Ed Begley Jr. Resigns Top Environmental Posts : Appointments: ‘I’ve become my own worst nightmare,’ the actor says, ‘a petty bureaucrat shuffling papers.’

Actor-environmentalist Ed Begley Jr. has resigned as chairman of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy board of directors and from another city board, saying he was discouraged by the lip service paid to environmental issues and exhausted by the bureaucratic demands of his unpaid jobs.

“I’ve become my own worst nightmare,” Begley wrote in his letters of resignation. “A petty bureaucrat shuffling papers as the ancient forests are destroyed, the frogs perish and the coral reefs die off.”

The 46-year-old Studio City actor resigned from the conservancy and from the city’s Environmental Affairs Commission late Monday. Mayor Richard Riordan appointed him to both posts.

Sources reported that Begley also was resigning from the board of the Coalition for Clean Air, a nonprofit group. “I have no comment on whether he’s resigning or not,” said Linda Waade, coalition executive director. “Ed’s one of our most valuable board members. It wouldn’t surprise me if he wanted to take a break because he’s involved in numerous environmental issues and everybody wants him on their boards.”

Begley could not be reached for comment.

Riordan’s office said Begley’s departure was a loss. Deputy Mayor Robin Kramer said Riordan was trying Tuesday afternoon to reach Begley to ask him to remain engaged in some of the projects he had worked on as a commissioner at City Hall and at the conservancy.

Six months ago, Begley, who gained acting notoriety for his role in the popular TV drama “St. Elsewhere,” was elected chairman of the state-chartered conservancy board, which runs a powerful parklands acquisition program in the Santa Monica Mountains.

“It was a big surprise,” said Joseph T. Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy, who called Begley’s departure from the board a blow. At present, the cash-strapped conservancy is trying to reach a compromise in its protracted battle with Soka University that began with the agency seeking to seize the university’s Calabasas campus. Begley has been in the thick of the debate.

Because his personal life and habits often reflected his environmental commitment, Begley was uniquely positioned to craft the sometimes-inevitable compromises needed in the environmental movement without being branded a sellout, Edmiston said.

“He was a superb commissioner and I’m sorry to see him go,” said Mark Armbruster, president of the Environmental Affairs Commission. “He never expressed anything but enthusiasm for the projects we were working on--including the green ways project for beautifying the city. Maybe Ed was one of those guys whose goals were so high that he lost patience with what you have to work through to achieve them,” Armbruster said.

Begley’s acceptance of the Riordan appointments was viewed as a coup of sorts for the GOP businessman-cum-mayor. During the 1993 mayor’s race, Begley had been a supporter of Riordan’s principal opponent, Michael Woo.

The actor drives an electric car, uses solar power extensively in his Studio City home and often bicycled to Downtown Los Angeles to attend meetings on environmental issues. Begley and Riordan, in fact, forged a bond of sorts in their mutual interest in bike riding.

“I get paid to do this and I can empathize with him,” said conservancy chief Edmiston. “He’d come to board meetings, still sweating from having bicycled all the way there and then get excoriated by some ignorant faction fighting over this or that.”

In his letters of resignation, Begley said: “In every poll I read, people claim they want these things to stop [environmental degradation]. Heads of corporations and housewives alike call themselves environmentalists. They say these things again and again, but their actions scream a different message.

“I now officially resign . . . and sincerely wish the very best to all of you who have the time and the patience to wade through all this . . . and actually accomplish something,” Begley wrote. “I’ll still be getting around by bike, bus or rail, checking my solar panels, growing my food and hiking through the last bit of undeveloped hillside while it lasts. God bless you all who have the strength to continue.”