Speaker to Give Coast Panel Its First Republican Majority

Giving Republicans their first majority on the California Coastal Commission, Assembly Speaker Curt Pringle today will appoint four new members, including two strong critics who had lengthy battles with the commission over their own homes.

Pringle’s appointees are certain to give a stronger voice to property owners large and small as they attempt to get their projects approved and developed, prompting environmentalists to express alarm.

In making what he sees as some of his most important appointments, the Republican speaker said he selected the four people because he is confident that they won’t “disregard property rights.”

“I can’t imagine there will be a significant increase in development,” Pringle said. “Yet I believe there will be a significantly greater degree of respect for individual property owners, particularly homeowners.”

The 12-member Coastal Commission administers the 1976 Coastal Act, which attempted to ensure public access to beaches and protect the environment while overseeing coastal development.

The commission long has been attacked by property owners for refusing to let them use their property. But more recently, environmentalists have accused the commission of permitting too much development.

Pringle is making two appointments--freshman San Diego City Councilman Byron Wear and Santa Cruz County Supervisor Ray Belgard--from lists of several nominees submitted to him by local elected officials. He said he selected the other two on his own.

One of them, Arnold Steinberg, a Republican pollster, was embroiled in a two-year controversy with the Coastal Commission over the construction of his 5,000-square-foot Calabasas home.

In an interview, Steinberg stopped short of saying the commission should be abolished but said: “The burden of proof is on any government commission to continue its existence.

“I have serious doubts as to whether the commission serves the public interests,” Steinberg said, noting that “horror stories” about the commission are renowned. “Clearly, there is room for tremendous improvement.”

In 1990, two years after he bought the property, Steinberg settled the dispute, agreeing to buy a neighboring lot for $165,000, promising never to develop it and deeding it to the preservationist Mountains Restoration Trust. Steinberg described the settlement Monday as “extortion” that he had to pay to complete construction of his home.

“They cannot run the Coastal Commission like the Romanian Tribunal,” Steinberg said. “When I went there, the votes were against me. It didn’t matter what I said. . . . They would have been delighted if I had gone bankrupt.”

The other appointee, Patricia Randa of Sonoma, is a part-time political consultant and conservative activist. She first encountered the commission in 1981 when she discovered that, although her property in the Santa Monica Mountains was five miles from the coast, it was deemed to be in the coastal zone and subject to the 1976 Coastal Act.

She engaged in a 10-year court fight after the commission blocked her from building her home there, ultimately settling when the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy bought her five acres for $1.2 million.

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Monday, Randa recalled what she said were the commission’s “Gestapo tactics.” Although she said she expects to “work well with the staff,” she called her appointment the “greatest irony.”

“I would think the staff right now is a little nervous,” Randa said. “It’s about time they have a taste of their own medicine.”

Randa said she intends to “end this polarization” between coastal property owners and the commission, adding, “There has to be fairness and, if it comes down to it, a bill of rights for property owners.”

Pringle’s four appointees replace appointees of former Democratic Speaker Willie Brown, and will join Republican Gov. Pete Wilson’s appointees to constitute an 8-4 Republican majority. The Senate Rules Committee controls the other four appointments. Pringle’s appointees serve at his pleasure and do not require confirmation. Members are paid $200 per meeting.

“It doesn’t sound like good news for Santa Monica Bay and the rest of California’s coastline,” state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) said of the latest appointments.

The changes come as the Coastal Commission considers several weighty development issues. Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas expects that, for one, the commission will continue to deal with questions on Bolsa Chica, the largest remaining wetland in Southern California, and plans by Koll Real Estate to build more than 3,000 homes on the Orange County land.

Lawyer Mark Massara of San Francisco, who regularly appears before the commission on behalf of the Sierra Club, viewed the appointments with alarm. Massara noted that Brown’s appointees often sided with developers, but most “bought into the notion that the coast deserved protection.” He said the new Republican appointees seem intent on “dismantling the Coastal Act.”

“Today, right now, the Coastal Commission already approves a majority of its projects,” Massara said. “It’s on a slow road to hell, but at least it’s the slow road.”

Attorney Mel Nutter, a former Coastal Commission chairman who now heads the League for Coastal Protection, said he is “concerned about the program . . . whether the integrity of the program is going to be jeopardized.”