(Aug. 24 UPDATE) -- As carried LIVE on LBREPORT.com, the Assembly did NOT take up SB 798 (second attempt to change state law to let LB Mayor Garcia back on Coastal Comm'n, this time as an alternate, also affects handful of other Mayors (including L.A.) who have no voting power)...and the Assembly's next legislative session is Thursday Aug. 27. At that time, the bill will be part of a number of bills on the "2nd day consent calendar" (because they had no "no" votes in the Assembly) and will be taken up as a group UNLESS an Assemblymember pulls the bill for discussion. LBREPORT.com is on record editorially objecting to SB 798's passage in its current form on the grounds stated in the editorial below.

If an Assemblymember pulls the bill for discussion, it's then discussed on the next legislative day. LBREPORT.com's editorial position is that the current secretive, closed-door process for appointing Coastal Comm'n members for LA County and OC (in the state Senate Rules Committee) is an affront to openness and transparency, including public and press access, and needs to be opened up...and SB 798 can -- and should -- be amended on the Assembly floor to end the current closed-door process.

(Aug. 21, 2015) -- On Monday (Aug. 24), a Sacramento bill is scheduled to reach the Assembly floor dealing mainly with Fish & Game matters, but embedded in its text is a significant provision that could affect roughly 800 miles of CA's coastline. The provision was inserted to enable Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia to regain voting power on the CA Coastal Commission after the state Attorney General's office required him to exit the state body in 2014 under a procedural provision of current state law.

A portion of SB 798 would change that portion of state law, basically to suit Garcia (although it would also apply to a handful of other CA non-voting Mayors like him.) The bill will be on the Assembly's consent calendar, meaning it could pass without floor discussion unless at least one Assembly member seeks to discuss it. We explain below why that portion of the bill is very important, and Assembly members who are committed to openness, transparency and public and press access (whether they're Democrat or Republican) should pull the bill for discussion and shouldn't approve it unless it's amended to prevent what has happened thus far from happening again.

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SB 798 is the second attempt to change state law to accommodate Garcia because, like some CA Mayors (including L.A. Mayor Garcetti) he lacks local elected official voting power (that he had when he was first appointed to the Coastal Commission as a voting Councilmember.)

We cite below some of his actions as a Long Beach voting Councilmember. You decide whether those actions make him the best local elected official in L.A. and Orange Counties to protect the coast statewide on the Coastal Commission.

In December 2011, then-Councilman Garcia voted to approve a controversial development, adjacent to a major wetlands area at the city's most congested intersection, that exceeded LB coastal zone height limits. In doing so, he ignored a letter from the Coastal Commission's Long Beach office staff warning the City that the proposed action raised procedural issues under the Coastal Act. (A Council majority voted against the proposed development.)

In Nov. 2010, Councilman Garcia was captured on video texting and typing during sworn quasi-judicial hearing testimony under the CA Environmental Quality Act by an appellant (one of several) on issues including storing and transporting toxic sludge in their neighborhood. After the public testimony ended, Garcia ended his typing/texting and seconded a motion to overrule the residents' appeal. [Garcia later told LBREPORT.com at the time: "I may have sent a couple texts for probably no longer than 1 or two minutes total. It is common for me to send messages to my staff, or respond to them during a council meeting. They provide us with information and vice versa."]

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With this record, it's not clear that Garcia could have survived a serious public hearing on his 2013 appointment to an interim vacancy on the Coastal Commission. For appointment to a statewide-impacting position, one might expect public testimony, witnesses, questions and answers and accountability in a hearing open the public and the press. Garcia faced none of this.

Instead, the state Senate Rules Committee conducted a proceeding without publicly agendized notice; the public and the press were told to leave the hearing room; no witnesses testified publicly; no questions were asked or answered publicly; no recording (audio or video) was made; no minutes were kept; there's no public record of what matters Committee members considered or what they asked and what was answered or not answered.

LBREPORT.com invoked the CA Legislative Open Records Act to try and see document(s) considered by the Committee (including any submitted by Garcia); we were denied by the Committee [at the time chaired by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg (D, Sacramento), now chaired by state Senate President Pro Tem Senator Kevin de Leon (D., Los Angeles.)]

This Committee has routinely followed this non-transparent procedure on Coastal Commission appointees for years, although it's not required by state law. It wasn't something done specially for Garcia, but he gamed the system to exploit it.

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A few months after gaining the interim appointment, the state Senate Committee simply "re-appointed" Garcia to a full term on the Coastal Commission using the same non-transparent procedure. Now holding a full-term Coastal Commission position, Garcia's campaign to become Long Beach's Mayor held a fundraiser at the San Fernando Valley home of a fellow Coastal Commissioner. The invitation, sent by Garcia's Mayoral campaign, told recipients that Garcia was "the pro-business candidate, and wants Long Beach to strengthen it's [sic] name, 'The International City,' by making it an economically booming, world-class city that businesses want to be a part of." [The fundraiser was privately organized and lawful, to our knowledge not using any state or public resources.]

In the June 2014 Mayoral election, Garcia outspent his runoff opponent (aided by large contributions to an "independent expenditure committee") and prevailed with 52.04% of the vote. A few days after his victory party, Garcia learned to his dismay from the State Attorney General's office that under current state law he would have to exit the Coastal Commission since he was appointed as an elected local official (a voting Councilmember) and in Long Beach (and a few other large CA cities, including Los Angeles), the Mayor's office is a non-voting position.

Garcia and his allies responded by trying to change that state law.

The first attempt came in August 2014 using Sacramento's much criticized "gut and mend" procedure to erase text of an unrelated bill and insert new text that avoids normally required hearings. On August 13, 2014, Garcia traveled to Sacramento for what his office said was a meeting with Governor Brown and mayors of CA's nine largest cities...and also scheduled meetings with outgoing President pro tem/Rules Committee chair Darrell Steinberg (D;, Sacramento) and incoming President pro tem-elect Senator Kevin de León (D, Los Angeles) as well as Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins (D, San Diego). Garcia's office didn't publicly disclose the subject matter of his discussions but a few days after his Sac'to trip, a "gutted and amended" version of AB 1759 materialized that would let Garcia remain on the Coastal Commission.

On August 28, 2014 CapitolWeekly.net reported that Garcia's "allies in the state legislature are pushing what it called the "hastily amended bill" and said critics note that Garcia "has received campaign donations from lobbyists, land-use experts, developers and others. CapitolWeekly.com said state Senator Ricardo Lara (D., Long Beach/Huntington Park) is reportedly the "driver behind the bill." The revelations contributed to the bill's failure to advance in 2014 and Garcia exited the Coastal Commission as required under current law.

In March 2015, the state Senate Rules Committee used the same non-transparent procedure it used to appoint Garcia to choose Long Beach Councilman Roberto Uranga to fill Garcia's former position. Councilman Uranga is a political ally of Mayor Garcia and, like all Coastal Commissioners, can choose his or her alternate (with full power to vote in the Commissioner's absence.) In a display of candor at the July 8, 2015 Coastal Commission meeting, Commissioner Uranga publicly acknowledged that he tried to appoint Garcia as his voting alternate, but was effectively stymied (again) by current state law (this time by the doctrine of incompatible offices as applied to the alternate.) Accordingly, Uranga said his naming of Garcia as his alternate was in a "holding pattern" pending enactment of a change to state law.

Councilman/Coastal Commissioner Uranga told LBREPORT.com in July that if SB 798 passes and he is allowed to name Garcia as his alternate, he (Uranga) plans to remain on the Coastal Commission and has no intention of exiting to create a vacancy. "I am the Coastal Commissioner and Mayor Garcia would be my alternate," Commissioner Uranga said quite firmly.

The change to accommodate Garcia, embedded in SB 798, has passed the state Senate and is now on the Assembly floor awaiting a final vote as soon as Monday Aug. 24. On passage, the bill would return briefly to the state Senate for concurrence in Assembly amendments, and assuming passage would go to the Governor, and assuming he signs it, the bill with no urgency provision would take effect in January 2016.

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At that time, Commissioner Uranga could do what he's said he wants to do: appoint Garcia as his alternate. That would restore Garcia's Coastal Commission voting ability at any meetings Commissioner Uranga may choose not to attend.

There's a major Long Beach matter coming up that may prove prescient for future coastal actions statewide. Currently, zoning for southeast Long Beach is being re-written (an updated "Southeast Area Development and Improvement Plan" or SEADIP.) SEADIP's coastal zone areas have a 35 foot height limit protecting against higher-rise commercial development and environmentalists have fought to keep the adjacent Los Cerritos wetlands free from urbanized encroachments. A SEADIP re-write allowing higher rise buildings would significantly increase the area's value to commercial property owners and prospective developers...and allowing some sort of roadway across the wetlands (to bypass the congested PCH/2nd St. intersection) would reduce EIR objections to denser development on traffic impact grounds.

These coastal zone issues will eventually reach the Coastal Commission on which Mayor Garcia -- who voted for a development that would have exceeded current coastal zone height limits -- could have a Coastal Commission vote if SB 798 passes.

On Aug. 24, SB 798 will be on the Assembly's "consent calendar" and won't be discussed before a vote unless an Assembly member(s) chooses to do so. Will that come from Long Beach's first-term Assemblyman Patrick O'Donnell (D, LB)? O'Donnell recently expended political capital for Garcia, voting for SB 562 (authored by state Senator Lara at LB City Hall's request) that could extend LB taxpayer payments for a new Civic Center for up to half a century. The Civic Center project (pursued without seeking bids on a less costly City Hall seismic retrofit) is supported by Garcia and downtown interests but isn't broadly popular. After LBREPORT.com reported Assemblyman O'Donnell's vote supporting SB 562, he swiftly issued a statement distancing himself from the Civic Center project that the bill is designed to facilitate.

CA voters created the Coastal Commission in 1972 by initiative petition. The ballot measure's proponents said at the time that protecting CA's coast was too important to leave to Sacramento elected officials. Regardless of how one feels about Mayor Garcia's return to the Coastal Commission, the process by which he originally gained that power -- in which Sacramento politicians blocked public transparency, accountability and public and press oversight -- is an example of the political finagling that CA voters created the Coastal Commission to prevent.

Sacramento Democrats and Republicans committed to transparency, accountability and public and press access should object to consent calendar passage of SB 798. They should use the opportunity to move to add provisions to the bill, either in the current legislative session or early next year, to ensure that Coastal Commission appointments by the state Senate Rules Committee (which chooses Coastal Comm'n members for L.A. County and OC) take place in publicly agendized proceedings, with testimony pro and con with the public and press present.

LBREPORT.com plans to carry Monday's (Aug. 24) Assembly floor session LIVE starting at noon...and we'll watch closely what happens on SB 798.

To convey your views to Assemblyman O'Donnell, you can try using his Assembly contact page at this link. Express your views in your own words. If you happen to agree with us, you can say something like: "On Monday Aug. 24, please don't agree to consent calendar passage of SB 798. Move to add provisions to ensure that Coastal Commission appointments by the state Senate Rules Committee (which chooses Coastal Comm'n members for L.A. County and OC) take place in publicly agendized proceedings, with testimony pro and con with the public and press present." Tell him that openness and transparency are overdue in Sacramento and they matter to you...and you vote. Let us know what response you receive if you wish at mail@LBReport.com

Opinions expressed by LBREPORT.com, our contributors and/or our readers are not necessary those of our advertisers. We welcome our readers' comments/opinions 24/7 via Disqus, Facebook and moderate length letters and longer-form op-ed pieces submitted to us at mail@LBReport.com.