I’m Paul Grisanti. I grew up in Atascadero, Calif., as the fourth of five children. I was a Cub Scout, Boy Scout and altar boy when I wasn’t working at Grisanti Hardware. This work ethic helped as I graduated with a degree in business economics from UCSB, where I was also a four-year letterman on the crew team. In the spring of 1976, I took a job as an insurance adjuster in LA. I soon concluded that I couldn’t tolerate the smog, crime and congestion. At the urging of a friend’s father, RE Broker Al Winnikoff, I got a real estate salesman’s license and moved to Malibu in January of 1978.
I have spent the last 42 years training to be a Malibu City Councilperson. Every day has been spent talking to people who live here, or want to live here, helping them find their version of Malibu and answering their questions about the community.
I met my wife Sara here. Together we raised her three children. The children all graduated from the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District before going on to get degrees from two UCs, LMU and Pepperdine. We support our schools and advocated for a change when Santa Monica hamstrung the fundraising efforts of our PTAs. I support the AMPS goal of district separation and look forward to the day when families will once again choose Malibu for its excellent and safe schools, run by and responsive to Malibu parents.
Over the years, I’ve found time to serve on the boards of the Kiwanis Club, Malibu Association of Realtors, Township Council, Chamber of Commerce and La Costa Swim Club.
I participated in the first city council election in 1990 and was endorsed by the Evening Outlook. This led to being on Malibu’s general plan task force and personally producing the official minutes for the 24 area meetings we held that first year. Since that time I have attended most of the city council meetings and a good percentage of the planning commission meetings.
About 16 years ago, Jeff Jennings appointed me as a public works commissioner. I was subsequently reappointed by Lou La Monte and Karen Farrer. I have enjoyed learning how our roads, drains, dewatering projects, sewer, water system and parks are financed, built, improved and maintained in response to the needs of the community.
City Manager Jim Thorsen appointed me to the LA Co. Waterworks Dist. 29 Fire Flow Task Force in 2010. The task force was formed to study the aging patchwork of undersized water mains and water tanks the district inherited when they combined the many small private systems that had served Malibu up to the ’60s. Two years of meetings with some talented consultants resulted in a computer model of the system and a hierarchy of needs we should address over the next 25 years. The report identified lower Encinal, Malibu Park and much of Point Dume as areas to be improved in the first five years.
The plan and EIR was shelved in 2016, while a new EIR was rewritten. Woolsey got here first. In December 2018, I started writing columns for The Malibu Times to deal with my frustrations about the puzzling fire department response and the fact that most of the homes lost in the fire could not be rebuilt under the existing fire flow standard. I found receptive ears at Supervisor Sheila Kuehl’s office and the supervisor committed Fire Chief Osby and LA Co. Public Works Head Mark Pestrella to meet weekly until solutions could be hammered out to allow the rebuilds to proceed. On the council, I will continue to advocate for water solutions for the rest of Malibu.
In 2019, I received a Dolphin Award from the Malibu Dolphin Charitable Foundation for my contributions to the fire flow solution. This was particularly gratifying as my wife Sara had earned her Dolphin in 1997 for her work to reopen Kanan.
Sara and I joined CERT in 2019 and have volunteered many hours to make our community more resilient.
Future challenges include Woolsey recovery, the budget impacts of COVID 19, maintaining our bond rating while we finally pay off Legacy Park and starting the deferred payments on the $56,000,000-plus owed on Legacy Park and the vacant parcels bought to prevent their development. We have significant expenses looming as we respond to the FEMA flood maps and the MRCA.
I owe Malibu everything I am today and look forward to serving Malibu for the next four years.