While city planners tend to shy away from attention, Joseph Smith will have a hard time doing that this week. The respected senior planner, who has worked on a number of major planning projects in his five years with the City of Malibu, is leaving at the end of the month for a new job as an associate planner in the City of Del Mar, Calif.
Smith said he found it rewarding to work with the community and fellow city officials to work through Malibu’s zoning codes, which come across to many as complex and confusing.
“I am a people person … giving residents the time to explain zoning to them and telling them what options they have, I find that that is really the most rewarding piece of it, aside from just working from the code,” Smith said.
Co-workers have been quick to commend Smith’s work for Malibu since he announced his departure earlier this month.
“It’s certainly going to be a heavy blow for us,” City Manager Jim Thorsen said at a recent City Council meeting.
“Joseph leaving is a tremendous loss for the City … I heard nothing but positive things from the community about him,” Planning Director Joyce Parker- Bozylinski said Monday in a telephone interview. “I trusted and respected his judgment on issues and he always, and I mean always, did outstanding work.”
During his time in Malibu, Smith has been tasked with guiding important ordinances and projects through the planning process and commission meetings, including plans for stadium lights at Malibu High School, the Point Dume fire station overhaul and a hotly debated proposal to regulate chain stores in the Civic Center.
Although the plans remain tied up in litigation filed by a group of Malibu High School neighbors, the field lights installation project remains the most memorable, Smith said.
“It involves people from across the city and it truly is your classic citywide versus local impact. In the end, if a compromise is worked out, everybody gains something but nobody was able to have everything they wanted,” he said.
Smith, 34, was born in Santa Ana, Calif. and spent the first 11 years of his life in California before moving to Demming, Wash., with his family. His educational pursuits led him back to California after earning a political science degree from the University of Washington. He and his wife relocated to Malibu in 2005 for Smith to attend Pepperdine University’s masters program for public policy.
Despite a political science degree and public policy master’s degree, he never planned on pursuing political office, Smith said. Instead, he sought out working behind the scenes with the policies affecting everyday life.
“My plans have always been to be involved in some policy work and more on the staff side,” said Smith, who began working for the city in 2008. “I had no real dreams of being politically elected. I do find a lot of enjoyment in writing, research and writing on issues that directly affect people at their homes.”
The planning department has yet to figure out who will take on the projects Smith was in charge of, including the Civic Center chain store ordinance, but Smith believes his departure comes at an appropriate moment.
“When I started here I was given three projects. I was given the high school lights, the formula retail ordinance and I was given the fire station at [Point Dume]. And what is a success is all three of those have more or less come to a resolve. The field lights got into meetings and now formula retail is getting into meetings, so now I feel like I’m leaving with a good sense of closure.”
Smith and his wife of 11 years, Stephanie, are making the move to Del Mar to be closer to family. Stephanie, who also attended Pepperdine and earned a law degree, recently gave birth to the couple’s second child, a daughter named Sarina. Their first daughter, Izzy, is 18 months old.