Who in their right mind would support overnight camping and the associated risk of brush fires in the mountains above the City? Four of five City Council members, that’s who! They voted, on Jan. 17, to authorize a Memo of Understanding with, and to appease, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy. They are offering up the city-owned Charmlee Park in West Malibu for overnight camping. This, in spite of almost 30 residents speaking against the action!
Initially, the city attorney who prepared the sacrifice claimed the area near Charmlee to be sparsely populated, but here are the facts. There are 150 homes around the entrance of PCH and Encinal. There are about 170 homes at the northwest end of Broad Beach, about 80 homes at Lunita-Bailard and about 237 homes at the upper end of Trancas.
Malibu neighborhoods should not be pitted against each other and there should be no campgrounds in the mountains anywhere above the city to bring on uncontrolled brush fires.
It is disappointing that the Council’s behavior was so like our previous governing body, the county supervisors. All but one supervisor (Edelman) would come to a public hearing with their minds made up before the public spoke. In our case, only Councilmember Conley Ulich listened and moved to strike Charmlee from the agreement. She didn’t even get a second to her motion.
Last week, the only advantage of being the City some of us worked so hard to get was that we didn’t have to drive to downtown Los Angeles for the public hearing.
Walt Keller