollars and the city then would have more money to fix the road the right way. I would like to remind the council that as far as I can tell, most of the roads that have slipped in the city, the residents have had to form a Special Assessment District to help the city pay to fix their roads. Why would we want to do that? Being part of the city just means we will get less services. There have been two major slides in Corral in the last couple of years. Thank God it was on the county part of the road. They came in and stabilized the road and fixed it properly. They not only fixed Corral Canyon Road but they also fixed Newell Road which is not a primary road. No “Special Assessment District” was needed. The county did it right the first time without costing us any money other then our tax dollars. I know it’s easy to sit back and bash the council for whatever they do or don’t do. All I am asking is that they look at the whole picture now and in the future if a fire comes and the only access to Corral Canyon is a single lane road because the road the fire trucks was supposed to use has slid away and Puerco fire road can no longer be used because it to is no longer there.
Ken Freeland