Note:  Venice is at the heart of Los Angeles’ Coastal system which is controlled by the California Coastal Commission (CCC).   The recent news stories have highlighted the ousting of CCC Executive Director Charles Lester, which occurred this past week.  Venice’s Land Use and Planning Committee Chair Robin Rudisill has made some strong statements regarding this ouster.   These are more of her statements and observations.

By Robin Rudisill, who is chair of the Venice Neighborhood Council’s Land Use and Planning Committee but in this case, is a voice for many citizens of Venice.,

It’s become clear that not everyone understands why it is SO very important that the Coastal Commission maintain the Public Trust.

Peter Douglas, primary author of the Coastal Act and immediately prior Executive Director:

“This is the People’s Law. It was put into effect by a vote of the People…it’s been Public Participation and Public Support, all the way along, that has sustained the integrity and the strength of this program.”

The People know their role, their rights, their civic duty. They are rallying like a team that has been playing together for years. It’s incredible.

I’d like to share some of my insights.

Per Dr. Charles Lester interview on YouTube.

“The three things that give the Coastal Commission its strength:
1. The Staff and their commitment and their expertise.
2. The Coastal Act law–it is broad and big picture but it also elaborates with very specific objectives in order to protect the Coastal Resources.
3. The role of Citizens and Activists and all of the Stakeholders who are also involved in Coastal Protection…..all of the way back to 1972 when Prop 20 was passed, with 55% of the vote….that involvement of the Public in our program has been critical to its success.

It’s those three things, working together, and having this independent Commission at the top of that decision process, which I think combines to make the program successful.”

So the way this delicate ecosystem, or network of interconnecting and interacting parts, was set up is based on the wisdom of the Coastal Act’s authors. These are the same people who knew that if local municipalities could be trusted to protect our coast unsupervised, that we wouldn’t need a Coastal Commission.

Thus, because the Commission itself, the final decision maker, is made up of “the elected” from those same local municipalities, it is critical that the integrity and transparency of this balanced construct, as well as the independence of the parts making up the whole, are maintained, as Dr. Lester describes above.

And that is why the Coastal Act includes a section of the law that covers the absolute necessity of transparency in the Public Process. Of course, this is required by all governments in conducting The People’s business. But this law, the Coastal Act, has a special section for this, which also REQUIRES the critical component of MAINTAINING THE PUBLIC TRUST. How many other laws have these special requirements built into them? This is necessary because the Coastal Act state law requires the strength and integrity of its framework for its own strength and integrity.

Coastal Act Section 30320 REQUIRES CONFIDENCE IN THE COMMISSION and in its practices and procedures. If it did not, the framework on which California’s overall coastal program is built would not avoid the very problems, of corruption and political interference, that it was built to protect against.

It is absolutely essential that the Commission maintain integrity, both real and perceived, and that it preserves and protects the Public Trust in the Commission; and it is a violation of the Coastal Act not to do so.

Dr. Lester said in his Public Statement on Wednesday that Public Participation is the heart of the Coastal Act. That wasn’t just a very nice and meaningful thing to say. He meant it in terms of it’s critical role.

The Coastal Act takes dramatic steps to safeguard the broader public interest of all Californians, with the protection of the right of all citizens to access the coast as one of its most important goals. The Commission has a duty to liberally construe the Coastal Act’s purposes and objectives, and safeguarding of the broader public interests must be given overriding consideration. This is a difficult task, up against such obstacles as corruption, greed, ideological entrenchment, special interest lobbyists and agents, and politically powerful local jurisdictions.

The fact that the Commission was set up to consist mainly of elected local officials doesn’t work for the purpose for which the Coastal Act came into existence, UNLESS it is combined with the absolute duty and requirement for that Commission to conduct ALL business transparently and to uphold the Public Trust. The delicate ecosystem of California’s Coastal Protection Program ONLY works if the elected officials that make up the Commission operate with the deepest commitment possible to their own independence, transparency, and integrity…..conducting the People’s business in an open, objective, and impartial manner.

All of those former Commissioners, all of those Public Officials, all of those organizations from all over California, virtually all of the employees of the Coastal Staff….and The Public, who all weighed in with their letters and their Public Comments at the Public Hearing……believed it would make a difference. And it should have made a difference. Someone said that including the membership of all of the organizations that were represented, the outpouring of support came from over a million Californians. It’s likely that many of them, if not most of them, have never gone so all out before on anything like this in their entire lives.

But the tragedy is that they were dissed….completely disrespected. It’s perhaps the worst example of ignoring and disrespecting constituents that most people are saying they have ever witnessed.

Unlike what the Commissioners who voted to oust Lester would like to have us all believe–that everything’s going to be just fine–sadly, it’s not going to be just fine, and it cannot be just fine, because the Public Trust has been breached.

And so it is now the Public’s civic duty, and even its moral imperative, to pursue and have this breach corrected.

What force was so strong, so powerful, and so overwhelming that the Commissioners saw fit to move ahead with their plan in the wake of this clear and all encompassing support for Dr. Lester? Where were those who were FOR his termination? Why didn’t they show up and speak up? Why was the campaigning for their position done by paid lawyers and/or behind closed doors?

This is a situation where The People outweigh big money and political corruption in the strength of their numbers.

We cannot just say “oh well, what’s done is done,” and go on with our lives and look forward to a new Executive Director who is even better, as some Commissioners would like us to do. What just happened was wrong and it must be righted.

If there is an issue with diversity of the Coastal Staff, let’s get a team working on it, including the assistance of the California State Human Resources division and our State Community College and University systems….if there is an issue of the Coastal Staff not providing information or full explanations that the Commissioners believe that they need, this should be brought up in the Public Eye and worked out, with professional help if necessary. If more controls over the process are needed, that is certainly something that Commissioners can insist on. But these are all things that are common problems and can be fairly easily fixed.

What is priceless and irreplaceable is the persona of Dr. Charles Lester and what he represents to The People. His Rock Star-like popularity to The People of California is a rare thing indeed. We need to question the sensibilities of any Board or Commission that would not recognize this, understand its value, and attempt to capitalize on it. This fact might have been somewhat surmised before this “event,” but upon learning of the great Public support of Lester’s leadership and management of California’s Coastal Protection Program, the obvious reaction would have been to adjust and reconsider how the Commissioners’ concerns could be otherwise addressed while keeping Lester in the job, including whether they were valid reasons for termination to begin with, and important enough to the overall goals of the Coastal Act to cause this level of disruption.

And lastly, if this move by the Commissioners is in fact motivated by our Governor and our Secretary of Natural Resources, as a result of the political forces of lobbyists, big money and greedy developers, SHAME ON THEM. They tried to hide behind the non-transparency of the Commissioners who were doing their bidding, but in the end it was just simply all too obvious. The unprofessionalism and bad intent with which this termination scheme was pursued, and the inability and unwillingness to have the sense to adjust their strategy for solving their issues another way when it became clear that what they were proposing was against the strong will of The People and their representatives, is a lesson in how democracy does NOT work.

It’s also clear that any replacement Executive Director would be extraordinarily heavily scrutinized by the same dignitaries, former Commissioners, Public Officials, organizations, employees and members of the Public who expressed their extreme support of Lester, which would also cause unnecessary and costly interference with the Coastal Program.

There is a saying, “how you do anything is how you do everything.” Our elected officials MUST investigate this breach of the Public Trust and bring us a satisfactory solution, hopefully one that reinstates Dr. Charles Lester and that cleanses the Commission of those who do not agree with the Coastal Act law’s requirements of independence, transparency and integrity.

Just like the way in which the Coastal Act must be implemented and enforced, there can be no exceptions or breaches. As Peter Douglas stated above, this is a law By the People, For the People, and that fact cannot be denied or pushed aside for any reason.

We cannot let our Coastal Commission be “captured” by those it is meant to regulate.

We must have a Commission that can live up to the greatness of the great law it is in place to protect. The People will accept nothing less.