I am part of a small group of volunteers who have devoted many years and thousands of hours to help keep Charmlee Wilderness Park as natural as it is today. We have to constantly help restore some of the damage created by humans and the fires that have swept through the area recently.
We pay for, through private donations, the buses for many of the inner city, title one schools, to be able to bring the children to Charmlee Park to witness firsthand what it is to be in a wilderness area. We have more than 1,000 children coming to Charmless Park each school year. Many of these children have never seen the ocean before. How sad is that!
I was on my way to grab a bite to eat before to the council meeting last Monday to address the overnight camping suggested for Charmlee Park. I was trapped in the traffic on PCH. It was frightening as I watched the swirling flames driven by the wind rising hundreds of feet in the air. What happened on Malibu Road in a short period of time was devastating.
Charmlee Park is a very remote area. Most of it is inaccessible. To open Charmlee up to overnight camping would put all of us in jeopardy. The expense of having to put Rangers up there patrolling around the clock to keep the campers from building illegal camp fires and smoking in the area, rounding up the homeless, collecting fees, seems tome would be financially prohibitive. Charmlee does not have any water sources. It is extremely dry a good part of the year. If this park were to completely burn we would lose a wonderful resource tool. The many houses and ranches surrounding Charmlee would be in great danger of burning because of the widespread residential areas and the lack of water.
Please, please reconsider Charmlee Wilderness Park as an overnight camping facility. It was not designed for this type of public accommodation. The fact of the matter is that no area in the Santa Monica Mountains surrounding Malibu is safe for overnight camping. The threat to residents, homes, pets and wildlife is very real. The flick of a careless cigarette or an illegal campfire, well, you know the answer to that.
Linda Joslynn, president’
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