New Life for Coastal Panel

The California Coastal Commission, created by the voters in 1972, has for too long been the whipping boy of hostile governors and legislators and wealthy coastal landowners. As a result, this agency, charged with protecting California’s breathtaking 1,100-mile coastline, has had to make do with threadbare budgets and the appointment of some commissioners so antipathetic they were on record as supporting the agency’s demise.

Now comes a new governor and a new chance for California’s seashore. Gov. Gray Davis has already signaled a welcome desire to give the agency the fiscal resources it needs. Davis and Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa are now reviewing potential appointees to the four seats they each control on that 12-member board. (The Senate president controls the other four seats.) Davis has begun to weed out the worst holdovers from the Wilson administration. But as Davis and Villaraigosa exercise their appointment prerogative, they should be mindful of the extraordinary turmoil this agency has experienced in recent years. What it needs now, perhaps more than anything else, is stability.

The governor’s proposed budget is a big step forward. Davis restores the increases that the Legislature approved last year, only to have Wilson veto them. Certainly there’s never enough money, but the increases should help cut into the large backlog of enforcement actions and expand coastal access and planning activities.

Davis’ other appointments, including Mary Nichols as head of the state Resources Department, demonstrate his sincere interest in environmental protection. Nichols’ agency oversees the Coastal Commission, and she is anxious for the panel to tackle such pressing new challenges as beach erosion.

Last month, Davis asked for and received the resignation of Mike Ryan, Pete Wilson’s last appointee to the Coastal Commission. Ryan took his seat in December and served only 51 days, but his antipathy toward the commission was well known. As a San Luis Obispo County supervisor, he played a leading role in the county’s resistance to Coastal Commission directives on the scope of the Hearst Corp.’s development along the Central Coast near San Simeon. Unquestionably, Pete Wilson had meant Ryan’s appointment as a finger in the commission’s eye.

But not everyone now on the commission may deserve ouster. Some, like Penny Allen of Chula Vista, a Republican, bring balance and experience. Others have developed in-depth knowledge that’s sorely needed. The governor and the Assembly speaker should move cautiously. More turmoil would be the worst thing for this storm-tossed commission--and for protection of California’s coast.