The Malibu Times • February 24, 2022

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The Malibu Times The Malibu Times NEWS PA PER • MAGAZ I NE • O NL I NE

NEW S PAPER • MAGAZINE •ONLINE Malibu’s Award-Winning Community Paper Since 1946

VOL. LXXV • NO. XLVI

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2022

malibutimes.com • $.50 • WEEKLY

Eighty-one percent of recommendations in Woolsey Fire report now in place Citygate Associates worked with eight county departments for the past two years to make improvements By JIMY TALLAL Special to The Malibu Times

From left to right: Malibu Chamber of Commerce Chair Chris Wizner, International Protective Service CEO Aaron Jones, Interim City Manager Steve McClary, Councilmember Karen Farrer, Malibu Mayor Paul Grisanti, Malibu Chamber of Commerce CEO Barbara Bruderlin and Master of Ceremonies Anthony McDemas of The Malibu Times. Photo by Samantha Bravo/TMT

Malibu State of the City highlights 2021 events By SAMANTHA BRAVO Of The Malibu Times

Residents, businesses and local members of the community tuned in through Zoom to receive an update from city officials during the 2022 Malibu State of the City Address. After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, the Malibu Chamber of Commerce live-

streamed the event free for the public. Malibu’s State Senator Henry Stern provided an update on the city and highlighted the organizations that make the city a safe and sustainable place. “The people who keep trying to leave this community to a place of some kind of peace and some kind of unity, I thought Woolsey and going through that crisis, would bring

us all together, and sometimes crises do that, and sometimes they tear us further apart,” Stern said. “But I sit here as somebody who’s trying to work for the whole of the community of Malibu. There’s still a spirit of unity in this town and that we still have a lot that we should be agreeing on together.” Stern said they’re working to restore wildfire insurance for Woolsey Fire victims and

implementing more services for homeless individuals. “All the middle class in our town, people who taught me in school, people who make our community go, people think Malibu is just for the rich and famous, but we know better,” Stern said. “We know there’s a lot of hard-working people.” CONTINUED ON PAGE A8

Ruth F. Quinto brings knowledge, experience, and guidance to Malibu By SAMANTHA BRAVO Of The Malibu Times

Born and raised in Fresno, California, Ruth F. Quinto graduated from Fresno State University with a degree in accounting and began working for a public firm for the first part of her career. “That’s been a really important part of my career choice — to work for the government,” Quinto said. “I then went to Fresno Unified School District, and I was the CFO and the deputy superintendent there for 15 years.” Quinto is not a stranger to Malibu — she has served as the city’s treasurer for the past year and a half. Quinto met and married her husband and raised her kids in Redlands, and has served as a city controller for both Fresno and Moreno Valley.

CONTINUED ON PAGE A6

The new solar farm expansion on Las Virgenes Road in Calabasas will provide enough electricity to power all operational needs for the Tapia Water Reclamation Facility. Contributed photo

RUTH QUINTO

“Our kids were there and very much By JIMY TALLAL Special to The Malibu Times enjoyed our Southern California life at the time, but I really felt the need and the drawback to Fresno to raise my kids to go Some of Malibu’s residents, plus many to school, to be with my parents and my living just outside of Malibu in the uninCONTINUED ON PAGE A6 corporated Santa Monica Mountains, get

During the City Council meeting on Feb. 14, Caltrans representative Hammer Sui, presented the Clean California PCH Solstice Canyon Creek Public Art and community engagement proposal. “We want to take this opportunity to engage the City of Malibu, community members and also introduce the Clean California Program,” Sui said. “We want to reach out and engage with local artists

for these projects.” Sui said the Solstice Canyon Creek art proposal is under the beautification program. The proposed public art location would be underneath the Solstice Creek pathway of PCH. District 7 Caltrans Architect Keith Sellars presented the Clean California project and said the mural would beautify the underpass. “We’d like to have something that’s environmentally sensitive, maybe something

INSIDE this week

Las Virgenes Water District operates huge solar farm just off Las Virgenes Road their water from the Las Virgenes Municipal Water District (LVMWD). Just over a year ago, LVMWD and the Triunfo Water District Joint Powers Authority announced that their newly expanded 5-megawatt solar CONTINUED ON PAGE A8

Caltrans plans to bring beautification project to Malibu STAFF REPORT

Many lessons were learned from the November 2018 Woolsey Fire — the largest wildfire in LA County history. The county Board of Supervisors hired Citygate Associates shortly after the fire to work with eight county departments to see what policies and procedures were needed in order to be better prepared for the next big wildfire. In 2019, in its “Woolsey Fire After Action Review (AAR) Report,” Citygate came back with a list of 88 recommendations for changes within eight departments, and worked with them for two years to get the changes made. At the Board of Supervisors (BOS) meeting on February 8, it was noted that 81 percent of Citygate’s recommendations had been implemented. The Board then voted to let Citygate conclude its oversight of the report and assigned the remaining 19 percent of tasks to its own Office of Emergency Management. Citygate wrote in its final report that “the public interest is being served by these Woolsey-Fire-driven reforms,” which represent “a great step toward ensuring institutional change.” Many of the changes have already been used in other local wildfires. The changes made by each county department are as follows: Regional Planning Department RPD is working on long-range recommendations to lessen the impact of future wildfires by revising

depicting the fish passage that the project is being constructed for and also the marine life,” Sellars said. “In order to meet the funding dates of Clean California, the artwork would be painted on panels and displayed at an alternate location and once the underpass is completed in 2026, then the artwork would be permanently attached to the wall of the new underpass.” Sui said this proposed project is just a location where they would like to display the art.

“We would like to connect through the city’s art commission and reach out to the local artist and hopefully have the cultural aspect, the connection and the history of the city be incorporated into and also the education component of fish, clean water and wildlife would be incorporated into the art,” Sui said. We wanted to throw this opportunity to engage the art community in Malibu and the method that we can deliver the project.” CONTINUED ON PAGE A8

Arlene and Dick Van Dyke release Valentine’s video. PAGE B1

Opinion . . . . . . . . . A2

News Briefs . . . . . . . A3 Real Estate . . . . . . . . A8 Malibu Life . . . . . . . B1 Calendar . . . . . . . . . B3 Legal Notices . . . . . . B4 Business Svs. & Dir. . . B7

Classifieds . . . . . . . . B7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . B10


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