Council candidates clash over Malibu Fire Brigade funding Play

Malibu's election for City Council is now around 50 days away — that's seven weeks. The public debates are beginning to warm up, and the arguments spilled over into the City Council chambers Monday night.

Two challengers are trying to unseat two incumbents who are running for re-election. The incumbents are Marianne Riggins and Doug Stewart. The challengers are Danny Smith and Amir Sam Dibaei.

Smith appeared at the public comment mic Monday night to lob some hand grenades at Doug Stewart. Smith accused Stewart of diverting money that was intended for the Malibu Fire Brigades to a competing group, the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation — LAEPF, the same agency that has taken the Malibu money and sued most of the Malibu volunteers in the Fire Brigade.

Danny Smith said Doug Stewart hasn't done anything to protect the Malibu money or the Malibu Fire Brigade members. Reading from a written statement, Smith said:

"When the misallocation and waste of brigade funding was recently brought to council's attention, you, Doug, in a rather defensive statement, perhaps realizing that you have egg on your face, said that the city properly allocated funding to the 501(c)(3) organization it had on file.

"Never mind the fact that in this very room you witnessed a procession, a substantial and recognizable portion of the Malibu Brigade, telling you those funds were going to be misspent and asking you for help.

"But what is worse, you have also told the community that future funds will continue to be allocated to the LAEPF until a settlement or other resolution is obtained. Are you out of your mind?"

Councilman Doug Stewart, the incumbent, returned fire:

"Campaign season, I guess, has started.

"And Winston Churchill has a great line. He says you're welcome to your own opinion, but you're not welcome to your own set of facts.

"So let's get the facts straight about the brigade.

"The $100,000 city donation was approved in July of 2025 at the request of the very people who run the Malibu Brigade, and their instructions were to send the money to the Los Angeles Emergency Preparedness Foundation.

"The money went out, I believe it was in January, and there have been no other funds approved to be sent out by the city to the LA Emergency Preparedness Foundation. The lawsuit was filed in March of this year, not last year — this year."

In addition to those two, Marianne Riggins is running for re-election, and there is a fourth candidate: Amir Sam Dabai. He reportedly lives on Morning View Drive, but there are no internet records, email addresses or any other way to contact him online.

We've asked the city clerk to please have him contact us so we can find out more about him. He's refused to allow his contact information to be released by the city clerk.