LATEST PRESS RELEASES
Malibu, CA – On October 14, 2024, the city of Malibu posted on its website and disseminated to the subscribers to its General Community Updates a media release (“Court Finds in Favor of the City of Malibu in Lawsuit by Malibu Township Council”) offering an incomplete history of a lawsuit by MTC against a former city council for violations of the Brown Act, California’s marquee Open Meeting Law. The Brown Act calls for transparency and public accountability in local government.
Not mentioned in the city’s media release is the fact that despite losing a few battles in court, MTC won the war over what the litigation was primarily about: A highly controversial, secretly negotiated deal with the state of California that would have resulted in a net loss for the city of 450 acres of city-owned public parkland. This deal proposed to swap city owned Charmlee Wilderness Area for 83 acres of undeveloped, state-owned land across from Pepperdine University, known as the Malibu Bluffs Open Space. Located on over 582 acres “within the best of the Santa Monica Mountains Coastal Environment, ”Charmlee offers miles of hiking trails with unparalleled scenic vistas from Point Dume to Anacapa and Santa Cruz Islands, picnic areas, and native plants.
In 2019, after the two city council members who had negotiated the deal (without vote from the city council at any prior open meeting) were termed out, at the end of an interim period during which the city had leased Charmlee to the state, a new city council, at the urging of MTC and others, put an end to the parkland swap.
The now dead deal would have led to the development of city facilities on the Malibu Bluffs, including construction of an access road and new intersection on a busy stretch of PCH, between Malibu Canyon Road and John Tyler Drive (Pepperdine University’s west campus entrance), while creating a new wildland fire hazard at Charmlee, in the path of incoming Santa Ana wind-driven infernos.
As for phase two of MTC’s lawsuit, in 2019, the city lost summary adjudication on MTC’s claim that the city council unlawfully failed to publicly announce closed session agenda items in council chambers before going into closed session. MTC’s interim victory was the catalyst for an important change, expressly acknowledged by the court of appeal: Ever since the 2019 ruling, the council now opens its meetings in council chambers, in open session, and publicly announces closed session items before recessing into closed session. This affords the public a fair opportunity to comment on closed session items — an opportunity the citizens of Malibu had been denied for many years before.
MTC is proud of its work in enforcing California’s Open Meeting Law and protecting our precious natural environment. MTC will continue to do so whenever transparency and openness take a back seat to secrecy and backroom development deals.
SUNDAY FEB. 18, 2024
Malibu Township Council Honors Lucile Keller
For Over 50 Years of Exceptional Community Service
“Tenacity and a relentless sense of purpose are crucial if residents want to retain Malibu’s rural lifestyle,” Lucile Keller said after being honored for a half-century of civic service.
At a Malibu Township Council (MTC) Valentine’s Day luncheon at Tramonto Restaurant, Keller received MTC’s top honor, a 12-inch crystal tower with a personal inscription. “From working to safeguard the environment, to establishing the City of Malibu, and to prevent incompatible development, Lucile has made a remarkable diLerence in Malibu’s character,” MTC President Jo Drummond said during the presentation. “Along with her late husband, Walt, Lucile was crucial in coordinating local efforts for Malibu to become
a city and in establishing and fighting for sound land-use policies that retain open space. She is a guiding light for us all.”Keller became an MTC member in the mid-1960s and joined the Board of Directors in 1972.
Over the years, her role changed from activist to archivist, as she not only became the MTC secretary, but also acquired a large library of organizational forms and records that will be useful to future historians. Keller was among leaders of Malibu’s fourth fight for cityhood. She joined the 1980’s effort that ended successfully when the state’s Local
Area Formation Commission approved its Articles of Incorporation on March 28, 1991.
“I spent hundreds of hours a month at my kitchen table making difficult calls to people and asking them to donate money or time to help Malibu become a city, or asking them to do things for us,” she recalled. “But there were fun times, too. We printed T-shirts that we wore to L.A. County Board of Supervisors’ meetings. On the front they said, ‘What is the difference between America and Malibu?” The answer was on the back: “In America, you get to vote.”
One of Keller’s most memorable challenges was working to keep the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company from building a hotel on El Matador Beach, she said. The company owned the entire stretch of dry beach and bluL at El Matador. Opposing such a formidable company was a challenge in terms of marshalling local help from resident experts as well as raising enough money to pay attorneys. But, she said, she and a group of opponents “showed up at every hearing, and every meeting.” She said she learned that tenaciousness and persistence were important because it was impossible to tell where unexpected support might develop. The turning point came when Metropolitan Life appeared at a meeting of the Regional Water Quality Control Board where Malibu’s surfers turned out in large numbers. “It turned out that the chair of the RWQ Control Board had been a surfer in previous years,” she said. “He was worried that the El Matador surfers would hit their heads on a beach-side concrete building that would contain a sizeable sewage treatment plant required for the hotel.” Once he opposed the plan, the hotel could not be built, and the land was given to the County.
During the MTC luncheon, board member Dru-Ann Jacobsen told stories of her own childhood in which her mother would send her “over to Lucile’s house,” where she said Keller gave her lessons by example. “She taught me how to fight for what you believe in,” said Jacobsen. “She was very inspirational.”
Malibu Township Council, Inc. is a nonpartisan, nonprofit California corporation
established in 1947. Its purpose is to promote, stimulate, and further community spirit, and to sponsor any project that may benefit Malibu, the Malibu areas of LA County or both. MTC’s goal is to foster and promote the cultural development of Malibu and, in general, to build and uphold its character as a residential area.
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EDITOR’S NOTE: While the Committee working to establish a City of Malibu was originally part of Malibu Township Council, the responsibilities of its members grew tremendously. So, it was decided that the MTC Committee would break away from MTC and establish a separate organization called the Malibu Committee for Incorporation.
