Several months ago, you started an investigative report into the activities of Malibu Township Council (MTC) and the people that are currently using that name. Here is some information and opinions you may find helpful in finishing the job.
MTC was a once-respected organization that provided a local voice for the diverse viewpoints in Malibu when the County governed the area. However, when Malibu became a city some ten years ago, the MTC we knew effectively died.
It died because it had lost its ‘reason to be’ and it also chose to die by throwing away its moral compass. The only thing left from the old days was the MTC name and a pot full of money, tens of thousands of dollars principally donated by local citizens expressly for the purpose of fighting the L.A. County sewer expansion.
I sat on the board of MTC years ago when it briefly debated doing the right thing and returning over $40,000 to the Malibu citizens who had in good faith given it for a good cause. However, the idea was buried by a new group that took the organization and its money in a completely different direction. What exists today is nothing like the MTC we used to know and respect. There is no council and no representation of differing viewpoints. The group consists of a few individuals acting as if it had a continuity with the real MTC and presumably spending the money that should long ago have been returned to those who gave it for a specific cause.
For many years now this group’s only apparent function has been to publish a newsletter where the opinions of individuals masquerade as the considered thoughts of a larger group that really doesn’t exist and to host a contrived and poorly attended Council candidates forum. But lately this group has evolved and has used its money to sue the City of Malibu and make presentations to the Coastal Commission pretending to represent the views of the larger community.
Mr. York, please complete your investigative report so we can have an accounting and hopefully a long overdue return of funds to those in the community that many years ago contributed to a good cause.
Don Wilkins