Hands off theater

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I have been spearheading the fight to save the Malibu Performing Arts Center (MPAC) theatre from the needless, senseless destruction that the current city council proposes. My petition has almost 1,400 signatures from people that want this theatre left as is, the way the City of Malibu promised when they bought it as well as when they sold the COPs to pay for it. I am a working mom and I have spent hundreds of hours endeavoring to save the theatre because I and the 1,400 people that have signed my petition care about keeping music and the arts in Malibu as well as creating an important and needed revenue stream for the city.

I have no political alliances or ambitions, but I have endorsed three candidates for City Council because I wanted to let the people that care about MPAC know which candidates have recognized the importance of keeping the theatre intact and seem the most serious about their pledge to do so. Each of these candidates has provided me with written statements about their commitment to protect MPAC from the redesign that removes seats and provides the city staff with big, fancy offices and break rooms but robs the citizens of Malibu of a large, beautiful, one-of-a-kind theatre that can be utilized to its fullest potential for a multitude of purposes and valuable income to offset the huge debt the city council has put our city in.

The candidates I am endorsing are Steve Scheinkman, Mike Sidley and Harold Greene. If the city council succeeds in handicapping this theatre by reducing the number of seats from 500 to 214 (less than the high school auditorium at 350!) and ignoring the will of 1,400 petition signers, we will never again have a large venue in Malibu. We will never again see world-class artists and performers live on-stage in Malibu. Any theatre smaller than the one that currently exists in the new city hall, that the taxpayers paid for, will not attract national and international artists, will not generate hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars for the city per year, and will not function in all capacities to serve all residents. Please take this important issue into consideration when voting on April 13.

Gardia Fox

Malibu Mom For Music