Smog Control Board Selects New Chief

The Southland’s smog-fighting agency ended 16 months of limbo Friday and named a new chief executive--breaking a stalemate that had polarized the smog board since the ouster of its longtime leader.

Barry Wallerstein, who has served as a top-ranking manager at the South Coast Air Quality Management District since 1989, was appointed executive officer by a unanimous vote of the agency’s governing board.

As chief, Wallerstein will lead the world’s most powerful and high-profile air pollution agency. The AQMD is responsible for cleaning up the air breathed by 14 million people in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties--the nation’s smoggiest region.

For months, the 12-member AQMD board had been deeply divided over whom to appoint to the top position.

The board’s fractiousness over the new executive--which occurred in closed-door sessions--seemed to focus more on personalities of the board members and the candidates than ideology over the direction of smog control. All four finalists for the post, to some degree, would have pursued the same public agenda--combating smog through consensus-building with businesses.

“My goal is to keep us moving toward the path to clean air and to do it in a manner which allows us to continue to have a strong economy,” Wallerstein said.

In an interview Friday, Wallerstein added that one of his top priorities is to reorganize the agency, with the goal of more efficiently enforcing and adopting anti-smog rules and dealing with the public and regulated businesses in a more open and fair manner.

The new smog chief also singled out as “extremely important” the AQMD’s efforts to handle environmental justice controversies--when minority and poor people are exposed to disproportionate amounts of pollution. He also emphasized the need to improve air quality in Riverside and San Bernardino counties--which in recent years have become the hot spot as the region’s smog shifts east.

Wallerstein’s 15-year tenure at the AQMD has been controversial, particularly since he was the main architect of a smog plan that has been under fire from environmentalists and federal officials because it scales back the attack on air pollution in the Los Angeles Basin.

Some air-quality insiders say Wallerstein is extremely knowledgeable and skilled in technical matters, but they say he is strong-willed, sometimes even arrogant.

Wallerstein replaces James Lents, who headed the AQMD for over a decade, during the years when the agency took pioneering steps toward cleaning the air. After months of deadlock on the issue, board members ousted Lents in July 1997 because they said they wanted a new leader who would get along better with conservative state politicians, small businesses and minority communities.

On Friday, the board decided to name an executive officer even though one-quarter of the board’s membership is about to change. Gov.-elect Gray Davis will appoint a board member, and two City Council members on the board--Nell Soto of Pomona and Richard Alarcon of Los Angeles--must be replaced because they were elected to higher offices.

AQMD Board Chairman William Burke credited Wallerstein with defusing some controversies by encouraging more dialogue between the public and the agency’s top managers.

Wallerstein “has the intellect . . . but he also has the ability to work with all factions of people,” Burke said.

Wallerstein, who holds a doctorate from UCLA in environmental science and engineering, has a contract that expires in July 2000, at a salary of $136,061.