Councilmembers reflect on last City Council meeting
The Malibu City Council met last week for a special meeting to address the Strategic Priority Project list for Fiscal Year (FY) 2023-24, the Malibu Culture Ad Hoc Committee to work with the Malibu Culture Priority Project team, and the recommended list of employee benefit items.
City Council voted unanimously to adopt the Malibu Culture Project, a sweeping plan with concrete steps meant to improve city operations, workplace morale and culture, and staff recruitment and retention during the special meeting on Sept. 27.
The City Council and city manager have been focusing efforts on addressing many longstanding challenges that the city faces, including being able to provide more efficient, effective, and consistent services to the community; high staff workloads and high expectations; and demands for services and projects from the City Council and the community.
City Manager Steve McClary presented the Strategic Priority Project list for the fiscal year and asked the council if there were any requests or suggestions to improve the working environment.
“I feel like we made a lot of progress with these workshops over these past few months; we shared some good stories and had some good dialogue just trying to understand where everyone is coming from, what everyone’s goals are, so I think that’s pretty good, but I do have to say these past few weeks have been a quite bit challenging, for the staff here at the city,” McClary said. “I know there’s a lot of factors here for that, but I just have to say we are struggling a little bit right now with staff morale, and we’re going to find ways to shore that up.”
McClary asked the council for feedback and how they can address these issues.
Councilmembers shared their concerns with the last City Council meeting on Monday, Sept. 25.
One topic that was addressed was a permitted event that was quickly granted by the city for a company owned by Kourtney Kardashian called Poosh.
On Thursday, Sept. 21, Councilmember Bruce Silverstein learned of a party planned at a vacant house in his neighborhood. The event, due to its size, needed a Special Event Permit, which on Thursday it did not have.
McClary and councilmembers were concerned with hearing that Silverstein addressed his concerns on Facebook regarding the city for giving preferential treatment to wealthy permit seekers.
“If we have a problem in Malibu, it doesn’t belong on TMZ or any of those other places, we should be able to handle it inside the city, deal with it, figure out what happened, and settle it within the city,” Councilmember Paul Grisanti said.
Councilmember Marianne Riggins said if anyone has any concerns, they should go to the city manager.
“I think we need to make sure that we give them the opportunity for them to do their jobs, and if we feel like they arn’t doing their jobs, then we go to the city manager and we work to find a solution to that,” Riggins said.
Silverstein responded saying, “I respect the staff, I respect the city, but I don’t represent the city, and I don’t represent the staff [in making the Facebook posts]; I represent the residents.”
“This is not home, this is a public setting, we’re here at a public Brown Act meeting, and if I see issues that are troubling, and I don’t see them getting resolved, I have no problem with going to the public, which is who I represent, do it courteously but just do it,” Silverstein said.
Riggins said she’s concerned that the city manager isn’t given the opportunity to provide a report on what occurs in the city.
“I think right now, the problem is that it’s being aired in public or other manners, and he is not given an opportunity to work with staff, to make the clarification and corrections that are necessary,” Riggins said.
Councilmembers had different views and opinions in how much they share with the public when something occurs in the city.
“Even though there was criticism, the criticism helped make me better, and at least in my perspective, I don’t criticize people for the sake of criticizing them, but if something goes wrong, I think we have the responsibility to at least point it out and try and make sure the next time, it doesn’t happen again,” Mayor Steve Uhring said. “I think we are on your side, we’re going to make some mistakes, and hopefully, on the long-run well all make this thing better.”
McClary thanked and acknowledged the comments made by the council.
“We are going to make some mistakes and we are going to get publicly rebuked for that, and we understand that, that’s definitely part of the game,” McClary said. “I think we all here have very high standards and we always want to do better, and we all want to get it right, and we realize that we will make mistakes, and we do need to be corrected, so we certainly look to the council for their leadership on that.”
Riggins asked McClary if the replacement of the Malibu Little League Snack Shack was on the priority list or if that is on a separate list, to which he said it they are not dropping the project, it will be continued.
City Hall hours of operation was another topic that was discussed. The workplan suggests closing City Hall every other Friday in order to standardize all staff 9/80 schedules.
“I just don’t see the value of closing every other Friday, how that’s going to bring any measurable improvements to the staff,” Riggins said.
Mayor Pro Tem Doug Stewart is also opposed to closing every other Friday.
“My concern is, as a public-facing operation here, people come to City Hall, they don’t know which Friday it is,” Stewart said. “If I’m trying to talk to a planner, or someone from Public Safety, and there all closed today? My city closed and I didn’t know about it, so I do think the idea of half and half is the best answer for that.”
Uhring asked if the city can publish a schedule with the staff schedule so the community can know.
Assistant City Manager Joseph Toney said many surrounding cities close every other Friday.
“It also aligns staff scedules,” Toney said. “We still would have emergency services available; we still have to have some services available to the public, so we wouldn’t be completely closing everyone out.”
According to the report, key staff in Community Services, Building Inspection, and Code Enforcement would still be working on those Fridays, and key staff will be on call for any urgent matters that arise on closed days off.
The City Council was in favor of adding Juneteenth (June 19) as an official city holiday.
The City Council took several actions to advance the Malibu Culture Project, including adopting the plan’s proposed list of 20 priority projects, which replaces the 2021-2022 Work Plan, and directing the city manager to give progress updates on the project every two months during City Council meetings.
The council will revisit the strategic workshop in March 2024 and refresh if needed. Staff will also explore ways to improve recruitment and retention.
For more details on the Malibu Culture Project, including the list of City priorities and other information visit, malibucity.org/agendacenter.