Coastal agency head out, despite support
MORRO BAY, San Luis Obispo County — The California Coastal Commission fired its executive director Wednesday, defying more than 1,000 people who packed a meeting to support a man they called one of the state’s most important guardians of public access to the coastline.
The commission’s 7- 5 vote ended a contentious debate over Charles Lester’s tenure, which his opponents said was marked by slow, inefficient work by the agency’s staff and the stonewalling of commissioners, and his supporters insisted was forward- thinking and focused on keeping destructive devel-
opment away from the coast.
Environmental groups accused development- oriented commissioners appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown of pushing Lester’s ouster to appease builders and rich movie stars who wanted to construct Malibu mansions. More than 250 of Lester’s supporters spoke at Wednesday’s meeting at the Morro Bay Community Center, which began at 10 a. m. and stretched well into the night.
Lester “has always been a strong ally and friend to local government,” said Mark Lovelace, a supervisor in Humboldt County. He said he and his colleagues “cannot fathom what is going through the minds of the commissioners who seek his dismissal. He is our friend.”
Lost trust
Lester, executive director since 2011, made a passionate plea before the commissioners for his job. He said he has taken seriously his duty to be independent and to “fight for the people’s right to get to and use our shoreline.”
He said he recognized that he had apparently lost the trust of some commission members, but said that “in my experience, distrust is often rooted in an incomplete or often incorrect story.”
Later, Lester again addressed the commission, saying, “I’ve been honored and privileged to serve as the executive director. ... We need to get through and beyond this. I put my day tomorrow in your hands.”
The crowd rose up after that and gave him a standing ovation.
Not a single speaker spoke in favor of Lester’s firing. The commission also received 28,000 letters about the possible sacking, including expressions of support for him from 35 former commissioners and 18 state legislators.
“It should be obvious,” said one speaker about the parade of criticism over Lester’s proposed dismissal, “but you’re getting killed today.”
Commissioners angry
Commissioners angrily rejected suggestions that their differences with Lester showed that they were in league with development interests. As they debated his future, they made it clear that they expected improvement in communications, outreach to minority communities — one criticism of Lester’s tenure was that the agency lacks diversity — and a better working relationship with the agency’s 163- person staff.
Addressing reporters covering the meeting, commission member Mark Vargas said, “Some of you are convinced we are behind a sinister plot to ( undo) everything we are sworn to protect. The myth of the coup by pro- development forces — if I were a member of the public and I received messages with this narrative, I would be scared, too. There is absolutely no truth to this narrative.”
Commission member Dayna Bochco added, “It’s an internal problem. It was never about developers. It was never about lobbyists or anything like that.”
The issue, she said, is that “a lot of us ... didn't feel we were getting information, being included in decisions and how they came to conclusions. We were finding inconsistencies up and down the state. We were having trouble finding out how policies were set.”
As for a developer conspiracy, Bochco said, “That was all a bunch of lies.”
The fight may be over, but the debate over the commission’s role is unlikely to go away. Controversy often surrounds the Coastal Commission, which was formed to prevent damage, regulate development and protect public access to the coast. The extra regulations and scrutiny on everything from home additions to luxury hotel developments have infuriated more than a few property owners.
Lester’s critics said that red tape was the main impetus for the effort to replace him. They said they weren’t in favor of runaway development, but rather of a streamlined, more transparent approval process.
Lester served on the commission staff for 22 years before he got the top job. He was the handpicked successor of the feisty Peter Douglas, who helped write the California Coastal Act and headed the Coastal Commission from its beginning in 1976 until a few months before his death in 2012. There were at least two efforts to get Douglas fired, one led by former Gov. Pete Wilson.
‘ Bureaucratic thugs’
“This is not the first political skirmish the commission has been involved with, and it won’t be the last,” said Frank Egger, the former mayor of Fairfax, who served on the commission in 1972 before it was made a permanent body.
He recalled how the regulatory body provoked Brown’s wrath in the late 1970s when it denied a construction permit in Malibu for his girlfriend at the time, singer Linda Ronstadt. Brown famously called the commission staff “coastal bureaucratic thugs.”
Egger and other coastal advocates made a T- shirt with Brown’s quote printed on it. “I still have it,” he said, and held it up Wednesday for the audience to see.
More recently, the Coastal Commission’s staff earned the ire of SeaWorld in San Diego when it approved the theme park’s application to triple the size of its orca enclosure, but with conditions that it stop selling, trading, breeding or artificially inseminating the sea mammals.
SeaWorld, which cares for 30 killer whales, vowed to take legal action against what it termed the Coastal Commission’s “overreaching” conditions.
To his supporters, the effort to remove Lester was an indication that there is a major political rift over development and access along the 1,100 miles of coastline from San Diego to the Oregon border. Debates over celebrity mansions in Malibu and other sprawling Southern California coastal developments are what many Lester backers believe led to the controversy.
Three of the four commissioners who led the effort to fire Lester were appointed by Brown. The governor declined to weigh in on the issue, but Brown appointees were apparently upset with commission staffers who opposed a plan by the state Department of Parks and Recreation to charge $ 7 or more to park at 15 state beaches on the Sonoma County coast, where access has historically been free.
Battle over Martins Beach
The fate of Lester was also important to many Bay Area coastal advocates because he is a key figure in the battle to allow public access to Martins Beach, south of Half Moon Bay. Its billionaire owner, Vinod Khosla, says the public has no right to such access, but a judge ruled that Khosla must obtain a permit from the Coastal Commission if he wants to block the public.
The agency could also have a major influence on housing in the flood zone at Stinson Beach in Marin County, because property owners would have to get permits from the commission for any construction.