Coast Panel Post Urged for County Ecologist

Saying he “epitomizes the type of local official” they want on the state Coastal Commission, a coalition of environmental groups urged a Senate committee Tuesday to appoint Huntington Beach City Councilman Peter M. Green to a two-year term on the panel.

But after a hearing conducted partly in public and partly behind closed doors, the Senate Rules Committee deadlocked 2 to 2, with one abstention, and put off a decision until January.

The environmentalists said Baldwin Park City Councilman Leo W. King, who has held the seat on the coastal planning panel since 1982, has been pro-oil and pro-development and has sided repeatedly with the four appointees of Gov. George Deukmejian on the 12-member panel.

Representatives of the Sierra Club, the Planning and Conservation League and the National Resources Defense Council urged that King be replaced by Green, 60, an ecology instructor at Golden West College.

“Of the people nominated, he (Green) is the only one who has environmental credentials of any kind,” said Paula Carrell, a Sacramento lobbyist for the Sierra Club.

Although four others besides King and Green were nominated by various local government groups in Southern California, members of the Democrat-controlled committee said the choice was narrowed to the two councilmen, who are both Republicans.

Green spoke in his own behalf during the open portion of the hearing, which King did not attend. But King was defended by Roger Osenbaugh, a former coastal commissioner, as being one of the best and fairest commissioners in the history of the 14-year-old panel.

“For the first time in history, you have a balanced commission,” said Osenbaugh, urging senators to reappoint King.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who chairs the Rules Committee, also chided the environmentalists, noting that they had supported King’s appointment in 1982 but now characterize him “as a Simon Legree of the environmental movement.”

Carrell acknowledged that environmental groups had once supported King, but he said King has voted in their favor only 19% of the time, adding: “He’s on the wrong side of most offshore oil issues.”

Green, known in Orange County as a staunch environmentalist, was elected to the Huntington Beach City Council in 1984. The Orange County League of Cities submitted his name for the Coastal Commission appointment after Roberti reportedly rejected an earlier list of nominees given to his staff.

Green said he sought the Coastal Commission appointment at the urging of “several people,” including former Coastal Commissioner Mel Nutter of Long Beach. But Green said his concerns about preserving the aesthetics and natural beauty of the state’s 1,072-mile coastline dates back to the 1969 oil spill off the Santa Barbara coast.

Before winning his council seat, Green had worked with the Amigos de Bolsa Chica in its decade-long fight to limit future development and preserve wildlife habitats along the Bolsa Chica wetlands in Huntington Beach. Green told senators his “first concern is preservation of the coastline.”

“There seems to be real awareness of coastal issues,” Green said. “. . . The City of Huntington Beach for years has been closely aligned with coastal issues.”

Green said a number of local issues in which he has been involved are likely to be before the Coastal Commission in coming years. Those, he said, include plans for constructing an ocean-access channel and navigable marina at Bolsa Chica and redevelopment of the city’s downtown and pier area.

If he wins the appointment, Green said, he might have to disqualify himself in some instances when projects he has already voted for, or against, as a Huntington Beach councilman come before the Coastal Commission.

Roberti declined to say after the hearing how the five members of the Rules Committee voted.

“You’ll have to figure it out,” the Senate leader told reporters. “They are both very fine candidates.”

Because of the stalemate, Roberti said it is possible that someone other than King or Green will get the appointment. Among those nominated were Newport Beach Councilwoman Ruthelyn Plummer and Cypress Councilman John Kanel.