Malibu’s Community Brigade responds to LAEPF

By Judy Abel · Sun Jul 26 2026

Malibu volunteers ‘have always been a community Brigade’

In its ongoing coverage of the dispute between the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation and local Malibu volunteers who have broken away from LAEPF to form their own community brigade, The Malibu Times offered the local volunteer group an opportunity to respond to the comments made by LAEPF attorney Ali Parvaneh elsewhere in this issue. After sharing Parvaneh’s comments, a spokesperson for the local group initially appeared eager to dispute many of the assertions made by LAEPF’s attorney. However, after allowing a full week for a written response, the group’s spokesperson said they do not wish to litigate the lawsuit through the press. 

Instead, Ellen Kaufman Wolf, the group’s attorney, provided a written statement regarding the lawsuit filed against her clients. Her statement identifies a 2023 Malibu Times article written by this reporter that referenced “The Point Dume Community Brigade” and discussed the rights to the use of the term “Community Brigade,” which has become a primary point of contention in the LAEPF’S lawsuit against the Malibu volunteer group. According to Wolf:

“'Community Brigade' is a generic term and not something LAEPF can own. And as you (your article) pointed out, the Brigade has always been the Brigade, since 2019. The main gist of the errant lawsuit against them by LAEPF is that the Brigade volunteers ‘fraudulently pretended’ to be the Community Brigade (which is — in fact — the name of a 501c3filed by the Malibu Brigade volunteers). The lawsuit goes so far as to call the Brigade members ‘imposters,’ even though it was these very Brigade members — along with others in the community — who built the Brigade program starting from the time of the Woolsey fire in late 2018. A Motion to Dismiss the lawsuit is set for hearing this week, which we of course hope will prevail. The Brigade's sole focus now is to continue its work towards their mission to protect and strengthen the Malibu/Topanga community." 

Keegan Gibbs is the former Malibu Safety Commissioner who helped to recruit and ensure the training of the local brigade volunteers. He enjoys overwhelming community support for his tireless and passionate commitment to Malibu fire preparedness, work that has extended into surrounding communities through his years volunteering with the brigade. Gibbs and fellow Malibu brigade members were boots on the ground for days at a time assisting the Los Angeles County Fire Department with the Woolsey Fire in 2018, and subsequently the Broad, Franklin, and Palisades fires. The LAEPF asserts Gibbs was acting as a contracted worker for the LAEPF and received “north of $308,000 in the last two years.”

Gibbs issued the following statement: “The LAEPF has portrayed this as though we were attempting to do something in secret, when in reality we brought the Community Brigade nonprofit to them as a proposed solution for scaling the program responsibly after many months of our concerns [being] ignored. Our concerns centered on their lack of adequatetransparency, lack of distributed governance and poor accountability, particularly as their organization declined to include Brigade members or community representatives on its board. After being told a governing body would be created for the brigade to address these concerns, we learned there was no intention of giving the Brigade meaningful input and that a retaliatory lawsuit was being pursued. Still till this day, not a single brigade member or community member sits on their board, despite the brigade program being a vast majority of their focus and donations.”

Gibbs, Mikke Pierson, Jason Dax Miller, Tyler Hauptman, and Dana Wolf Phillips were targeted in the complaint filed by LAEPF. The lawsuit alleges these individuals have sought to break away from LAEPF and improperly use its name and assets in a recently formed corporation that calls itself Community Brigade and that has adopted a similar logo.

According to LAEPF, the “Community Brigade” is not an independent group but a program created and operated by the foundation starting roughly five years ago. The foundation says it developed the name, recruited volunteers, and established the brigade as a formal, trained volunteer force working in coordination with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. The program operates under formal agreements with the Fire Department to provide training, safety protocols, and an incident command structure. 

This week, the foundation’s CEO and co-founder Brent Woodworth resigned as an ex-officio (non-voting) member of the Malibu Public Safety Commission “to avoid further controversy and to allow the Council to focus its time and attention on the important business of the City.”

City Councilmember Doug Stewart reported at Monday’s council meeting that the volunteers, LAEPF, the fire department, city, and county are trying to facilitate a settlement agreement.

Read Lawsuit against community brigade volunteers roils city here.