La Jolla

Among the weighty land-use and environmental issues on the California Coastal Commission’s agenda for its meeting Thursday in San Diego was a request by UC San Diego Chancellor Richard Atkinson to install a satellite dish in the backyard of his state-owned home.

With none of Atkinson’s neighbors on La Jolla Farms Road present at the meeting to express their opposition to the chancellor increasing the variety of his television fare, the commission approved the request. He had to seek commission approval for the dish because the house is within the coastal zone.

Although the University of California system provides Atkinson’s housing, he said Thursday that the cost of his 10-foot-diameter satellite dish is being covered by his “own private funding sources.”