Drake Quits State Waste Board Before Senate Vote : Politics: The former Ventura councilwoman’s second resignation caps a bewildering series of events. Opponents say she lacks environmentalist credentials.

Faced with mounting opposition in a Senate confirmation fight, former Ventura City Councilwoman Nan J. Drake on Tuesday resigned her $91,000-a-year seat on the California Integrated Waste Management Board.

The resignation, effective Dec. 31, was announced on the Senate floor by Republican Senate Leader Ken Maddy of Fresno, capping a bewildering series of events that left even veteran lawmakers and staffers shaking their heads.

On Monday, the Senate Rules Committee narrowly rejected Drake’s nomination to the board, prompting her late in the day to submit a two-paragraph letter of resignation to Gov. George Deukmejian, who had appointed her Oct. 17.

By Tuesday morning, however, Republican Drake reversed herself, deciding to press for a showdown vote on the Senate floor.

But shortly before noon, Drake again backed away from a fight--which she was expected to lose--and the governor, whom Drake has known for 25 years, accepted her resignation. She had been serving on the board since her appointment while awaiting Senate confirmation, a process that sometimes takes up to a year.

Drake, 51, said she changed her mind the second time and decided to resign after counting her support.

“It just seemed the odds were against us,” she said. “It seemed senseless to go ahead and actually go to the floor with it. It was just very clear that they were using this as an environmental slot and I had not served on appropriate environmental protection groups.”

Drake, who said she felt like a pinball, voiced disappointment because she “could have made a difference. . . . I could have helped cities and counties” comply with new recycling laws.

There is still an outside chance that Drake could stay on the board because Deukmejian still must fill two slots that do not require Senate confirmation. But Drake said she believes that the governor has others in mind for those positions.

Drake said she will probably return to Ventura to work in her husband’s leasing business and might apply for a position in the administration of Gov.-elect Pete Wilson. Sen. Gary Hart (D-Santa Barbara), who opposed Drake’s nomination, said hetalked to Drake as she wrestled with her decision. Hart, whose district includes Ventura County, said Drake was “really torn about what she should do, and she was frustrated by the process and frustrated by Sacramento.”

Central to the opposition to Drake was a fragile compromise fashioned last year to create the waste board with broad powers to require recycling of waste. As part of the negotiations, Deukmejian insisted on having a member of the waste industry on the six-member board and environmentalists were given their own slot, said State Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), who helped hammer out the legislation.

Hill said negotiators envisioned that a member of the Sierra Club or another environmental group would be tabbed for the environmental spot. In fact, the statute says the post must be filled by an official of a “nonprofit environmental protection organization whose principal purpose is to promote recycling, and the protection of air and water quality.”

But because Drake failed to fit that bill, Hill and several other GOP lawmakers, whose support was critical to Drake, opposed her nomination. She was also opposed by environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the Environmental Coalition of Ventura County.

Appearing before the Rules Committee on Monday, Drake defended her record as an environmentalist, citing her help in establishing a recycling program in Ventura and her membership on the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control District and the Ventura Regional Sanitation District.

But the legislative counsel issued an opinion saying those posts did not qualify Drake for the environmental seat on the board. Maddy said Drake had hoped to reverse the opinion, providing new ammunition for a Senate floor fight. He said that without a revised opinion it would have been difficult for Drake to muster enough support on the Senate floor.

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who voted for Drake in the Rules Committee, said he doubted that she could have won Senate approval. He said one reason was that Republicans were split over Drake’s nomination.

He cited, in particular, a Nov. 27 letter from Mary E. Baalas, a former president of the Ventura County Federation of Republican Women, who said that Drake’s performance on the City Council had “alienated both her colleagues and constituents.”

Baalas, of Camarillo, said: “Drake is totally unqualified and unsuited both by temperament and stability to assume responsibility for any long-term assignment; placing her in such an assignment can only result in disaster.”

Drake was the second Deukmejian nominee to the environmental spot who failed to win Senate confirmation. Deukmejian had earlier appointed John E. Gallagher of Orange, whose nomination was abandoned in the face of environmental opposition.