Dear Editor,
Today, March 8, is International Women’s Day.
One would have hoped that the Malibu City Council would be celebrating women and their contribution to Malibu.
But no.
Councilmember Mikke Pierson has chosen this occasion to replace Dr. Georgia Goldfarb is a highly respected member of the Parks & Recreation Commission. In doing so, he will not only reduce the number of women commissioners on Parks & Rec but also reduce the over all count to 6 women of 25 commissioners or 24 percent.
On this International Women’s Day, I hope that Commissioner Mikke Pierson and Mayor Paul Grisanti are proud of their now perfect record of appointing NO women to any Commissions. This is assuming Mikke Pierson proceeds with the dismissal of Dr. Goldfarb on March 14.
And Mikke Pierson and Paul Grisanti were accusing Council Member Bruce Silverstein of misogyny!
It should be made clear that Dr. Goldfarb, a pediatric pulmonologist and highly knowledgeable environmentalist, is extremely qualified for this position. She is a long-time Malibu resident, has children and grandchildren, and most importantly, represents seniors who comprise more than 25 percent of Malibu residents and voters.
As a member of the Malibu Monarch Project, I have witnessed her intelligent participation in annual Monarch Butterfly counts, advocacy for the protection of wildlife habitat and gardening for monarchs, promotion of the use of native plants, preservation of open space, and the removal of invasives.
Mikke Pierson’s decision to terminate Dr. Goldfarb is apparently in reaction to Dr. Goldfarb’s speaking in favor of Bruce Silverstein’s being voted in as Mayor at the February 14 meeting.
Dr. Goldfarb was speaking as a concerned citizen, not as a Commissioner, when she commented at the February 14 Council Meeting. That is her civic right.
But perhaps one should consider this as a power play.
By appointing a man with limited qualifications other than his children, Mikke Pierson may be revealing his own insecurity. If he wants to run for re-election, he may be grasping for the parent vote to garner sufficient votes.
I guess Dr. Goldfarb’s being a parent and grandparent and pediatrician and a woman don’t count in Mr. Pierson’s calculation.
And let’s not forget Mikke Pierson voted with Karen Farrer and Paul Grisanti to remove Patt Healy from the MRCA. An active Malibu senior, former lawyer, environmentalist, Patt Healy represents Malibu’s Slow Growth movement and the Malibu Monarch Project. She was a founding member of the Malibu Open Space Alliance (MOSA; malibuopenspace.org/). She spends hours each week reading government and planning documents that affect Malibu’s fragile environment. She is incidentally a neighbor of both Paul Grisanti and Mikke Pierson in Malibu West.
Does Commissioner Pierson truly want to show such disrespect to this major voting block?
Charlotte M. Frieze, Malibu