County field representative outlines Topanga drill, water project, mental-health and wildfire efforts

A representative from Los Angeles County updated the Calabasas City Council April 8 on a range of county initiatives affecting Calabasas and the Santa Monica Mountains.

Daniel Vicente, field representative for County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, said the county will host an evacuation drill for the Topanga community on Saturday, April 18 at King Gillette Ranch and invited city staff to participate. He described a $14 million water-pressure project in Malibu intended to improve firefighting response and benefit roughly 20,000 people in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The county is taking steps on several fronts: enhanced interagency oversight to combat fraud in the home health and hospice industry; steps to better align juvenile-facility services around education and youth development; a Supervisor-introduced motion to better link mental-health care with homeless services; and consideration of the possible workforce impacts of a proposed Warner Brothers merger. Vicente also noted the board extended certain price-gouging protections after recent fires but removed some protections where displaced residents were no longer sheltering in hotels.

Vicente said the county is exploring a regional wildfire protection authority to coordinate brush clearance and vegetation management across jurisdictions and is reviewing whether roadwork and other activities should pause on red-flag / PDS days to reduce evacuation risk. He said Southern California Edison and Public Works are doing work in the Topanga area and urged continued coordination.

The council thanked the representative and had no substantive follow-up motions; Vicente made himself available for questions.