Coastal Panel Member Calls for Staff Code of Loyalty, Conduct

A newly appointed California Coastal Commission member Tuesday proposed that a code of conduct be instituted for the panel’s staff members and that they adhere to a code of loyalty to ensure that they carry out the commission’s directives.

The proposal, coming amid an ongoing tussle over coastal policy, was immediately denounced by some environmentalists as a veiled effort to intimidate staff and undermine protection of the California coast.

In the end, a newly formed audit committee did not vote on a code of conduct but instead proposed a special workshop to help determine the commission’s priorities.

The debate Tuesday illustrated the continuing tensions about the future of the commission, which since June has had a GOP majority for the first time in its history.

Some commissioners say the commission staff needs to be more sensitive to property owners’ rights, while others fear that coastal protections will be weakened.

The full 12-member commission is to take up the proposal of the workshop Thursday in Los Angeles and may decide then when and where it will be held.

Some environmentalists expressed relief at the end of the five-hour committee session on Tuesday, saying they had feared the group would “ramrod through” a code of conduct as well as a management audit.

Commissioner Patricia Randa of Sonoma, who proposed the code of conduct, said that people applying for permits before the commission need to be better informed of their rights.

Randa, a property rights activist named to the commission in June, said her experiences as an applicant have given her insight into the difficulties property owners face.

But environmentalists denounced the idea.

“This notion of a code of conduct for this staff is an absolute outrage,” said Joel Reynolds, senior attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council. “We are not in the early 1950s. This is not McCarthyism.”

The Coastal Commission is meeting in Los Angeles this week amid continuing turmoil about its direction and the future of its longtime executive director, Peter Douglas. At commission’s last meeting in Huntington Beach, Douglas’ critics backed off from firing him after an outpouring of protests from environmentalists.

The full commission is scheduled to meet today through Friday at the Crowne Plaza-Holiday Inn at 5985 W. Century Blvd.