Born and raised in Malibu, Wade Major is working to make the city an even better place

While he doesn’t like being called an activist, Wade Major is certainly active working on behalf of Malibu. The Malibu native is a busy volunteer helping to improve the quality of life here and for the city to get local control over its public schools.

“When I hear the word activist I think of people marching with signs, walking across bridges, and leading protests trying to make changes,” Major said. “I’m not that far different from a lot of other people that I work with in the community who are born and raised here or have lived here long enough to feel, you know, Malibu gets its hooks in you. It’s a beautiful place and it’s a precious place. You want to take care of it. This is home and I’m just working to make it a better place for everybody.”

Major is currently serving in two positions for Malibu. The 59-year-old is president of AMPS (Advocates for Malibu Public Schools) and is on the Public Works Commission. 

AMPS was started more than a decade ago, Major said, “By some of our most amazing local leaders — Craig Foster, Karen Farrer, and Seth Jacobson who started the fight for a Malibu Unified School District. Now it falls to those of us who have younger kids … with their guidance and support we’re keeping the fight going and we’re very close.”

Major’s child attends Webster Elementary, the same school he attended as a youngster. 

“That’s a very touching thing,” he commented.

Major is hopeful on wrapping up the drawn-out process of separating from the Santa Monica district in what is called “unification” for a Malibu Unified School District. He stated the revenue sharing agreement is complete, and an operational and joint powers agreement is still being finalized. 

“In April there will be outreach in Malibu and Santa Monica to educate the communities on what is in that agreement,” he said. “There presumably will be a town hall to make sure everybody completely knows what’s in it, what it means for the community at large. My hope is that by no later than May we get it ratified by City Council and by the school board.”  

Major’s ambition is to have a separate Malibu school system ratified by July of next year, but realistically it could take longer. 

“We are literally the last non-contiguous school district in the state,” he said. “The law says you have to have contiguous communities if you’re going to share a school district.”

Once Malibu Unified is official, it will be a trustee district with school board candidates elected from five separate geographical areas, unlike the at-large voting system currently employed by the Malibu City Council and SMMUSD. “Because we have people who attend different schools, it makes the most sense for this community,” Major said.

Major was appointed four years ago to the Public Works Commission. “It’s been incredibly rewarding and very educational,” he said, praising city Public Works employees Rob DuBoux and Travis Hart for getting the job done when faced with challenges, especially during recent local rains causing road troubles. “They do a great job.”  He pointed to Caltrans regarding lingering road work projects. 

The Public Works Commission just teamed up with Public Safety on a project to restore and reconfigure part of Westward Beach that suffered erosion especially after last year’s heavy rains. The commissions helped to preserve “one of the last old school Malibu spots” while keeping public safety in mind too.

“Residents weighed in,” the commissioner commented. “That’s always a good thing when residents are vocal because it helps us know where the community stands.”

Major reminded that those who serve on Malibu commissions are unpaid volunteers. As a screenwriter, film critic, and father his life is busy but he said, “You have to make time. It’s not like Los Angeles, where a lot of these commission positions are paid. Malibu is a volunteer community. When we became a city not a lot of people who were born and raised here were serving in these positions. It’s incredibly rewarding to me now to see so many of us who were born and raised here and we’re still here and they’re all stepping up.” He name-checked “Skylar Peak, his sister Alicia, Carl Randall, Marianne Riggins on City Council.” 

“There are people with deep roots here. The fact that these are volunteer positions is heartening,” Major said. “That’s what Malibu, a small community, needs: people to step up and help us turn the corner. Once we have our own school district, that’s almost like cityhood all over again. Now we’ve taken hold of one more piece of our destiny it’s just going to be an even better community than it was before.”

Pop-up espresso bar Hanjay Café is a surprise to weekend warriors 

Every weekend hundreds of cyclists are drawn to Malibu’s rolling hills offering breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean and an abundance of nature. Now, a new treat awaits those with enough strength and fortitude to make it up one of Malibu’s most challenging peaks known as “Top of the World.”

Grinding up a mountain early in the morning knowing a hot coffee was waiting for you at the top might make that slog a little easier thanks to the charming espresso bar, Hanjay Café, which is often parked at the top of Stunt Road.

The portable, tiny Hanjay Café was dreamed up by Hannah and Andrzej Lawnik using a portmanteau of their names. This mountaintop pop-up miniature café turns out made-to-order handcrafted specialty coffees, cappuccinos, cortados, and more from a single Italian-made, solar-powered espresso machine offering an unexpected treat that’s more than just food and a hot beverage.

The Lawniks are avid cyclists and wanted to support the local cycling community. “We missed this after Europe, those little espresso stops while biking. This seemed like a perfect spot for us,” said Hannah Lawnik.

While training for Ironman races, the 31-year-old noticed a lot of cyclists stopping at the summit of Stunt Road, but “there was no community. I always thought it’d be so great to have someplace to refuel water, have a snack and develop a community.” For the last two years the café has been operating sporadically but “it’s been a huge success.”

Hanjay Café offers homemade treats, a full espresso menu with lattes, cappuccinos, including with oat milk.  

“We stick to the European style, nothing flavored. No caramel macchiatos,” Hannah said. “We’re based on the model of a European café. Only decaf teas.”  Their biggest sellers are lattes and baked goods.

Asked about the joy she brings people, Hannah answered, “Oh my gosh. I’m sometimes brought to tears. There’ve been people who told us that they take off of work on a Saturday so they can come up here and catch us, that they heard about us from a friend of a friend of a friend. We’ve been told that people are talking about us in cafes in Italy. It’s an excitement that word’s getting out, that we’re just up here for the community.”

Andrzej added, “This is where we live, where our home is. This is where Hannah was born. Even though I come from Warsaw, this is where I’ve planted my roots. There’s nothing more joyful than to be in nature and supporting local community with something we love. It’s pure joy being here.  We love hiking as well and this couldn’t be a better place for it.”

Joshua Mandell from Sherman Oaks first noticed the café when cycling and noticed a “big line” at the “Top of the World.” On a recent Saturday he sipped an espresso during a pause on his 60-mile ride. “It’s a perfect break on a nice ride,” he said. “It’s picturesque, this café with the view behind it.”

Ido Shalmoni isn’t a cyclist. The Woodland Hills resident likes to drive up just to see the view, saw the café, and stopped for a drink. “It’s crazy in a good way,” he said, and when asked if he’ll return, Shalmoni answered, “100 percent!”

The young married Lawniks have full-time jobs in the adventure travel business and Andrzej is a professional photographer. So,the café operates spontaneously, but typically Saturday mornings.

Cyclist Tricia Baak of Pacific Palisades found the café a few months ago. “I biked up here and discovered them,” she said, adding that she usually rides every Saturday in Malibu. On her typical 40-mile rides Baak stops at “this little gem of community” for coffee and pastries.

Homemade dairy- free cookies were $4 last Saturday. Drinks are pay what you can. Baak says she usually spends $12 by Venmo. “They haul this all up here for us,” she said. “Why not?”

It takes the couple a full day to prepare their cart loaded with coffees, milks, espresso machine, cookies, and cups, plus a full day to clean up once they’re home.

On a recent Saturday the café was bustling with visitors gazing over the sprawling vista, sipping espressos, and enjoying a moment of respite, while meeting new friends over the simple pleasures of coffee.

Check Instagram @HanjayCafe for their Saturday schedule, typically 9 a.m. to noon or when they sell out.   “It’s a big commitment, but we love doing it,” Hannah said.

An update on a beloved young man, Werkneh Ourga, who grew up in Malibu

The old phrase, “It takes a village to raise a child,” is certainly true in the case of Werkneh Ourga. Many in Malibu remember Werkneh, who arrived in Malibu 16 years ago through the charity Mending Kids. Local families participate by hosting children from all over the world, providing them with life-saving surgeries they would otherwise be unable to undergo in their home countries. One success story is Werkneh Ourgawho made a big impression on Malibu.

Werkneh was born into poverty in a remote village in Ethiopia. School was not an option. Working on the family farm was expected but became impossible when large tumors grew on his hands making for an uncertain future.

“My hands were like a soccer ball,” Werkneh recounted.“They became infected and caused a lot of pain.”

Werkneh was sent to an orphanage for extremely sick children in Addis Ababa. “It was a nightmare,” he said, but somehow, he connected with a doctor. “I was fortunate.”  

That doctor reached out to Mending Kids with its large presence in Malibu. 

A Pepperdine family took Werkneh in for his first surgery at Cedars-Sinai. 

“I had never been on an airplane, never seen a car, TV. For me, everything was shocking,” he said, describing himself as an 8-year-old boy. “I was crying every day, having a hard time. My hand was in pain. I didn’t fit in the culture. The food was different.”

Life changed when Werkneh met a group of Malibu moms at church who had children at Webster Elementary. “I wanted to go to school. I didn’t even know how to write,” he recalled. 

The moms brought him to school. 

One of Werkneh’s host parents said when he showed up at Webster, a teacher asked the late principal Phil Cott what to do since Werkneh wasn’t officially enrolled, and Cott answered, “Teach him.” 

So Werkneh started fifth grade despite not knowing how to read or write. “I remember being in class holding a book upside down,” he chuckled. He learned quickly and had a gift for making friends. It seemed all the kids and parents at Webster knew Werkneh. 

He charmed everyone he encountered. A classroom volunteer, Melissa Merwin, fondly recalled when helping Werkneh read, he asked if he could sing to her. And so, he did. 

Werkneh credits Cott for helping jump-start his education and working around his medical visa to enroll at Webster. “For what I’ve gone through, a lot of pain, there are people like that who believe in me,” Werkheh said. “He brought so much light in my life. Everyone was so nice to me.” Werkneh remains friends with Webster students to this day. 

After going to Webster, at age 10 Werkneh had to return home. He wasn’t able to help his family, though, due to the disability still affecting his hands, so his Malibu host family sponsored him at a boarding school to continue his education in Ethiopia and paid for him to return every summer to visit and have surgery. 

He’s had 18 surgeries and has more upcoming. An episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” was based on his condition. In 2016 during government unrest in Ethiopia, Werkneh was “terrified” of possible conscription to the army. When his boarding school was closed for holidays, he had no safe place to go. “It was unstable,” he said. “There were firearms going off. I was traumatized.” 

Werkneh came back to Malibu but needed a new host family. Susie and Larry Laffer heard about Werkneh through her brother, Dr. David Kulber, his surgeon. 

“It was a blessing,” said Susie Laffer. He lived with the Laffers in Thousand Oaks, attending Westlake High, running track and field, playing soccer, and as a teenager gave TEDx Talks on motivation. 

Communities in Malibu, Thousand Oaks, and Pacific Palisades rallied around him to raise money for his asylum case and a green card.

After graduating from Westlake in 2017, more fundraisers were held for college and college prep courses. He got a partial scholarship to Azusa Pacific and received financial support from a few local families. A marketing major with a minor in finance, Werkneh graduated from APU in 2023. He became a U.S. citizen in 2022.

He now works in the insurance industry but is looking for a job better suited to his major.  “It’s tough right now,” the 24-year-old reflected. “Not just for me but for a lot of other young people.”  

Werkneh lives near Pasadena and is saving for a car. He thanks his many supporters. 

“The Malibu community has been really amazing to me,” he said. “They welcomed me. I apply all I learned, those principles. I’m appreciative of what all the families did, supporting me, believing in me. They showed me work ethics, being a good person brings amazing things in life.” 

Susie Laffer commented, “He had a lot of moms.”

Werkneh wrote a book aptly titled, “Helping Hands.” He’s looking for a publisher. 

Malibu native’s artworks explore the artist’s journey into creative consciousness

By Barbara Burke

Special to The Malibu Times

“One can look at life as a miracle or not,” Malibu native Leigh McCloskey says. “I choose to think of it as miraculous because it’s very important to have a sense of allowing a greater wonder to be part of the story.” 

As one enters the Malibu Art Gallery to view “Mining the Soul,” he is immersed in and fascinated by McCloskey’s visionary art works, works that discuss and probe into the human and spiritual narrative through ethereal, often geometric, Mandalan and hieroglyphic images.

With titles such as “Palimpsest Gnosis,” and “Alchemy of Worlds,” McCloskey’s art leaves some viewers to wonder, “What is the artist saying?” while others discern that his works reveal the artist’s prescient presence within the illumination afforded by conscious mindfulness. 

Often, when an Irish writer pens about an Irish creative, she reviews the creative’s family coat of arms. It’s one of our cultural ways to try to ascertain the measure of the man. The McCloskey clan’s coat of arms denotes a heritage and legacy of being industrious, peaceful, and sincere, adjectives that aptly describe McCloskey’s artistic approach to creating works celebrating the universe as an organism and sharing and reflecting upon mankind’s ongoing and evolutionary spiritual metamorphoses as we collectively strain and struggle throughout our journey toward becoming human enough to understand, instead of to defy, reality. 

As attendees gathered on March 24 at the City of Malibu Art Gallery, Malibu Arts Commissioner Julia Holland and McCloskey explored his artistic process in hopes of providing insights into what his art depicts and examines. McCloskey is, through his art, sharing human and spiritual narratives and, in doing so, he arduously seeks to comprehend and illuminate the fundamental characteristics, practical implications, and theoretical frameworks within universal existence.

McCloskey is, in a phrase, a spiritual seanchai whose world of spheres, angles, allusions, and Mandals seem to begin, end, define, redefine, and discover the tensions between and harmony within what our eyes perceive and our minds know and the intersections between matter, humanity, family, and universal understanding. A viewer of his works need not be overly intellectual, but must be open to seek more insights into knowing.

“Leigh’s works exemplify an internal process that many of us have a hard time defining,” Arts Commissioner Fireball Tim Lawrence observed.

“I am humbled and honored to have my works exhibited at City Hall in our town where my father, an artist, helped to found the Malibu Art Association,” McCloskey said. “It means the world to me.”

McCloskey spoke about his father’s admonishment, “When you can’t talk about something, paint it, and how, in his perspective, ‘Art is the language of creating and is literally a way of communicating as it embraces us to explore our inner sensibilities.’”

As he does when he graciously gives a tour of his home studio, Olander, a dynamic, three-dimensional, interwoven world of mythical, spiritual, and esoteric explorations of transcendental transformations, McCloskey explained that “everything I’ve done is based on a certain set of questions and when I am creating, it is more musical than visual — things come up through my head and become optical which leads to the consciousness that doesn’t assume a shape — I never know what will appear on the canvas.”  

McCloskey does, he says, “feel like a happy gardener because I am not getting in the way of what is being manifested.”

When reacting to the world, McCloskey suggests, “we should realize that we often have what can be characterized as an autoimmune reaction to the human condition — in my art, I don’t seek to escape, but rather to turn inward, respecting  the fact that everyone needs a place in their home to honor the yes, not the yikes of life.” 

In celebrating McCloskey’s brilliance and thought-provoking works, Jae Flora-Katz summed up how insightful and groundbreaking they are, “It’s like having Rembrandt living in our midst who has yet to be fully discovered.”

Exactly.  

McCloskey’s chiaroscuro creations illuminate the light within the universe and all living things and matter, all the while probing as he seeks to differentiate planes within our universe and dimensions within our spirits, exploring nuances and mysteries.

McCloskey’s prolific oeuvre of phenomenally intriguing art works are on show at the City of Malibu Art Gallery through May 3.

City staff made troop’s visit fun and informative

Last week, Malibu city staff were delighted to get a visit from the Malibu Cub Scouts 224 as they took a tour of each department of the Malibu City Hall. The fun and informative tour gave the scouts an opportunity to learn about what each department and staff member does for the Malibu community.  

The scouts met officials from each department: public safety, public works, planning department, and the community services department. The kids also met Community Services Director Kristin Riesgo, Public Safety Director Susan Dueñas, Mayor Steve Uhring, Mayor Pro Tem Doug Stewart, City Councilmembers Paul Grisanti and Marianne Riggins, and City Manager Steve McClary.

The Malibu Scouts Committee Chair Ann Gorby said the visit to Malibu City Hall was a great success and was enjoyed by both kids and adults. 

“This was a very informative session — questions kept on coming from both kids and adults,” Gorby said. “They learned that the public safety helps keep everyone safe by coordinating fire and sheriff departments and helping them focus on Malibu.”

City staff also provided the scouts with gifts from each department. Building department representatives also showed the scouts books full of codes that they have to go through before issuing a building permit such as the Malibu Municpal Code book.

“After the Woolsey Fire, the Malibu City Hall created a new position for firemen with the city to help prevent future disasters,” Gorby said. “Community service department was the most familiar to the kids who spend a lot of time in the Malibu parks playing in playgrounds, baseball, softball, soccer, and just rolling in the grass. It was a relief to find out that since 2019 they implemented earth-friendly policy and no pesticides are used in the parks so the environment is safe for kids and animals.”

Kids learned that the City Council proposes and makes rules for everyone to follow and that we vote to elect all the officials in the City Council. Gorby said Uhring was very gracious explaining what the City Council does. He also let the children sit on the dais and hold the gavel. 

While meeting the City Council members, Uhring invited the Cub Scouts to walk up on stage and view the council chambers from the council members point of view. While they were getting their photos taken by their parents, they proposed new rules for the city of Malibu such as, “Eat your vegetables, speed limit should be 45 miles per hour (so many people died on PCH), inflation is bad and we need to lower the prices, everyone should get a million dollars, everyone should get what they dream of, freedom, no plastic, and make your parents do your homework.”

Gorby said they are planning to make the Malibu City Hall trip an annual tradition. 

Malibu staff members Cecilia Raspe and Cynthia Alba gave the Cubs the tour around and made sure they were able to ask questions about each department. 

After the tour, Alba said the purpose of the tour was to make City Hall accessible for everyone of all ages. 

“If we make City Hall accessible from a really young age as they grow up they will be more involved and engaged,” she said. “Everyone was really excited, every single department lit up it was really nice to have a spark of life coming from City Hall and a reminder of why we do what we do for the community at the end of the day.”