In your recent editions, neither of Malibu’s leading newspapers got it completely right about the Malibu Coastal Vision efforts over this past year.
We are not a “quasi” citizen group but a completely independent group of exceptionally well qualified professionals, all except one with advanced degrees in organizational and policy analysis. True, we were funded by the City, but asked for and received complete independence from the City. We have no political or organization ties besides homeowner affiliations.
We are not “closing down.” This month, after a year of round tables and surveys in which we received input from over 350 citizens, we presented findings to the City Council with the recommendation that the City take over this initiative. We recommended that the City hire a top staff person to do so. The Malibu Coastal Vision Team has developed a process for gaining citizen opinions in a very evenhanded and noncontroversial way. This is a process that we believe needs to be made part of the City in an on-going series of educational forums and round tables to acquire citizen input, such as about the future of the greater Civic Center area. As a fully qualified 501-C-3 nonprofit organization, we offered to help in the transition to a City managed and based effort.
Both papers also missed the essence of our initiative. The main point to remember in reading our report, “What Malibu Residents Say About Malibu,” is that those who shared their opinions care. They care about Malibu as the wonderful place it is, but are not blind to its faults or the challenges it faces.
We found that there are many people who don’t understand the many aspects of managing and guiding a city like Malibu and would like more information to prevent last minute surprises like the LNG plant presentation.
We collected over 10,000 pieces of information that were condensed into 13 pages of text. In the material we sent to the newspapers there is voluminous raw data from which conclusions were drawn. We hope your readers will draw their own conclusions. The paper is available on the Malibu Coastal Vision Web site at www.malibucoastalvision.com.
Rich Davis, president
Malibu Coastal Vision, Inc.