MRCA Boss Blames PCH Safety Issue On Drunk Malibu Drivers, Agency Wants To Derail Caltrans Safety Initiatives

A powerful regional parks agency is attacking Caltrans and Malibu … for drawing up plans to make PCH safer.

MRCA .. the Mountain Resource and Conservation Authority .. is most unhappy that Caltrans is talking about banning parking at the dangerous highway locations that the MRCA has created. 

In fact … MRCA director Joe Edmiston told his board of directors last week that the biggest safety problem on PCH is drunk Malibu residents who drive drunk on the highway. 

The MRCA and its sister organization… the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy … have created beach access and trail access sites up and down Malibu.

But they haven’t installed parking lots … creating very unsafe parallel parking and pedestrian scramble issues.  

The death of four Pepperdine students last year caused a political uproar… a demand for a safer PCH.

And now Caltrans says state law requires it to install bike lanes along PCH … 

At some beach access points … or trailheads … Caltrans says they will have to remove parallel parking from one side of the highway or the other to squeeze in pedestrian safety paths and bike lanes. 

That infuriates members of the board of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy … an interlocking agency with the MRCA. 

Last week … they were given a biased and inaccurate description of the Caltrans safety initiative by MRCA staffer Elena Egger.

Egger is a lawyer in charge of the MRCA beach access program.

77900 EGGER ELIMINATE 

“Caltrans proposes to eliminate a whopping 17.5 miles – that’s 17-1/2 miles of that 21 miles of existing public parking on PCH in some form. 

“This would have dramatic implications for the 15 million coastal visitors per year to Malibu exclusively on the availability of existing public market on PCH.”

That was a  prepared script she was reading … and what she said was not true. 

A huge majority of those 15 million beach visitors park at Zuma or in parking lots near the Malibu Pier. 

Not on PCH … as claimed by Egger. 

The vast majority of beach parking is not endangered by safety plans … not at all.

The MRCA officials say they were not consulted by Caltrans ….

In fact … they were given every opportunity..

The MRCA has been a no-show at all of the public meetings … over the past year … public meetings that were heavily covered in advance on LA Television … in LA newspapers … in press releases and public notices published by Caltrans.

Egger also blasted Caltrans for moving quickly to improve safety on the highway after the deaths of the four Pepperdine students in October, 2023 …

77901 EGGER DEADLINE

“Caltrans states that it must publish the draft before the end of 2024 despite acknowledging that it does not have all the necessary facts to inform the study. We do not agree to this arbitrary timeline.”

MRCA director Joe Edmsiton also misled the board … telling untruths.

Like here .. where he claimed beach users interests were frozen out of the Caltrans safety planning. 

77902 EDMISTON ONLYCITY

“The inland areas are using the Malibu beaches, OK? So these are the folks who are going to be affected and those folks do not have any say – any say – in the Caltrans study. 

“There are no elected officials who have been involved in this by Caltrans, it’s only the city of Malibu.”

That is a falsehood.  

Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and her staff have been directly involved in the Caltrans safety study.

She has 2 million constituents… most of them from inland areas as far inland as Koreatown. 

The local state senator represents constituents along the 101 freeway and as far east as Hollywood. He is involved in the plan. 

The local state assembly member has constituents mostly from Ventura County from Thousand Oaks all the way to Simi Valley. 

He has been in the middle of the PCH Safety Study planning.

What apparently has really gotten under the MRCA’s skin is the Caltrans tentative plan to eliminate pedestrian hazards in the Paradise Cove and Escondido Canyon trailheads area … by banning parking on one side of the highway.

MRCA Project Director Mario Sandoval:

77903 SANDOVAL ESCONDIDO 

“Here at Escondido Canyon in Escondido Beach, Caltrans states that it will maintain PCH parking for beach and trail access and only remove PCH parking from the side where there is a little need for it. 

“What Caltrans fails to recognize that the PCH parking, currently serving Escondido Canyon and Escondido Beach, is fully maximized and therefore a great value to the public.

“Therefore parking should not be limited on either side of the stretch of PCH.”

But neither Sandoval – nor anyone else at the MRCA affair – had any suggestions to reduce the number of people scrambling across Pacific Coast Highway … where traffic moves at an average speed of 60 mph.

Egger demanded that Caltrans replace any eliminated parking spaces with new off-highway parking spaces within a quarter mile of the no parking signs.

And she said Caltrans failed to examine whether it could reclaim state property along PCH from landowners who have built structures like garages or mailboxes on it. 

The MRCA attorney … Elena Eger …  said her research shows that only one of the 62 people killed on Pacific Coast Highway was a Malibu resident… and she inferred that Malibu residents really didn’t care about the 61 other people killed on the highway since 2010 … they only cared about reducing beach visitors by eliminating parking near their beach houses.

The MRCA executive director … Joe Edmiston … poured gas on the anti-Malibu fire. 

77905 EDMISTON BOOZE 

“Frankly, I have my own proposal and that is that CHP at each end of Malibu has a breathalyzer test for those people driving extraordinary fast cars … Lamborghinis or whatever it is … BMWs. 

“And a breathalyzer for those on PCH would be the best thing you could do to prevent deaths on PCH. 

“Let’s just face it.  

“A lot of folks in Malibu should go … not necessarily to their elected officials, but they ought to look at their constituents in the eye and say ‘OK folks late at night  … you know … stay off the booze or stay off the pills.”

Brian Dennert, a board member from the Rancho Simi Recreation and Parks District … said he was so mad at Malibu … fellow board members might have to hold him back physically. 

77906 DENNERT MRCA

“Malibu is the home beach for the people of Simi Valley .. it’s our closest beach. “And the people of Simi Valley own these beaches … as coastal access.

“ And this is going to open this up to bunch of boondoggles and  shenanigans.

“I’m going to guess all these private houses are going to be involved in this process, and say ‘oh this parking space right here, this one needs to go.

“And it happens to be in front of their private house. All of those parking spots on front of their houses. 

 “And they’re going to turn this into their private beach… but they’re going to ask everybody else to pay for it.”

The Simi Valley parks district guy went on … to further dig in against Malibu.

“They did’t invite me to their city council meeting.  And they didn’t come here to get our feedback.  But they are planning to cut us off.

“I am enraged but I expected it. 

“This is what happens when we try to go visit our beaches. 

“We’re good enough to put out the fires in their community … to pick up the trash.  It comes to our landfill in Simi Valley … I think.  

“And deliver their food … but not our beaches … not their beaches they belong to all of us. “

The board member representing Ventura County blasted the Caltrans proposal to install roundabouts in western Malibu .. to slow down traffic and prevent beach residents from getting creamed by 65 mile per hour traffic.

At the same time … the Ventura County guy said his agency is asking Caltrans to install a roundabout at Neptune’s Net … to do the same thing. 

The Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy could take no action at its Monday night.  The MRCA bosses said they would work the phones … and try to get the Caltrans Safety proposal slowed down or undone.

This meeting happened last week … our news item is delayed due to the Franklin Fire eating up all our coverage time.