🌊 The Malibu Current with Councilmember Haylynn Conrad

📅 April 20, 2026

Hi Malibu neighbors & friends,

This is one of those weeks where the headlines and the calendar do not quite match. Planning Commission meets tonight. Earth Month rolls into its biggest stretch on Wednesday. Caltrans crews are working their way up PCH through the weekend. And the biggest Malibu news of the past week did not land on a calendar at all: the City filed a major lawsuit against MRCA on trail management and fire safety. Here is what is happening and why each piece matters.

🏛️ This Week at City Hall

🔹 Regular Planning Commission Meeting tonight, Monday April 20: The Commission gavels in at 6:30 PM in Council Chambers at Malibu City Hall. Meetings are hybrid, so you can attend in person or follow along from home. The decisions made in that room shape what gets built, preserved, and reviewed across this city, and community input is genuinely welcome. If there is an item on tonight's agenda you care about, please show up or log on.

👉 View tonight's Planning Commission agenda

⚖️ A Major City Action on Trail Safety and Fire Management

🔹 The City filed a lawsuit against MRCA last Tuesday, April 14: Malibu filed a civil complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court against the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority, seeking to establish City ownership of public trails within Malibu borders and to address what the City describes as a sustained pattern of unsafe trail management. The filing cites state records showing fewer than 200 acres of fuel reduction across MRCA's roughly 75,000-acre footprint in the year leading up to the Broad and Franklin Fires, a lack of parking that forces hikers to park along PCH, and inconsistent enforcement of sunset trail closures. The City says it worked collaboratively with MRCA for more than a year before filing.

→ 🎯 My take: Fire fuel management and PCH pedestrian safety are two threads of the same rope in Malibu. Both were part of why I ran, and both run through this filing. The City warned MRCA in writing about the parking situation on PCH back in July 2024. This February, Joshua Farmer was struck and killed on PCH near Winding Way, in the vicinity of the trails at the center of this lawsuit. When warnings go unanswered for that long, and the consequences show up in real families, I think the Council has both a right and a responsibility to act.

→ ⚡ Worth underlining: The City is not seeking to close Escondido Canyon Park or block public access anywhere. That claim has been misrepresented online, and it is worth saying plainly. The goal is the opposite: safer, better-managed, fully accessible trails.

👉 Read the City's full statement on the MRCA lawsuit

🌿 Earth Month in the Home Stretch

🔹 Pepperdine Earth Day Fair, Tuesday April 21 (10 AM to 3 PM): Pepperdine hosts a campus-wide fair open to the community. If you are looking for a family-friendly, outdoor way to mark the season, put this one on the list.

🔹 Bill McKibben at the Malibu Library Speaker Series, Wednesday April 22 at 5 PM: A reminder that this one lands on Earth Day itself, at Elkins Auditorium at Pepperdine University. Admission is free and no RSVP is required. Hearing from one of the most important climate voices of the past four decades, in our own backyard, is not a weekly occurrence. Worth bringing a neighbor.

👉 Read the Bill McKibben event details

🔹 Board of Forestry Zone 0 Regulatory Advisory Committee Meeting, Thursday April 23 (1 to 7 PM): The state's Zone 0 committee is at the Calabasas Community Center this Thursday, with the latest draft regulations posted ahead of the meeting. If you have been tracking the defensible space conversation or want to weigh in on how these rules will actually land in Malibu, this is the room.

👉 Read the Board of Forestry meeting details

🔹 Sunset Hike at Charmlee Wilderness Park, Friday April 24 (7 to 8:30 PM): A guided hike through one of Malibu's quieter wilderness corners. RSVP required.

🔹 Pollinator Garden Installation at Malibu Bluffs Park, Sunday April 26 (1 to 4 PM): The closing event of Earth Month, a hands-on planting day at Bluffs Park. No experience needed, just show up and plant.

👉 See the full Earth Month lineup

🚦 Getting Around: PCH and Topanga Canyon Lane Closures This Week

🔹 Caltrans closures run April 20 through April 26: Palisades Fire repair work continues on PCH from Temescal Canyon Road to Carbon Beach Terrace. Speeds are reduced to 35 mph between Temescal and Sunset, and 25 mph through active work zones from Sunset to Carbon Beach Terrace. Expect single-lane closures on weekdays from roughly 9 AM to 3 PM across multiple segments, including south of Big Rock Drive, near the Getty Villa, and between Las Flores Canyon and Sunset. Topanga Canyon Boulevard from PCH to Grand View is closed daily from midnight to 5 AM, with pilot-car traffic control during active work and additional nighttime utility closures.

→ 📊 Quick reference: Fines double in work zones. Plan extra time. Schedules can shift for weather or emergency work.

👉 Check live PCH conditions on Caltrans QuickMap 

👉 View the full weekly closure schedule

🏗️ Preparedness: Still On Your Calendar

🔹 Mass Evacuation Plan Community Workshop, Tuesday April 28 (6 to 8 PM): A reminder that next Tuesday, the City hosts a public workshop on the draft Mass Evacuation Plan at City Hall Council Chamber. Attendees can identify their evacuation zone, hear how evacuation decisions get made in real time, and give feedback on the draft plan before it advances. No registration required, and given what this community has lived through, I want to see a packed room.

👉 Read the workshop details

📅 Dates to Know

🔹 Monday, April 20, 6:30 PM: Regular Planning Commission Meeting, Malibu City Hall

🔹 Monday, April 20 through Sunday, April 26: Caltrans PCH and Topanga Canyon lane closures

🔹 Tuesday, April 21, 10:00 AM to 3:00 PM: Pepperdine Earth Day Fair

🔹 Wednesday, April 22, 5:00 PM: Malibu Library Speaker Series with Bill McKibben, Pepperdine

🔹 Thursday, April 23, 1:00 to 7:00 PM: Board of Forestry Zone 0 Regulatory Advisory Committee Meeting, Calabasas Community Center

🔹 Friday, April 24, 7:00 to 8:30 PM: Sunset Hike at Charmlee Wilderness Park (RSVP required)

🔹 Sunday, April 26, 1:00 to 4:00 PM: Pollinator Garden Installation, Malibu Bluffs Park

🔹 Monday, April 27: Regular City Council Meeting, Malibu City Hall

🔹 Tuesday, April 28, 6:00 to 8:00 PM: Mass Evacuation Plan Community Workshop, City Hall Council Chamber

🔹 Through Friday, May 1: "Heading Home" exhibition, Malibu City Gallery at City Hall

🔹 Tuesday, May 12, 6:30 to 8:30 PM: Horse & Large Animal Emergency Evacuation Meeting, Fair Hills Farms, Topanga

🐝 One Last Thought

If there is a pattern to this week, it is that staying informed in Malibu takes real work. A Planning Commission agenda you have to look up. A 257-page legal complaint you can actually read if you want to. A lane closure schedule worth scanning before you drive up PCH. An Earth Month calendar packed with evenings worth your time. None of it sits in one place on its own. It sits where you go to find it.

That is exactly why this newsletter exists. My goal is to put what is happening in our city, honestly and in plain language, in one place each week, so you can decide where your voice and your time are best spent. Informed residents are how Malibu gets better. Not eventually, not just at the ballot box, but this week, at the workshop Tuesday, at the Planning Commission tonight, in the reply with a question I hadn't thought to ask.

So please keep showing up. Read the agendas. Push back where you need to. Show up at the workshop next Tuesday. If something here brings up a question or a concern, reply to this email or write me at hconrad@malibucity.org.

Thanks for the role you play in making this city better.

Together, we're building a community and better future that works for everyone. Thank you for staying connected!

Haylynn Conrad
Councilmember, City of Malibu
hconrad@malibucity.org