Governor Gets Busy With His Green Pen

Gov. Gray Davis delivered environmentalists prized victories Saturday, signing into law a measure to close a loophole exploited by real estate speculators to drive up the price of coastal land and placing a $2.6-billion parks bond on the March ballot.

The loophole gained notoriety when the Hearst Corp., which owns the famous Hearst Castle in San Simeon north of San Luis Obispo, said its property was worth far more than conservationists estimated because it had the right to subdivide it into 279 parcels by reconfiguring lots shown on an old land map.

“Gov. Davis slammed the door shut” on the problem, said Susan Jordan of the League for Coastal Protection, one of several environmental activists who joined top Davis Cabinet members Saturday in a conference call to trumpet the governor’s actions.

Davis, who faces reelection next year, also vetoed a “rigs-to-reefs” bill that would have allowed oil companies to leave aging offshore platforms in the ocean. The bill, SB 1 by Sen. Dede Alpert (D-Coronado), was strongly backed by oil companies and recreational fishermen, who said the rigs would create artificial reefs that would provide additional marine habitat. But it was a top target of commercial fishermen and environmental activists, who said oil companies should have to clean up their old drilling operations and restore the sea to its natural state.

“People simply don’t believe that the oil industry, which promised it would remove these rigs when they were put in, should be able to get off the hook,” said California Resources Secretary Mary Nichols.

“The environmental and the economic harm of rigs to reefs outweighed any supposed benefits,” said Warner Chabot of the Center for Marine Conservation. “In fact, the oil industry was the only clear beneficiary of this legislation.”

With only one day left to sign or veto more than 200 bills passed by the Legislature this year, Davis signed a spate of measures important to labor activists and government employees--including a hotly disputed bill that sides with the Justice for Janitors campaign centered in Los Angeles. The bill, SB 20 by Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), will forbid new contractors from firing for 60 days janitorial employees employed by a previous contractor.

And Davis signed several bills that came out of lawmakers’ protracted struggle with the state’s energy crisis. They included AB 48xx by Assemblyman Roderick Wright (D-Los Angeles), a measure to promote solar energy systems in new homes.

Because the state’s financial forecast has dimmed due to the slumping economy and the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Davis in recent days has vetoed many bills that required large expenditures. As a result, many environmental advocates were concerned that the parks bond would become a victim of the governor’s veto pen.

But Davis signed the parks bond measure, AB 1602 by Assemblyman Fred Keeley (D-Boulder Creek). If approved by voters next spring, it would provide money to clean beaches, spruce up and build state and neighborhood parks, preserve agricultural lands and reduce diesel pollution.

“Gov. Davis often says education is his first, second and third priority, but clearly, parks is his fourth priority,” state parks director Rusty Areias said.

Despite considerable pressure from real estate interests, Davis also signed SB 497 by Sen. Byron Sher (D-Stanford). The measure slams shut a provision in the obscure Subdivision Map Act that allowed developers to circumvent coastal zoning laws by rearranging lot lines on old land records, some dating to the 19th century. In doing so, landowners sometimes were able to take development rights on inland lots and move them to the coast, dramatically increasing the value.

In some cases, the developers never build anything but use the threat of building to increase the value of their property when they sell it to preservationists--a practice that Rep. Sam Farr (D-Carmel) has passionately criticized. One developer made a profit of $20 million on land he bought in Big Sur.

Environmentalists and some legislators argued that unless developers were prevented from continuing that practice, pristine coastal land everywhere was under threat of being developed, including the 83,000-acre Hearst Ranch.

But the building industry argued that the hastily drafted measure was broader than the coastal loophole it sought to close, and would hurt small developers at a time when the state needs to build more housing to serve its swelling population.

“There is no urgent compelling state interest that justifies such unreasonably swift action,” Rand Martin, a developer lobbyist, said in a letter to Davis.