As a City of Malibu employee and 50-year native Malibu resident, I feel a responsibility to communicate some first hand observations. I do not have a political agenda. For the past 4 years I have helped manage operations and have been in charge of security for the performing arts center, and have performed in this capacity for the City since it bought the building. Now I am informed that I will be replaced by an out of town person without any previous experience of managing the building or being responsible for its contractual obligations to its clients/tenants.
Reva Feldman has two titles: assistant city manager and administrative services director. She was aware that construction remodeling of the new building would not begin until June 2010 when she systematically terminated paying tenants including a small church (20-25 people) who paid the city $500 per week to use a small room, AA and Al-anon meetings, and yoga classes (attended by the Rabbi). This unnecessarily deleted about $20,000 from rental fees (calculating until June 2010) while the building has been empty. Ms. Feldman has also declined other proposed tenant contracts from the community. She has repeatedly failed to return calls from a possible client seeking to manage the recording studio and concert hall, which would represent considerable revenue to the city.
Possibly related were Sharon Barovsky’s materially false statements during a televised council meeting about the Pat Benatar charity concert at MPAC. She stated cars were parked all the way to PCH, which is physically impossible and parking has never been a problem at MPAC in four years. She said the cars blocked the fire department from access on Stuart Ranch Rd. At no time were cars blocking to a point where fire trucks could not get through.
She said the high school students had to go outside the building to get to the stage during the concert and if it were raining, the kids would have ended up in the hospital. They did not have to go outside, they could have gone upstairs and around. She said most of the people at the concert were not from Malibu. This simply was not the case. Ms. Feldman’s mismanagement and Ms. Barovsky’s false statements indicate an attitude as described by a forensic accountant for the federal trustee: “These City people act as though the City of Malibu money is theirs.”
Due to longterm insider dealings that are not reflective of a truly democratic system, I would also like to propose that the terms served by the city manager and the city attorney are limited to three years maximum. There are many highly qualified managers and attorneys who would love to take on the three year commitment, and they ought to be hired by an independent committee if that is even possible.
M. Cary ONeal