Coastal Panelist Erupts in Shouts of Outrage

In an angry and unusual public rebuff, a member of the California Coastal Commission denounced one of his colleagues, David Malcolm, for influence-peddling.

Commissioner Steve MacElvaine said at the Coastal Commission meeting held Thursday in Los Angeles that Malcolm had threatened him with political retribution from a state senator and a Sacramento lobbyist.

The usually even-tempered MacElvaine, an appointee of Gov. George Deukmejian from Morro Bay, accused Malcolm, a Chula Vista city councilman who was appointed to the commission by Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, of going beyond the normal give and take inherent in a political body such as the Coastal Commission.

“My blood pressure is about ready to hit the moon,” MacElvaine told the commission in the midst of a discussion about a development in Carlsbad.

Then MacElvaine said, shouting: “I just got approached by Commissioner Malcolm, who stated that apparently I have a problem with one of the lobbyists that’s involved in either this project or some other project, that I’m going to get a call from a state senator on those issues. I’m not going to name the lobbyist because I don’t have a problem with anybody in the room and I’m not going to name the state senator.

“But if any commissioner ever pulls that stunt on me again--I don’t care if it’s the staff, the audience, the janitor outside or the cotton-picking taxicab driver that takes me to the airport, I’m going to demand that the attorney general’s deputy prosecute them. That’s not to be done.

“I hate to bring that up. I don’t think this is the right decorum, but by God, that’s got to stop. No commissioner should ever have any pressure put on him by the Legislature, the appointing authorities or anyone else.”

MacElvaine, a rancher, mobile home park owner and former member of the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors, declined to give any details Friday about the conversation that led to his denouncement of Malcolm or exactly what form the political retribution would take.

“It was undue influence. That isn’t the way things are supposed to work. I wanted to make sure that since it was the first time (that Malcolm had threatened him with political retribution) that it was also the last time,” MacElvaine said in a telephone interview.

“If something like this is going to be said, it’s going to be part of the record.”

MacElvaine refused to identify the lobbyist and the state senator whom Malcolm referred to when he whispered his comments to MacElvaine during the Coastal Commission meeting.

“I really don’t want to name names because I don’t know if either of them knew this was going to happen,” said MacElvaine, noting that he intends to speak with the Sacramento lobbyist identified by Malcolm.

MacElvaine said he and Malcolm have not spoken to one another since he made his critical statements at the meeting.

“What I think is that it was probably a momentary indiscretion on his part,” MacElvaine said.

Malcolm, in a telephone interview on Friday, was equally reluctant to comment on details of his conversation with MacElvaine.

“There was obviously a misunderstanding. I couldn’t believe the comment when he said it,” Malcolm said. “He knows what the conversation was. If he wants to be truthful and honest with you . . . that’s all right with me. Told of Malcolm’s statement, MacElvaine reply was: “People don’t go wild for no reason.”

Malcolm said that MacElvaine’s criticism should be viewed in a broader context of MacElvaine being a Deukmejian appointee. “It’s the goal of this Administration to dismantle the commission and do away with environmental concerns. His statement goes a long way toward doing that,” said Malcolm.

But Michael Wornum, the Coastal Commission chairman from Larkspur who has strongly opposed any effort to abolish the agency, said Malcolm’s assertion is inaccurate, and that the dispute between Malcolm and MacElvaine had nothing to do with the governor’s position.

“This was not an issue of development versus the environment or anything to do with property rights,” Wornum said. “What was being discussed (by the commission) when this happened had nothing to do with principle.

“I don’t see how this has anything to do, quite frankly, with Deukmejian wanting to dismantle the commission. This was simply an issue where a developer wanted his money back.”

“It’s self-evident,” Wornum said, “that David had obviously gone too far.”

According to those on the commission and other observers, this was the first time MacElvaine had exhibited such anger since he was appointed to the commission four years ago.

“Actually, of all the people on the commission, he’s one of the more reasonable, fair and even-tempered commissioners,” Wornum said.

“I think David went one step too far and had his knuckles firmly, publicly rapped and I think other commissioners will take due note and refrain from that kind of conduct in the future.”

At the time of MacElvaine’s outburst the commission was discussing a proposal by Grupe Development Co., a company based in the City of Industry. The company is building a 272-unit apartment complex in Carlsbad on a site east of Interstate 5 and south of Palomar Airport Road.

When the Coastal Commission approved the project, it required Grupe to pay approximately$504,000 to mitigate the effect of developing on coastal farmland.

But the company wanted its obligation reduced to about $210,000, and that was the focus of discussion when MacElvaine made his comments.

However, MacElvaine said Friday that Malcolm’s lobbying went beyond the scope of just the Grupe company proposal and went generally into similar requests by other companies.

The commission, on a 0-11 vote, turned down the Grupe request.

Joseph E. Petrillo, the San Francisco lawyer who represented Grupe at the commission hearing, said Friday he didn’t know anything about the MacElvaine-Malcolm conversation and was as surprised as everyone else by what MacElvaine had to say.

“MacElvaine told me I wasn’t the lobbyist he was talking about, though it’s obvious some of the discussion had to do with my project,” Petrillo said.

Before MacElvaine made his statement, Petrillo said, he thought the vote on his company’s request for lower fees would be a close one.

“But when the outburst occurred . . . everyone got worried, thinking, ‘What’s going on here?’ So they decided they’d better vote against it,” Petrillo said.

“The idea of one commissioner trying to persuade another commissioner is not unusual and quite routine. Something like what MacElvaine said, however, is unusual.”