Public Forum

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More useful parks needed

I can’t understand why campers would want to camp in the city. Shouldn’t they be out in some real wilderness, fighting the elements and the wildlife and making believe they are pioneers. (Frankly, I can’t understand why they would actually want to sleep in a tent when they have those nice mattresses back home.)

Joe Edmiston of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy has little to do these days so he keeps exploring new areas for his darling campers. His latest proposal, to set up campsites in Charmlee Park, is outrageous. Aside from the very real fire danger, it spoils the essence of the park. And what this city needs more, rather than campsites, are parks that the citizens and visitors of Malibu can use. That is, playgrounds and sports fields.

The bottom line is that Malibu is a city. When that fact becomes acknowledged, perhaps more can be done to use the mountains as sites for viable parks.

Outside of Bluffs Park, there are no parks with playgrounds, soccer fields or baseball fields. Isn’t it time that these needs were seriously addressed? A park like Charmlee, for instance, is sacred and this is understandable. However, there are many areas of the mountains that can adapted for use as a real people’s park, with facilities for fun and games.

Several years ago, Pacific Palisades formed a committee to explore the possibility of building badly needed soccer fields. The area most likely to succeed was Los Liones Canyon. There was plenty of flat space and little going on there, except for a church that had managed, somehow, to get erected at the far end of the canyon.

Well, the neighbors with homes above the canyon objected. The noise from below would bother them. They called themselves activists. A better word would have been “obstructionists.” Of course, the soccer field project was abandoned and it was decided that a quiet nature park would be set up instead. Well, take a drive down Los Liones Canyon and have a good laugh. There is a parking area, a few covered benches and a great deal of scrub. As a park it is barely usable.

When you travel through Europe and see the great parks there, you realize how barren we are. Malibu cannot expect to have a Central Park, like New York has, or a Balboa Park like San Diego, or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, but it can have a place where families congregate and children play games.

We have great weather and outdoor fun areas should be a priority. Bluffs Park can serve as a model. It is delightful to sit on a bench or walk around the perimeter and hear the sounds of laughter from the children kicking the ball around. More would be better.

By Juliet Schoen