Readers React: Perhaps Charles Lester wasn’t up to his Coastal Commission job

To the editor: The Times refuses to consider the most obvious reason for the firing of the Coastal Commission’s executive director, Charles Lester: that his performance was unsatisfactory. (“Coastal Commission, an agency with populist roots, takes heat over secret-session firing of director,” Feb. 11)

It is perfectly possible that, while Lester’s heart was in the right place in regard to protecting California’s coastline from inappropriate development, he simply did not do his job well. That is precisely what has been said by commissioners who voted last week to dismiss him.

The Times should give the Coastal Commission the benefit of the doubt instead of acting like Lester’s employment lawyer (in particular, the sentence, “Which explains why so many Californian feel punched in the solar plexus today,” does not belong in a news article). Let’s see who replaces Lester and how the commission performs over the next few years.

Peter Rich, Los Angeles

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