A funny thing happened at the last Bond Measure Coalition meeting. Thirty people were discussing a November bond measure designed to purchase land for community parks, open space, wetlands and recreation. Parents yearning for tot lots and ballparks and wetlands restorationists, striving for nature preserves, listening to each other, sometimes with effort and tension.
We’ve found common ground: we all want very little commercial development. Increased PCH traffic and the wastewater that commercial development brings are concerns. We all want places for children to play organized sports. We all want “open spaces”: not parking lots but wildflower meadows. We all want playgrounds, picnic areas and a clean ocean.
We all recognize that a $15 million bond will not make our every dream come true. One delicate issue has been: since the bond is too small to realize all of our dreams, what portion of whose dream do we pursue? We’ve tiptoed around this tough question, because we want to keep our coalition together.
Ozzie Silna, a man who doesn’t tiptoe, suggested reducing the bond from $15 million to $7.5 million and using all the funds to acquire land for a community center and other types of parks and recreation. The Malibu Coastal Land Conservancy would pursue its goal of cleansing the Malibu Creek and the ocean by looking to our city to immediately start applying for federal and state grants to purchase land in the Civic Center for reconstructed wetlands. So revolutionary was his message, the entire room experienced a rolling blackout of puzzlement.
Gil Segel strongly supports Ozzie’s gesture. “We all live in the same community. We want most of the same things,” he said. It is time we join together and leave our differences aside. We may some-times have varying approaches and priorities. However, we must accomplish something together, because something we all want is better than nothing — and nothing is what we will get if we continue the old ways of interaction.
PARCs (People Achieving Recreation and Community Services) founder Laureen Sills reached out to the Conservancy leaders. She asked what her group could do to help the Conservancy achieve some of its goals for wetlands preservation and open space. “These things belong in Malibu, too,” she said, and “cleaning the Malibu Creek and the oceans is of the utmost importance to all of us.” John Mills and Laura Rosenthal, active recreation activists, echoed Laureen’s remarks.
How will this gesture of conciliation and collaboration play out? Leaders are already exploring joint plans to improve and preserve Malibu’s quality of life in a spirit of careful optimism. We’re watching compromise, cooperation, consid-eration and community grow before our very eyes. Stay tuned. This bond measure is shaping up to be about more than an effort to secure park lands … it is starting to look like an effort to build community trust and a community vision for our shared future.
We invite our whole community to the next meeting on Thursday, April 26, at 7 p.m. at the Malibu High School auditorium. We will discuss and vote on bond measure language to present to the City Council. We must decide on the size of the bond measure and whether it should be for land only or a combination of land and a capped amount for improvements and/or matching grants to complete them. We encourage a large group of citizens to participate on April 26, so our council sees our Coalition as truly representing our community.
Mona Loo, Georgianna McBurney, Steve Uhring, Laureen Sills, Debbie Kester, Deirdre Roney, Laura Rosenthal, Gil Segel, Ozzie Silna, Patt Healey, Nidra Winger