Olivia Damavandi, the City of Malibu’s media information officer, left the position last week after nearly two years on the job.
Damavandi is returning to New York City, where she attended graduate school.
City Councilman John Sibert said Damavandi, a Malibu native and former reporter and assistant editor for The Malibu Times, leaves “big shoes to fill.”
“She’s from Malibu, she was a reporter for The Malibu Times and she has great post-graduate training,” Sibert said. “Frankly, I think she was one of the most accurate reporters the city has seen.”
Born in Malibu, Damavandi is a graduate of Malibu Jewish Center & Synagogue preschool, Webster Elementary and Malibu High School. She studied English literature at the University of Hawaii before returning to Malibu to write for the The Malibu Times first as a reporter, then as assistant editor. A post-graduate stint at Columbia University inspired a focus on broadcast journalism before she received an offer in June 2011 to become the city’s first media information officer.
“I’ve seen Malibu through so many different eyes,” Damavandi said. “Resident, student, journalist, editor and now by presenting the city in its best light. What I’ve learned through all that is that Malibu really is one of the most unique places in the world.”
Damavandi’s job, according to Sibert, was to get city information out quickly, accurately and in a format that is more reader-friendly than some dense staff reports express. Essentially, he said, Damavandi was to communicate municipal issues to the public so staff and residents could move forward on action harmoniously.
Currently, the job is being advertised on the city’s website for a base salary of between $66,000 and $86,000, plus benefits. Applicants must apply by April 19.
“That’s a tough job,” Sibert said. “The public information officer is also responsible for redesigning the website and building it into something that is not so much about image—it’s not a public relations thing—but describe what the city is doing. And we need someone who comes to this position without his own agenda.”
Of lessons learned on the job, Damavandi said that Malibu’s 13,000 residents contrasting with its 15 million visitors a year create a unique imbalance within a municipality.
“That kind of inequity really impacts our city government’s function,” she said. “Our city is very welcoming, but the weight of such out-of-town visitors puts demands on city resources, which are not always under the purview of the city government. A lot of people even here in Malibu are not aware what the city is responsible for or not.”
Specifically, Damavandi was thinking of environmental impacts, which make Malibu a target for advocacy groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council or agencies like the California Coastal Commission.
Traffic issues with Pacific Coast Highway are the problem that never goes away, yet many residents don’t know that the city has no jurisdiction with its main thoroughfare. That would be Caltrans. And the city has no jurisdiction over county fire or sheriff’s departments. It can only act as an advisory partner. (It does pay the sheriff’s department an annual fee of more than $6 million for police services, for which it gains local influence).
Because of Malibu’s unique reputation, deservedly or not, as a playground for the rich and famous, Damavandi said that public communication had a disproportionate influence. Wearing many different hats—as spokesperson for the city, speechwriter, social media integrator and source for educational campaigns—she was able to delineate many of Malibu’s issues for the world at large.
“There’s a lot of scrutiny from around the world,” Damavandi said. “We’re a hotbed of political and environmental activism. The perception is that Malibu is just a bunch of rich people, when nothing could be further from the truth. I think my job was made easier because I know a huge proportion of our readers, at both the newspaper and the city website.”
Damavandi plans to apply all these learned lessons to a new life in New York City, where she is fielding a number of offers. Whether it will be broadcast journalism, a new entrepreneurial venture or political activism, Damavandi is demurring.
“The important thing is that I am so grateful for the opportunity to work with the city and learn how it runs,” she said. “We are so special. I’m proud of our community and Malibu will always, always be home.”