In an attempt to put even more “legacy” in Legacy Park, Malibu’s finance committee comprising council members Barovsky and Stern (who we are stuck with for two more years), along with a banker, decided to saddle the city with even more debt to make sure that their legacy was in fact complete.
Coming before the City Council meeting will be a proposal to add $10 million to the existing debt we used to buy the chili cook-off site. This will effectively leave our children and grandchildren $30 million in debt after the current council leaves office. We voters should certainly have a say in this expenditure, but Ms. Barovsky said that we’d never go for it, according to those attending the meeting.
While we are talking money, thanks to the lone Malibu school board member Kathy Wisnicki, we homeowners just got stuck with Measure R. This parcel tax measure was supported by the primarily Santa Monica-based Campaign to Protect Quality Public Schools. It’s too bad that Malibu residents did not read Arnold York’s editorial against it. Just to remind you of his wisdom, “…this is R like in diRty double cross, which is what the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District Board of Education did to Malibu.”
Ms. Wisnicki did not attend that critical meeting and so Santa Monica board members cut Malibu High School’s facilities improvement money from $27.5 million down to $13.5 million.
Please pay attention before you vote! Now we’ll be funding Santa Monica schools in perpetuity, and after this debacle, Ms. Wisnicki owes it to the children to stay at her post at the school board instead of running for City Council.
So while we are throwing money around, the council neglected to mention a hefty lawsuit coming our way from Santa Monica Baykeeper and the National Resource Defense Council under the Clean Water Act. It could be as much as $60 million.
We must elect a new city council that puts our city and residents first or we will be bankrupt before you know it.
Susan Tellem