The Region - News from March 20, 1987

Bowing to objections from local government officials, state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) dropped plans to strip local governments of their authority to appoint a majority of the South Coast Air Quality Management District board. Presley’s bill to reorganize the board was amended to require that four of the governor’s five appointees to the reconstituted seven-member panel be locally elected officials, to be chosen from a list drawn up by the boards of supervisors of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Originally, the bill placed no such requirement on the governor. The remaining two appointees would be appointed by the Speaker of the Assembly and the state Senate Rules Committee. The AQMD board, which now has 14 members, earlier this month voted to oppose Presley’s bill unless it was amended to guarantee that locally elected officials would continue to control a board majority.