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Los Angeles Times/ - Politics, Qua, 04 de Abril de 2012
CLIPPING INTERNACIONAL (Supreme Court)
Peter M. Douglas dies at 69; California
Coastal Commission chief
As a child crossing the English Channel with his family
to immigrate to America, Peter M. Douglas was
mesmerized by the churning seas and his first sighting
of a whale, an experience that he said forged an
"intangible, unbreakable, lifelong bond" with the ocean
that deepened as he grew up in Southern California.
That fondness for the ocean would later lead him to
become one of the fiercest and most controversial
guardians of the state's 1,100-mile-long coastline who
battled to preserve its natural beauty and public
access to its beaches.
He was the main author of California's landmark
coastal protection law and for more than a
quarter-century was executive director of the California
Coastal Commission, the powerful regulatory agency
he helped create.
Douglas, 69, who died Sunday at his sister's home in
La Quinta, relinquished his day-to-day duties at the
commission last June after a cancer diagnosis and
retired in November.
He was a seminal figure in conservation as the
principal author of Proposition 20, a grass-roots
initiative approved by voters in 1972 that created the
California Coastal Commission and gave it control over
development along the state's coast. He later helped
write the 1976 Coastal Act, a landmark law that
became a model for other states and countries and
made the commission a permanent body with an
unusual degree of autonomy.
As executive director since 1985, Douglas guided the
12-member commission on many contentious issues,
including blocking offshore oil drilling and leasing,
sharply restricting coastal construction and expanding
public access to the beach. He and his staff settled a
number of complex disputes involving coastal
resources, including an unprecedented expansion plan
for the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach that
added 500 acres of landfills and cargo terminals while
compensating for the loss of marine habitats.
"Peter maintained public access to the coast so that it
wasn't just something that belonged to the rich," said
Warner Chabot, former executive director of the
California League of Conservation Voters. "Probably
his greatest achievement wasn't what you see," he
added, "but rather a political achievement .? He
created a commission that enabled citizens to take
direct action to protect their coast and be seen as
equals with the very rich and powerful landowners
along the coast."
In the process, Douglas made many enemies. Both
Democrats and Republicans tried to remove him from
his post and slashed the commission budget.
Developers campaigned strenuously to reduce his and
the commission's influence, persuading the U.S.
Supreme Court in 1987 to limit the panel's power to
carve public access ways into private ocean-front
property in exchange for granting building permits to
the property owner.
The most fundamental challenge came in 2002, when
critics led by the conservative Pacific Legal Foundation
won lower-court rulings that found the method for
selecting commission members unconstitutional, which
threatened to overturn hundreds of commission
decisions. The conflict was settled by the California
Supreme Court, which rejected the critics'
arguments.
"The goals and objectives of the Coastal Act are to
better the environment, give due-process rights and
protect the liberties of property owners. Unfortunately
Peter Douglas and the Coastal Commission ignored
the protections that are guaranteed in the act," said
attorney Ronald Zumbrun, a frequent adversary who
led the unsuccessful constitutional challenge.
At the same time Zumbrun acknowledged that Douglas
brought formidable skills to his leadership of the
agency. "Peter has been such a dominant person and
so effective in his maneuvering and political instincts, I
doubt anyone can match that," Zumbrun said.
Bearded and fond of wearing Birkenstock sandals to
the office, Douglas described himself as a "radical
pagan heretic," who often spoke of his deep spiritual
bond with nature.
He was initially diagnosed with throat cancer in 2004
and was declared cancer-free in 2010 before
discovering a month later that he had advanced lung
cancer.
As his cancer progressed, he wrote of his beliefs about
life and death in lengthy, highly philosophical emails to
friends. He halted mainstream Western medical
treatment in favor of Eastern therapies, abandoned his
strict vegan diet and wound up outliving his doctors'
dismal prognoses by many months, applying the same
drive and optimism to his personal fight as he had to
his job as chief steward of California's coast.
"Part of the reason for his success is he was not the
typical bureaucrat," said Melvin L. Nutter, who was
commission chairman when Douglas was promoted to
executive director. "He was a poetic visionary. His
vision ? helped sustain the coastal program as well as
his career."
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