A several-months-long campaign by community members ends with a unanimous vote by the Malibu City Council to restrict league play at Trancas Park.
By Nora Fleming / Special to The Malibu Times
Rejecting a recommendation from the Parks and Recreation Commission, the Malibu City Council at Monday night’s City Council meeting voted unanimously in favor of placing use limitations on the proposed Trancas Canyon Park to prevent league sports games.
West Malibu residents, many dressed in green and waving green fliers, crowded the chambers to urge the council to prevent league play at the park and support “Plan B,” a park design they voted in favor of last year.
The plan calls for a children’s play area, dog park, walking paths and practice fields, but does not allow league sports games, which many residents are against due to noise and traffic concerns.
Residents became concerned about the future of the park, which has been discussed since the land was acquired in 2003, when the Parks and Recreation Commission voted in April in favor of recommending the City Council vote to allow league games at the park to fulfill a long-standing city need for ball fields.
“It’s not just about sports field and practices. It’s about families, friends and relatives having picnics and enjoying these great outdoor spaces. It’s about much more than maxing out a chunk of land and overburdening a neighborhood with games,” Dolores Walsh said during the public comment portion of the meeting. “We really want to have this park with all these incredible features, we just ask you play games somewhere else.”
Justine Petretti, president of Friends of Trancas Park, had distributed flyers prior to the meeting to encourage residents to show support for “Plan B.”
The flyers stated: “Mayor [Pamela Conley] Ulich has been trying to stop the progression of Trancas Park because she wants to save the $3.2 million already allocated for that project and use it to purchase the DeWind property [vacant land proposed for a city hall and facilities]. She must be stopped!”
Conley Ulich was said to support no park or a park with league play, due to the amount of money proposed to spend on its construction, predicted to be $3.2 million. Prior to the meeting, many residents believed the mayor would vote against restrictions after an e-mail exchange with one resident.
“Another option would be for the city to use the funds in an alternate area that could be used for all purposes, then your neighborhood would not be affected at all by a new public park,” Conley Ulich wrote in the e-mail.
At Monday’s meeting, she commended residents for voicing their concerns and participating in the governmental process, but explained her reasons for exploring other options.
“We’re going to spend over $3 million. My job is to make sure it’s spent on the best plan,” she said. “I don’t feel comfortable limiting options about what they are going to have [at the park]. I’m doing this for the benefit of everyone, about what’s best for Malibu.”
However, while Conley Ulich attempted to make motions for amendments that the topic of permitted play be revisited at a later time, and for the city to spend $5,000 to look into restructuring the plan for the access road to the park, she abandoned these motions after realizing no other council members would approve them.
Both Madonna Slattery and Doug O’Brien, two of the Parks and Recreation commissioners who voted in favor of the recommendation to allow league play, explained their reasoning for the proposal. They said they hoped a lack of restrictions would encourage more Malibu residents to use the park.
“I know the people up there don’t want the fields used for games, but the way it’s set up, it can’t even really be used for practice,” O’Brien said. “It’s just a grassy area for dogs to run on. We’re spending a lot of money on a road going down to a parking lot.”
After the April decision from the commission, many area residents had pursued a letter, e-mail and phone campaign to council members, voicing their concerns about the park.
Council members Andy Stern, Jefferson Wagner and Sharon Barovsky had already voiced support of preventing league play prior to the meeting.
“This is about honesty, transparency and integrity,” Stern said. “When things are said, you have to rely on them ten thousand percent.”
City budget approved
The council also approved the 2008-2009 city budget proposed by Reva Feldman, head of city finance, with an added $34,793 net change from property taxes and an additional $14,860 in General Fund expenditures. The 2008-2009 budget, which totals more than $32.1 million, was first proposed on April 27 and a hearing took place at the May 27 meeting.
The final form of the Malibu Lumber Yard, LLC ground lease was also adopted, without a vote through the consent calendar. The ground lease will provide the city with $925,000 revenue from rent per year, an amount that will increase by 5 percent every five years for 54 years. The rental income will contribute to paying off bonds used to purchase the site for Legacy Park.