(Aug. 27, 2015, UPDATE) -- As seen LIVE on LBREPORT.com, the Assembly today (Aug. 27) approved without discussion or debate SB 798, a bill that includes a provision that would change state law to let Long Beach Mayor Robert Garcia, and a handful of other CA Mayors without voting power, serve on Coastal Comm'n including as alternates. (Background details below.)

Today's Assembly passage as a "consent calendar" item took place because no Assemblymember -- Dem or Repub -- sought discussion on the bill which had received no "no" votes in the Assembly process. The Assembly action sends the measure back to the state Senate (the originating house) for a reqiored vote on inclusion of other Assembly changes.

LBREPORT.com is on record objecting to SB 798's passage in its current form on the grounds stated in an editorial at this link. LBREPORT.com believes the state Senate Rules Committee's current secretive, closed door process in appointing Coastal Comm'n members for LA County and OC in the state Senate Rules Committee is an affront to openness and transparency, and to public and press access, and needs to be opened up. SB 798 could have been amended on the Assembly floor today; no Assemblymember rose to do so; we'll provide updates on the state Senate proceedings separately.

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Garcia's initial 2013 appointment to the Coastal Commission was conducted in a closed-door state Senate Rules Committee proceeding from which the public and press were required to leave the hearing room. Committee staff says no audio or video record was made of what took place; there's no public evidence of what matters Committee members considered or what they said; no outside witnesses were allowed to testify, pro or con.

SB 798 is the second Sac'to attempt to change state law to let Garcia regain voting power on the Coastal Commission after he was forced to exit in the summer of 2014 under a provision of current state law that requires appointees of the state Senate Rules Committee to be local electeds with voting authority...which Garcia lost in June 2014 when he sought and won election as LB's non-voting Mayor.

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The state Senate Rules Committee's non-transparent procedure has been followed by that Committee for years, although it isn't explicitly required under state law. A request by LBREPORT.com to see document(s) considered by the Committee (including any submitted by Garcia) under the CA Legislative Open Records Act was denied by Committee staff. The Committee was (under Garcia's initial appointment) chaired by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrel Steinberg (D, Sacramento); it's now chaired by his successor, state Senate President Pro Tem Senator Kevin de Leon (D., Los Angeles.)

The state Senate Rules Committee's selection of Garcia came despite his Dec. 2011 Long Beach Council vote in favor of a controversial development proposed at PCH/2nd St. (adjacent to the wetlands and Long Beach's most congested intersection) that exceeded LB's current coastal zone height limits. The Coastal Commission's Long Beach office staff had advised the City by letter that it considered the City's approval process procedurally defective under the Coastal Act. A Council majority voted against the proposed development; Garcia voted for it.

A year earlier during a quasi-judicial Council hearing (Nov. 2010), Garcia was captured on video during a resident's appeal under the CA Environmental Quality Act typing or texting on his Council Chamber computer during sworn hearing testimony. Garcia then went on to second a motion to overrule the resident's 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."]

When LBREPORT.com invoked the state's Legislative Open Records Act to see what materials the state Senate Rules Committee had considered on Garcia's appointment, the Committee refused to disclose any documents. (A Committee letter contended that the public interest in disclosure was outweighed by public interest in withholding; that the materials requested were "records of investigations conducted by the Legislature" and were "personnel files" for which disclosure would be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.)

The Coastal Commission has land use/permit authority along the entire length of CA's coast, making its decisions of high interest to coastal development interests...that are legally entitled to contribute sums to the campaigns of elected officials. Roughly ten months after he was appointed to the Coastal Commission, Garcia's Mayoral campaign held a fundraiser at the San Fernando Valley home of another Coastal Commissioner...and an invitation from 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...only to learn from the State Attorney General's office that under current state law he would have to exit the Coastal Commission since he now held a non-voting office. Garcia and his allies responded by trying to change that state law.

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Their 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 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 Garcia's discussions with the Dem legislative leadership but a "gut and amend" measure (AB 1759) materialized a few days after his Sacramento trip.

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.

In March 2015, the state Senate Rules Committee (using the same closed door procedure utilized to appoint Garcia) announced that it had chosen LB Councilman Roberto Uranga (a political ally of Garcia) to fill the position that Garcia was forced to vacate. A Coastal Commissioner has the ability to name his/her alternate (to vote in his/her absence.) In a display of candor at the July 8, 2015 Coastal Commission meeting, Commissioner Uranga publicly acknowledged that he tried to appoint Mayor Garcia as his voting alternate, but was effectively stymied (again) by current state law [doctrine of incompatible offices appied to the alternate]...and thus Uranga's naming of Garcia as his alternate is in a "holding pattern" pending enactment of a change to state law.

That proposed law is SB 798...and 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) will remain on the Coastal Commission and has no intention of exiting to create a vacancy that could be sought by Garcia. "I am the Coastal Commissioner and Mayor Garcia would be my alternate," Commissioner Uranga said [quite firmly.]

SB 798 is an omnibus bill mainly dealing with fish and game licenses...into which verbiage was inserted enabling LB's Mayor and a handful of other CA non-voting Mayors (including LA Mayor Garcetti) to serve on the Commission.

CA voters created the Coastal Commission in 1972 by initiative petition, with its proponents arguing that protecting CA's coast shouldn't be left to Sacramento politicians.

Developing.

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