MRCA Again Blasts Malibu At Coastal Commission, Without Notice, Without Chance To Reply
Written by 991KBU on August 13, 2021
The Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority … the MRCA … uses the “public comment period” window at Coastal Commission meetings to mount a continuous P.R. campaign against Malibu.
The MRCA is a state agency, and the Open Meetings Law requires every item of business to be listed on an agenda, published in advance. Simple.
MRCA boss Joe Edmiston believes that law is for the little people … he’s said as much in the past when asked about this by a reporter. “I have the First Amendment right to say anything I want.” Yes, but under the law he has to let the common folk know in advance that he is going to say it, if he intends to say it at a public meeting. That’s our right, firmly established in the Open Meetings Act, and California Constitution..
As a result … once a month … Malibu residents get officially bad mouthed behind their backs. And this month .. it happened again.
The venue is the “public comment period” … the open mic event held at California Coastal Commission meetings. Every month … officials from the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Agency show up during the “Public Comment Period” to take advantage of a stage before the Coastal Commission … a time reserved for the general public.
Often … the MRCA bureaucrats squeeze real members of the general public … as there is a strict 30 minute limit. Invariably … the MRCA bureaucrats offer negative comments about Malibu people … Malibu land use policies … or the City of Malibu. Some months … the speaker is MRCA executive director Joe Edmiston … wearing his Smokey The Bear ranger uniform and advocating his particular point of view.
And every month … that point of view is presenting Malibu residents as uncaring … elitist people who want to lock the public out of 21 miles of beaches.
This month … the MRCA employee who was sent out to speak was Jamie Cabral … the MRCA’s social media master. She talked about the new beach access between La Costa and Escondido beaches …. a controversial item opposed by Malibu officials because of the traffic danger it presents. Needless to say … that wasn’t mentioned by the MRCA employee.
NEWSCART 73693 JAMIE CABRAL
“Good morning, my name is Jamie Cabral, from the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority … I serve as the social media manager and I actually have a presentation a slide that I would like to share.
“I would like to show you beach days at Carbon La Costa. I wanted you to be able to focus on some of the photos that we have been aboe to see on the social media and as we have been driving by ourselves.
[CLICK]
“Wow … oh this is tik-tok or Instagram worthy,. They get out there I mean and we got kids playing in the sand … we got beautiful sand castles.”
In past months … the MRCA boss … Edmiston … has stood before the Coastal Commission and told outright lies about Malibu. We’ve played tape of that.
Like the time he told the Coastal Commission that the city of Malibu was blocking a campground he wants to build in Puerco Canyon … by requiring a 12 million dollar access road. It was – in point of fact – the LA County Fire Department that demanded the fire access road … and Edmiston knew it.
But there was no one there to argue against him.
Edmiston has also bad mouthed Sycamore Park residents for supposedly freezing out access to the Santa Monica Mountains in their private neighborhood. If those residents had been notified of the government attack … they would have testified that they are trying to protect their private land rights.
But it wasn’t on the agenda.
The state open meetings law requires official state business to be on the agenda … published in advance … so that the public may be given notice that they are about to be bad mouthed.
Edmiston never does that.
He says his employees have the right to say whatever they want during the “Public Comment Period.”. But the agenda rule is designed so that the general public can be notified … to be made ready to defend themselves from attacks like that from a government agency.
It would be laughable if these were simple episodes of Joe Edmiston blowing hot air. But the commission has in the past ordered its staff to investigate or take action on Edmiston’s one sided charges.
And if Malibu wants the Coastal Commission to consider its side of the story on major Malibu land issues … someone has to be there to speak.
And for that to happen … there has to be notice on the agenda. We’ve asked the Coastal Commission and the self-styled Chief Ranger for their comment, late on a Friday. We’ll let you know if they respond.
