Dana’s Position on Malibu Coastal Plan

An article (Editorial Pages, July 23) by state Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara) accused Los Angeles County of dragging its feet in coming forward with a strong local coastal plan for Malibu. Nothing could be further from the truth.

As a supporter of the California Coastal Protection Initiative offered to the voters in 1972, I have watched with great interest the progress being made by counties and municipalities in developing local coastal plans that should leave a positive legacy for our future generations.

As supervisor of Los Angeles County’s coastal district, I have become increasingly concerned over the lack of progress being made by the Coastal Commission in recognizing and addressing public input and participation, the legitimate concerns of local government, and balancing time with the Coastal Act.

Certainly the process of developing a local coastal plan is supposed to arrive at a balancing of public participation, local government concerns, and the Coastal Act itself. In the case of the Malibu local coastal plan, the commission has allowed the process to break down.

In summary, the process is straightforward and simple. Local government prepares and submits to the Coastal Commission a local coastal plan, the Coastal Commission routinely rejects local governments’ first submittal and this action allows the commission staff to prepare suggested modifications, which if adopted by local government would allow the local coastal plan to be certified by the Coastal Commission.

In developing suggested modifications to the Malibu plan, the commission staff held additional public workshops, received public testimony from a wide spectrum of interest groups, conferred with local government, state and federal agencies, and balanced all of this input against the Coastal Act.

The result of this 2 1/2-year public effort is what was on the agenda at the June 13 hearing of the commission. What was not on the agenda was what took place. One of the commissioners introduced a new document, which had never been seen before, never reviewed by local government, state of federal agencies, never subjected to public review and not even read by the commissioners present.

The vote was taken to approve this mystery document over the objections of the commission’s own staff. Clearly, the public hearing format is the backbone of the Coastal Commission process and was designed to take politics out of coastal land-use issues. The action of the commission on the Malibu plan, raises serious questions about backroom political deals being made outside of the public hearing process.

Allegations have surfaced that one commissioner contacted a majority of commissioners in advance of the vote and influenced their support in adopting 17 pages of amendments that neither the public nor the commission had an opportunity to review. Perhaps this is what the state appellate court had in mind when it ruled in Stockton Newspapers, Inc. vs. the City of Stockton Redevelopment Agency that this type of activity violates the Brown Act.

Without discussing the merits of the “Catch 22” mystery amendments embraced by the Coastal Commission, I suggest public policy should show equal concern for the process that allowed their inclusion in the Malibu coastal plan.

The legacy of environmental protection we leave our children is no less important than leaving a legacy of faith and confidence in our public institutions. Because of the controversy surrounding its Malibu action and the obvious need to procedurally clean its house, I suggest the Coastal Commission rescind its action on the Malibu plan, and seriously consider its own staff’s, as well as the county’s recommendations, which took 2 1/2 years of public participation to develop.

The time has come for Beach Bullies to stop kicking sand at the Malibu local coastal plan.

DEANE DANA

Los Angeles