6/20/2014
The California Coastal Commission can now fine property owners who illegally block public access to beaches, putting new teeth into a 38-year-old environmental law, under a budget trailer bill that Gov. Jerry Brown signed Friday.
The commission's new power could affect landowners all up and down California's coast, including Silicon Valley billionaire Vinod Khosla, who has been sued by environmentalists for locking the public out of Martins Beach on the San Mateo County coast.
Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins, D-San Diego, had carried a bill last year to empower the commission, but it fell a few votes short of passage when some fellow Democrats got cold feet at the last minute. She finally succeeded Friday by slipping the bill through as part of the $108 billion state budget package.
"This is a good outcome, I'm pleased about it," she said soon after Brown signed the bill. "We got lots of feedback and support from our regular Californians, and I feel pretty comfortable that I haven't gone out on a limb."
But property-rights advocates are crying foul. Damien Schiff, a principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, said landowners will now bear the burden of suing the commission if they feel a fine is improper.
"A lot of property owners would say the potential downside risk -- the value of the penalties and the costs of litigating -- could be so high that, even if that property owner was 100 percent certain that he's right on the law, it wouldn't be worth it to him," Schiff said, calling the new law "a significant game-changer."
"Now we just have to wait and see how the commission will use this power," he added. "And I would not be surprised if the commission ultimately asks for an expansion of this power."
Atkins called those fears "as of yet unfounded, and unreasonable. ... I don't think the Coastal Commission will overreach."
Brown, Atkins and other Democratic lawmakers say the budget signed into law Friday will pay down the state's debt, start shoring up the teachers' pension system, build a solid rainy-day fund and send more money to local schools and health care. It will finance preschool for all low-income 4-year-olds; overtime pay for in-home aides who care for the elderly and disabled; and a 10 percent increase over last year in spending on public schools.
Republicans felt that the budget was too bloated and that it's a back-room deal negotiated by Democrats; some Democrats said the state should be spending more on schools, Medi-Cal and other programs.
The Coastal Commission, responsible for protecting, restoring and enhancing the state's coastline, until now lacked authority to issue fines. The 1976 law that established the commission let it collect money only by taking violators to court; with limited staffing and money, it does so only rarely and built up a huge backlog of violations.
The bill signed Friday grants narrower authority than Atkins' AB 976 would have. The commission can now levy fines only for public-access violations; it still must go to court to seek penalties for any other violations, such as damaging wetlands or building without permits.
Warner Chabot, an environmental consultant and former CEO of the California League of Conservation Voters, said that of almost 2,000 outstanding Coastal Act violations, most involve blocking access, removing access signs or posting illegal and unauthorized "no parking" or "no beach access" signs.
"The beach is one of the last free sources of public recreation for working-class people," said Chabot. "The issue of maintaining public access to the coast is a winning issue across the political spectrum ... yet historically the commission runs into a buzz-saw of opposition from a multitude or lobbyists and powerful interests in Sacramento," he added.
Beach access is a touchy subject all up and down California's coast. In the most recent high-profile case, Khosla has been sued for locking a gate on the road that leads to Martins Beach, south of Half Moon Bay. The Coastal Commission isn't involved in that case but now has the power to fine Khosla if it finds he violated the law; neither a commission spokeswoman nor Khosla's attorney returned calls and emails inquiring about this Friday.
State Sen. Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo, has carried a bill that would require the State Lands Commission to negotiate or seize a right-of-way across Khosla's land to provide beach access. The Senate passed Hill's bill in May on a 22-11, and the Assembly Judiciary Committee is scheduled to hear it Tuesday.
