Latest news with #MalibuCityCouncil
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Officials look to quell Pacific Palisades residents' security concerns after PCH fully reopens
In the wake of the Palisades Fire in January, Pacific Coast Highway between L.A. and Malibu was shut down for months – except for local residents, businesses and emergency crews – due to damage from the fire and subsequent mudslides, and now that the critical stretch of coastal highway is open, those living in the area are worried about security. Officials, however, are ensuring that all precautions are taken as more and more people travel through the area. PCH officially reopened on Friday, ahead of schedule and just in time for Memorial Day weekend. Up to two lanes are open in each direction with a 25-mile-per-hour speed limit through active work zones, and security checkpoints along the highway have been removed as the California National Guard demobilizes from the area. As PCH reopens, Malibu urges beachgoers to be safe and respectful Speed limits and worker safety aren't the only things on residents' and officials' minds. Burglaries and thefts in wildfire-affected areas have increased (including in the Eaton Fire burn zone in Altadena, where officials say burglaries are up 'several hundred percent'), and now that the general public is back in the area, concerns are heightened. One way that local leaders are looking to ease those concerns is the decision to hire a private security firm that will provide 24/7 armed patrols in neighborhoods affected by both the Palisades and Franklin fires, officials announced. Approved on May 21 by the Malibu City Council, Covered 6 was chosen since the firm has 'extensive experience patrolling neighborhoods' and that they have worked with local deputies in the past. The service will cost roughly $260,000 per month. Speaking on the price tag at the city council meeting, one resident opined that 'it's a lot of money to spend…but I think it's a time to spend it.' Los Angeles officials tout record progress in Palisades Fire recovery as homes start to be rebuilt 'The patrols are intended to supplement law enforcement efforts by the LASD Malibu-Lost Hills Station and ensure continuous public safety coverage during a critical recovery phase,' Malibu officials said on May 22. 'Fire-damaged areas face heightened risks of burglary, vandalism, theft – particularly of construction materials – as many properties remain vacant during rebuilding.' 'Looter suppression efforts will be intensified, with zero-tolerance to crime and traffic violations,' officials added, piggybacking off Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman's policy on wildfire looters. During the May 21 Malibu City Council meeting, Scott Wagenseller, the founder and CEO of another private security firm, Gates Security, said that on the previous day, officers with his company found a man with a gun in the backyard of one of their clients' homes. Another man was found with a knife, and a 'squatter issue' involving a man on a previously burned property had recently been resolved. 'These are transients walking into the environment,' Wagenseller said. 'Raise Pali' golf tournament supports wildfire recovery efforts for local high school Residents are encouraged to 'take an active role' in protecting their properties by filling out a Letter of Agency at the Malibu-Lost Hills LASD station; the document authorizes deputies to enforce trespassing laws on private property in the owner's absence and officers to take action against unauthorized individuals without contacting the property owner first, the Malibu City Council said. Property owners are also asked to secure their property by ensuring that gates, doors and windows are locked. Any suspicious activity should be reported to authorities. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
In post-fire milestone, Pacific Coast Highway reopens, clearing traffic bottleneck
In a major post-fire milestone Friday, Pacific Coast Highway reopened to traffic for the first time since the Palisades fire incinerated homes and businesses along the oceanfront in January. The reopening of an 11-mile stretch of PCH will offer greater access to Malibu and Pacific Palisades and may ease commutes for those trying to get to Los Angeles from Ventura County and the west Valley. The reopening also marks an important step forward in recovery efforts in the Palisades, according to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass. At 8 a.m. Friday, authorities opened one lane of traffic in both directions. However, officials urged drivers to be cautious since road crews are still doing work in the area. The speed limit has been reduced to 25 mph and traffic signals at Topanga Canyon Boulevard, Big Rock Drive, La Costa Beach Club and Carbon Canyon Road are set for flashing red, meaning drivers will have to stop. "The reopening of Pacific Coast Highway marks an important step in Malibu's ongoing recovery from the recent wildfires. While significant challenges remain, this development helps restore limited access for residents and travelers along the coast," Malibu Mayor Mayor Marianne Riggins said in a statement. Traffic is expected to be very heavy this Memorial Day weekend as people head to area beaches. Motorists are also likely to encounter a heavy security presence as authorities continue to restrict access into the burn areas. The Malibu City Council on Wednesday approved a contract with a private security firm to provide armed patrols to neighborhoods ravaged by the Palisades and Franklin fires in anticipation of the highway reopening. "In California, we get stuff done, period," Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. "We're opening the PCH back up early, with more lanes before Angelenos hit the road this Memorial Day. We are able to do this thanks to the tireless work of hundreds of construction and road crews and with help from our partners at the Army Corps of Engineers.' This is a developing story and will be updated. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
A sewer in Malibu? January firestorm has coastal city pondering the once-unthinkable
More than 30 years after Malibu residents formed a city, largely to block sewers and rampant development, leaders in the coastal community are talking about building a sewer system. The Malibu City Council has asked for a preliminary assessment of how to construct and finance a sewer line along Pacific Coast Highway, serving a nearly four-mile stretch of coast where 327 homes burned in the January wildfire. While Malibu's leaders and citizens remain adamantly in favor of controlled growth, they believe there may be a way to build a sewer that does not open the way for wide-scale development, while also making it more likely that human waste won't flow from homes into the ocean. Water quality officials have long complained that septic systems in Malibu didn't adequately control sewage and that pathogens seeped into groundwater and then into local creeks and Santa Monica Bay. All of the hundreds of homes destroyed on the coast highway operated on outdated septic systems, which would give way to a sewer system if the city decides to build one. A secure sewer main delivering human waste to a treatment plant would reduce the threat posed by leaky septic tanks and leach fields — an upgrade that Malibu City Council members said they would like to accomplish, if they can. Read more: Should Malibu fire victims rebuild their coastal homes when the ocean is advancing? But the majority of the council has made clear that they won't approve a sewer if they think it will slow reconstruction of homes along PCH, or open the door to hotels, apartments and 'Miami Beach'-style development. That's just the scenario cityhood proponents railed against in their successful drive for Malibu incorporation in 1990. When the first Malibu City Council took charge in 1991, it quickly abandoned a Los Angeles County plan for sewers. Most Malibu leaders since then have allowed little building that would be at odds with the community's semirural roots. But the January fire has opened a reconsideration of many topics. That has council members voluntarily considering a sewer to a degree unseen in the city's 34-year history. 'I think we should do everything we can to put the sewer in [and] figure out how to get it paid for,' Councilman Steve Uhring said at a recent public hearing. 'That's what Malibu is about. We are supposed to protect the environment [and] that's the best way to do it.' Uhring and his fellow council members have made clear that they intend the new sewer to serve only the current homes and businesses along the burn zone — roughly from Topanga Canyon Boulevard to Carbon Canyon Road. 'There is the ever-present concern that [a sewer] is going to open the way, even in that limited area, for greater development than was intended,' Councilman Bruce Silverstein said in an interview. Councilman Doug Stewart suggested that by limiting the capacity of the sewer 'we can make sure we don't get high-density apartment buildings or hotels along the coast. This would be to put people back in the homes they had before." Added Stewart: 'We have to be careful we don't ruin the environment by trying to protect it.' Mayor Marianne Riggins and Councilwoman Haylynn Conrad also have agreed the city should study the possibility of, as Conrad called it in a newspaper column, "the S-word." But many questions remain: Where would the effluent from a PCH sewer be treated? Who would pay for the work? And how would waste from coastal homes be handled in the five years or more it would take to finish the project? Malibu Public Works Director Rob DuBoux recently presented the City Council with four sewer treatment alternatives and a fifth choice, which would allow homeowners to keep, and upgrade, their onsite waste treatment systems. The city lawmakers said they leaned toward the plan that DuBoux projected could be built most quickly and at the least expense. That option would have the city lay a sewer line under PCH to the city of Los Angeles sewer that runs up the highway to nearly Coastline Drive, more than a mile from Malibu's eastern border. That sewer ultimately connects to the Hyperion Treatment Plant in El Segundo, where the waste gets 'full-secondary' treatment, to make it safe to release via an outfall pipe about five miles offshore. DuBoux said that a preliminary calculation suggests the work would cost $124 million and take five years and five months to complete, though he acknowledged more detailed plans and projections must be completed. Malibu would apply for grants and loans to try to reduce the cost of the project. Some property owners who lost their homes in the January fire believe the sewer could be a less expensive alternative than rehabilitating their septic systems. Regional water quality officials have made clear they expect the systems to be modernized and adequately protected from the advancing ocean, on a stretch of highway where the underground systems have little to no dry sand buffer from the waves. Estimates for the cost of new septic systems and protective seawalls have spiraled to $500,000 and considerably more, homeowners say. Alternatively, if the city formed an assessment district and charged homeowners for the system tying into Hyperion, the cost would come to $269,000 per property, DuBoux projected. 'This is the ... best, easiest solution to do,' DuBoux said during a public hearing. Silverstein warned that public works projects usually end up costing '150% to 200% of what people think they will cost' and that sticking with septic systems is still the most likely outcome. Malibu built a sewer before, but only after regional water quality officials prohibited long-term use of septic systems in a broad area centered on the Civic Center. The prohibition zone, which includes the exclusive Malibu Colony and verdant Serra Retreat neighborhood. The no-septic order followed the water officials' determination that the individual underground treatment systems were leaking waste into groundwater and on to Malibu Creek, Malibu Lagoon. The pollution sometimes rendered renowned Surfrider Beach unsafe for swimmers and surfers. The city subsequently approved a sewer to serve the center of the city. Workers completed the first phase of the Civic Center sewer in 2018. A second phase, to serve the exclusive Malibu Colony and Malibu Road, has been delayed and one branch of the system, to Serra Retreat, put off indefinitely after the discovery of Indigenous artifacts. The waste from the Civic Center sewer is treated at a small plant on Civic Center Way near the foot of Malibu Canyon Road. Read more: In the ruins of Palisades fire, confronting my elusive Malibu life A new PCH sewer theoretically could tie into the Civic Center system. But DuBoux projected it would cost $64 million more than the Hyperion connection. And City Council members noted that the Civic Center treatment plant's capacity could not accommodate waste from both the burn-zone homes and from neighborhoods already projected to connect into the system. Another option would be for a new PCH sewer line to connect with the Las Virgenes-Tapia Water Reclamation facility high in Malibu Canyon. That option would require twice as much pipeline and cost more than twice as much as the Hyperion connection, DuBoux estimated. Though council members expressed no interest in the Las Virgenes connection, environmental scientist Mark Gold said in an interview that all options deserved more study. Gold, of the Natural Resources Defense Council, noted that the Las Virgenes sewage plant produces reclaimed water that could be returned to Malibu for irrigation and fire protection. Under yet another scenario, Malibu would build a new treatment plant somewhere near the coast. Council members expressed skepticism about finding the proper location. They also worried about the nearly seven-year timeline estimated for that work. While Malibu leaders ponder the future, the state of most of the septic systems along PCH remains a mystery. Fire debris remains heaped atop many of the underground tanks, as the Army Corps of Engineers and private contractors clear away the rubble. Until the lots have been cleared, no one has completed an inspection to determine whether the septic systems remain functional. Even before the fire, few septic tanks and leach fields probably met current standards, which require substantially enhanced removal of pathogens. Another abiding challenge: Sea level rise and bigger storms that have come with climate change have eroded most of the beach that once separated the waste systems from the ocean. Malibu officials suggest they would be open to a trade-off: If they agree to build a sewer, then residents along PCH should be able to keep even substandard septic systems in place until the sewer can be completed. It will be up to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board to determine whether the short-term harm of increased pollution is worth absorbing to gain the long-term improvement a sewer would provide. The agency said in a statement that it "looks forward to working with the City of Malibu to explore viable solutions." Tonya Shelton, a spokesperson for the L.A. City Bureau of Sanitation, said Malibu's potential link to the coastal sewer and the Hyperion plant "would require more study," though "a cursory review indicates it may be feasible." Gold emphasized that the city should complete ocean testing as soon as possible to determine whether septic systems are leaking human waste into Santa Monica Bay. 'It's the city's duty to make sure that happens,' Gold said. The scientist said the crisis created by the fire also presented an opportunity. 'You can build facilities in a manner that is not growth-inducing,' Gold said. 'And you may also be able to enhance water supply and fire resilience.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Yahoo
19-03-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Malibu approves funding for new permanent skate park
The story of skateboarding can't be fully told without mentioning the city of Malibu, and now those who continue to carry on the rich tradition of the sport's pioneers will have a new playground to continue their legacies. After a yearslong community effort featuring public comment, meetings and surveys conducted half a decade ago, the Malibu City Council has finally approved funding for a new permanent skate park in the city. The Council approved a $4.1 million contract to build the skatepark, with construction set to begin next month. Some properties destroyed by recent wildfire given OK to rebuild City officials said the approval of the plan marks a major milestone in the city's goals of 'providing high-quality recreational facilities and fostering an active, healthy community.' The 12,500 square-foot facility project will cater to skaters of all skill level with stairs, rails, ledges, banks, a sloping bowl and quarter-pipes, among other permanent installations. It'll be built by C.S. Legacy Construction Inc., which is expected to break ground next month and have it ready for action this fall. Malibu Mayor Doug Stewart celebrated the long-awaited funding approval and what amounts to the the last step in bureaucratic process and the first step toward turning a concept into reality. 'This skate park is more than just a recreational facility — it will be a gathering place that will foster community, promote healthy lifestyles, and embrace Malibu's deep-rooted skate culture,' Stewart said in a news release. 'We look forward to watching generations of skaters enjoy this incredible new space.' The Malibu City Council is also exploring naming rights partners for the park, with the Council expected to hear proposals throughout the year. Classic, polarizing Easter treat arrives in dog form The city's temporary skatepark, which opened in 2020 at 24250 Pacific Coast Hwy, will remain open throughout the duration of construction. Malibu, a city known worldwide for its waves and surf culture, was among the Southern California coastal cities where skateboarding became mainstream as surfers left the waves behind to catch a ride on city streets. Street surfing later became skateboarding, and now there's a permanent home for it in Malibu. For additional information about the temporary skatepark and the plans for the new facility, click here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
