For those of you who missed the Environmental Review Board meeting this past Wednesday (that would be about 13,000 of you Malibu residents), an extremely urgent situation is unfolding before our eyes.
For the past few months, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy increasingly has been rattling the cage of the City Council and the other Malibu commissions to establish overnight camping and other activities in Charmlee, Ramirez Canyon, Escondido Canyon, Solstice Canyon and Corral Canyon Parks.
Euphemistically called the “Malibu Parks Public Access Enhancement Plan” by the SMMC, this essentially calls for adding parking lots, paved pathways, campgrounds, bathrooms, barbecues and trails throughout those parks.
The meeting was held to ask for an amendment to the Local Coastal Plan to allow the Enhancement Plan.
Let me summarize the most crucial points-they’re not pretty:
Though campfires will not be allowed, “cold camping,” a term that is laughable, will be. This means that you can cook in these remote places. You can bet drinking and smoking will happen as well.
There are provisions that trails and land can be “taken” if needed for the expansion. Hello Big Brother.
Bathrooms will be self-contained-translation, kids and gang bangers can topple them, spilling the contents and decorating them with graffiti.
Remote and pristine animal, butterfly and bird habitats will be irreparably disturbed by the patter of big and little feet.
Boulders will be added to the streams to slow the pace of water. Why? As the woman from Dudek said, and I paraphrase ever so slightly, “Water is just shooting through the canyon!” Duh!
There is no existing plan for fighting fires. Who will get people out of remote and narrow canyons with one way in and no way out?
Able-bodied people are constantly being airlifted out of the canyon trails and ambulances cannot get in. There was no plan submitted for getting able-bodied or disabled people out of these new campgrounds.
Bus, car and trailer traffic in the new areas will be ramped up.
So what can you do? Immediately start calls and letters to your City Council. The City of Malibu owns Charmlee Park. All the City Council needs to do is say no to SMMC. But they haven’t and they won’t; – you should ask why. As for the other canyons, enlist your homeowners’ associations to block this dangerous and ridiculous plan.
We’re in for a big fight, so if you love Malibu and care about its safety and your own, put on your boxing gloves.
Susan Tellem