The Malibu City Council voted on January 23, 2023 to begin holding City Council meetings in a hybrid in-person and remote format starting March 27 as Los Angeles County continues the trend of low COVID-19 conditions. The Council directed the City’s Commissions, Committees and Boards to continue meeting virtually.
“It has been nearly three years now since the COVID-19 pandemic forced us all to adapt to living in semi-isolation and using telecommunications technology to interact with one another,” said Mayor Bruce Silverstein. “While it remains important to the residents to permit their virtual participation in City Council meetings, the time has come for the City Councilmembers to get back to meeting in-person to conduct the people’s business in a more personal manner.”
The City has not held hybrid meetings previously, and during the January 23 meeting, the City Council and staff discussed how hybrid meetings would affect logistics, staffing, technology resources, the City budget, and how to best enable the public to participate. The City has held all public meetings remote-only since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, except for one City Council meeting and one Planning Commission meeting that were held in-person during a sharp decline in pandemic conditions.
Information on participating in hybrid City Council meetings will be included on the meeting agendas and posted on the City’s website. Information about participating in virtual Commission, Committee and Board meetings is available at http://www.malibucity.org/virtualmeeting.
Based on case rates, test positivity rates and hospitalizations countywide, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (LADPH) places LA County in the Low Community Risk Level as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For more information, visithttp://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/post-surge-dashboard.htm.
Under the hybrid model, Council meetings will take place at Malibu City Hall, located at 23825 Stuart Ranch Road, and will simultaneously be held remotely over Zoom using the Zoom Webinar tool. Members of the public can make public comment during the meetings either in person or in the remote meeting.
All public meeting agendas are posted online at www.MalibuCity.org/AgendaCenter. To sign up to receive notifications by text message or email whenever an agenda is posted, amended or cancelled for a City Council, Commission, or Board meeting, visit www.MalibuCity.org/News, scroll down to Agenda Center, and select the desired meeting body.
Written comments may be sent to the City Council at CityCouncil@MalibuCity.org.
The City will continue to broadcast City Council meetings live on Malibu City TV Channel 3, and live and on-demand on the website at www.MalibuCity.org/TV and the City's YouTube channel at www.YouTube.com/user/CityofMalibu/videos.
In compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), any member of the public who needs special assistance to participate in an in-person meeting at Malibu City Hall may contact Environmental Sustainability Director/Building Official Yolanda Bundy at 310-456-2489, ext. 229. Notification 48 hours prior to a meeting will enable the City to make reasonable arrangements to ensure ADA accessibility to the meeting.
Requests to show an audio or video presentation during a Council meeting should be directed to Media Analyst Alex Montano at 310-456-2489, ext. 227 or amontano@malibucity.org by 12 p.m. the day of the meeting.
Submitted by Matt Myerhoff, Media Information Officer
