Sheriff Announces Plans for Emergency Operations Center in Old Malibu Station

• Sale of Location Was Being Considered

BY ANNE SOBLE

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca has made public his plans to announce a proposal to build a permanent, state-of-the-art emergency operations center and training campus in the old Malibu Sheriff’s Station at this week’s Malibu Town Hall.
Baca indicates that the proposed EOC “will give responders an enhanced coordination center for emergency response and will improve their ability to serve the community.”
The training campus proposed for the station shuttered in 1991 will be for all public response agencies, according to Baca. The site has a radio relay tower, helipad and fuel pumps in place.
The Malibu location is deemed especially suitable because “it will give students the ability to see the area they will be asked to respond to in an emergency.”
Lack of familiarity with Malibu by responders from other areas is often cited as a problem during local emergencies.
The sheriff adds the EOC “will provide CERT training, animal evacuation training, preparedness and mitigation training, and a place to develop, review and test community disaster plans.”
Baca had indicated his strong interest in utilizing the station site back in February, when he told the Malibu Surfside News that making other plans for the facility would be a “mistake.”
County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky had been negotiating with Santa Monica College to sell part of the location for a satellite campus and scoffed at Baca’s then interest in a reopened substation.
Plans for a full-fledged EOC in the catastrophe-prone Malibu area might prove tougher to oppose.
In earlier comments, Baca said, “Residents of Malibu have told me they want an emergency [facility in the community and] this is about public safety first.”
The town hall on emergency preparedness will take place Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Malibu Performing Arts Center.