City Manager Names Longtime Deputy Planner As Department Head

Malibu has a new planning director.

Or at least .. an acting  planning director.

Richard Mollica has been appointed but her city manager … Reva Feldman.

He will replace Bonnie Blue … who is leaving California for family reasons.

Mollica has been at the City Hall for more than a a decade … and was Blue’s deputy planner.

Her had been making about 127 thousand dollars per year … but Blue’s salary was 159 thousand dollars per year. 

Those figures are a couple of years old. 

Mollica has been involved in some of the biggest land use controversies over the past decade.

And he has an institutional memory …  that is important in a city government where precedent is important and reinventing the wheel generally a waste of time.

But Mollica is the interim planning director.

No explanation why . not the permanent planning director … issued by the city manager yet.

Reva Feldman was faced with an unusual set of developments.

There is an election coming up now … ballots are already out to the electorate.

A new three members will be seated soon.

And Feldman’s annual job review is coming up next week.

Malibu residents have generally given good marks to the city manager for the planning staff’s rebuilding Malibu efforts.

But like in all small cities … there are those who disagree.

A minority faction on the city planning commission has been saying that the planning department interprets city zoning rules in favor of builders over the interests of residents who want to preserve Malibu’s rural setting.