Calabasas General Plan committee introduced

The Calabasas City Council has made its final appointments to the General Plan advisory committee, a 20-person team that will assist in next year’s update of the city’s General Plan and development code.

“We’ll start in January, I believe,” Mayor Dennis Washburn said. “It’ll be a very aggressive schedule to get that job done. It’s a bigtime job. We’re talking housing, infrastructure, education, quality of life, public safety, recreation and open space—it just goes on and on and on.”

Council appointees include Marvin Lopata and Dana Ashton, appointed by Washburn; Candice Weber and Robert Pope, appointed by Councilmember Barry Groveman; and Sanford Teitelman and Rebecca Reyes, appointed by Councilmember Mary Sue Maurer.

Alan Horowitz and Michael Friedman were appointed by Mayor Pro Tem James Bozajian; Deborah Sterm and Michael Kaplan by Councilmember Jonathon Wolfson; and Peter Kraut and Robert Odello, atlarge members.

Representatives from city commissions include Gary Klein and David Brown, planning; Bob Lia, communications and technology; Mark Shear, parks, recreation and education; Britt Aaronson, library; Peter Valk, traffic and transportation; Andrew CohenCutler, environmental; and Amber Gendein, public safety.

“This is going to be at least an 18-month process and will be a lot of work for a lot of people,” Washburn said. “It actually is a very invigorating process, very stimulating and fun to me and characters like me, I guess.”

After the announcement of the final members, Maurer expressed her frustration regarding the number of women on the advisory committee.

“I feel compelled to say, I’m disappointed that out of the 12 appointments coming from all of us, only three of them are women,” Maurer said. “And I hope that if openings arise that we consider some of the women applicants.”

“Well, we didn’t go through what our considerations were,” Bozajian said. “One of mine was geographic. We had nobody from the Lost Hills quadrant of the city, which is a huge portion of the city unrepresented. There’s a lot of different balancing issues.”

Washburn said he hoped other residents will show interest in the panel in the future.

“I would encourage anyone who didn’t get appointed by any of us but wants to be a part, that they should actually feel welcome,” Washburn said. “There are always changes to these bodies. . . and everybody who applied was worthy of our consideration.”