Report Urges Overhaul of Coastal Panel

Declaring that budget cuts by Gov. George Deukmejian have seriously limited the effectiveness of the California Coastal Commission, a state Senate citizen advisory panel called Friday for a major overhaul of the commission along with tough new conflict-of-interest prohibitions.

The current 12-member, part-time coastal commission should be reduced in size to nine full-time members who serve fixed four-year terms, the panel said in a report. It also urged that coastal commissioners be prohibited from raising political campaign funds from individuals with business before the commission.

Commissioners should draft a new code of conduct, and existing laws should be “strictly enforced” to prohibit commissioners from voting on any issue that materially affects their personal financial position, the panel said.

“We hope that this will help to insulate the commission from any political distractions and influences which might have an affect on the commission’s implementation and enforcement of the coastal act,” the advisory panel said.

The recommendations, among 33 delivered Friday to the state Senate by the 25-member Senate Advisory Commission on Cost Control in State Government, culminated a yearlong investigation into the coastal commission’s operations.

It is unclear what reception the recommendations will get in the Legislature, which appoints some of the coastal commission members. Others are appointed by the Assembly Speaker, the governor and local officials.

The advisory panel was created by legislation carried in 1984 by Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who in 1987 fired the Senate’s appointee to the coastal commission after Roberti was told that the commissioner, Gilbert R. Contreras, intended to vote in favor of Occidental Petroleum’s controversial Pacific Palisades coastal oil drilling project, which Roberti opposed.

Without mentioning specific incidents, the advisory panel said the coastal commission had lost credibility with the public. Panel Chairman Milton G. Gordon referred reporters to newspaper accounts detailing the Contreras episode, as well as fund-raising activities by commissioners.

Roberti had no immediate comment on the Senate panel’s recommendation to establish fixed terms for commissioners. Such a rule would have prohibited the Senate Rules Committee, which Roberti chairs, from firing Contreras on the day he was supposed to vote on the Occidental case.

Roberti’s office issued a statement calling the panel’s work “a thoughtful report.”

Hampered by an inadequate staff and budget that is less than half what it was in 1977, the coastal commission has approved only 56% of local coastal plans in the state, has an ineffective enforcement program, a growing backlog of 762 enforcement cases and has little ability to conduct long-term research and planning on issues ranging from rising seas due to global warming to offshore oil development and earthquake hazards, the advisory panel said.

The commission budget should not fall below its current level until all local coastal plans are completed and approved, the report said. The commission’s current budget is $7.5 million, but the governor has proposed a $695,000 cut in the 1989-90 fiscal year, which begins July 1.

Gordon said that if all the panel’s recommendations were carried out, the commission would require an annual budget of $20 million. However, the panel offered no suggestion as to where the money would come from, saying that was a decision the Legislature would have to make.