Editor:
By any measure of the natural environment, Malibu has to have one of the more attractive climates and beachfront settings in the world.
By any measure of the man made environment, it conversely also has to be one of most poorly planned and mismanaged fronting any coast.
With that truly sad but candid critical judgment, we say good bye and good luck to Bonnie Blue as the city’s planning director, who recently disclosed was resigning and moving back home to Florida.
In the wake of her16 year tenure, the last five as the titular head of Malibu’s most murky ministry, she is leaving behind a muddle of planning failures for which she could be held at least partially responsible.
These projects include a fractured civic center, slap dash retail and restaurant development, fumbling the hyped but tortuous Rebuild effort, arbitrary and capricious project reviews by her mostly subservient staff, favoring special interests, especially if they do the heavy work of drafting opinions, and deferring to generally obsequious consultants and project facilitators.
Actually, “responsible” is a chary label, for Bonnie has not particularly shown any initiative as a resourceful, inspired planner, striving to make our community more livable. Rather, she displayed a contrite tendency as a highly paid bureaucrat protective of office prerogatives while indubitably following the directions of a wily city manager and a disingenuous city attorney.
One does wonders if this despotic duo in a cloudy City Hall might have prompted Bonnie’s resignation from her nearly $200,000 a year pay and perks sinecure, in the midst of a disconsolate pandemic.
There have been rumors of disagreements between her and the currently favored Rebuild expeditor Yolanda Bundy, who is said to be at least trying to advocate for residents. Or more generally it could the continued public embarrassment of Bonnie’s attempted cover-ups of suspect decisions, for which she just might have been figuratively heaved off a Malibu pier. Reva is known not to take prisoners.
As for Bonnie, let’s hope there are fewer sharks in Florida’s planning waters.
Sam Hall Kaplan