Malibu taxpayers set to help fund Santa Monica park rebuild Play

Malibu taxpayers are about to subsidize a major park project in the center of Santa Monica.

The City of Santa Monica is about to expand and rebuild its central park, Memorial Park, at 15th Street and Olympic Boulevard.

It's a big project. It would tear out the former Fisher Lumber yard and expand the park's baseball and softball fields, skate park and tennis-pickleball courts. Its budget for the initial two phases is $40 million.

Santa Monica College, which is partly funded by property taxes from Malibu, is contributing around $18 million toward the Santa Monica park. This would be similar to the college's contribution to Malibu's Legacy Park two decades ago.

Back then, the Santa Monica College District contributed $5 million toward the construction of Legacy Park. Without that money, Legacy Park would not have been possible — and it very likely would have been a shopping center. But more than 80 percent of that money came from Santa Monica taxpayers.

Now, Malibu taxpayers are likely going to have to subsidize Santa Monica's Memorial Park.