AUDIO: Coastal Commissioner / LB Councilman Roberto Uranga Tells LBREPORT.com Why He (1) Voted Against Deliberating On Exec. Director In Public; (2) Disagrees With Advice Offered By Coastal Comm'n Chief Counsel And Told Him So; And (3) Why (Gen'l Areas) He Voted To Dismiss Coastal Comm'n Executive Director</small>

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Coastal Comm'n Follow-Up / Detailed Coverage

AUDIO: Coastal Commissioner / LB Councilman Roberto Uranga Tells LBREPORT.com Why He (1) Voted Against Deliberating On Exec. Director In Public; (2) Disagrees With Advice Offered By Coastal Comm'n Chief Counsel And Told Him So; And (3) Why (Gen'l Areas) He Voted To Dismiss Coastal Comm'n Executive Director

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(Feb. 15, 2016, 8:45 p.m.) -- LBREPORT.com provides extended audio below of a conversation that took place in the 2 p.m. hour today (Feb. 15) with Coastal Commissioner / Long Beach Councilmember Roberto Uranga.

Commissioner Uranga told us why he voted against a motion to conduct the Commission deliberations on dismissing the Executive Director in public; why he disagreed with the advice on publicly deliberating on the matter offered by the Coastal Commission's Chief Counsel and told him so; and why he voted to dismiss the Coastal Commission's Executive Director (closed session, 7-5 vote.)

To launch audio, click here.
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We also sought Commissioner Uranga's opinion on our perspective piece earlier today (Feb. 15) that state Senate Rules Committee should change its current practice and hold public hearings (instead of closed door actions) in making Coastal Comm'n appointments. ...

By way of context, LBREPORT.com contacted Commissioner Uranga earlier in the day and left a voice mail message to give him a courtesy "heads up" on the perspective piece. Commissioner Uranga returned our call at about 2 p.m. and indicated a williness to have a somewhat broader discussion about the Feb. 10 Coastal Commission action, so we did, and both us agreed that LBREPORT.com would record the conversation for accuracy.

In addition, we asked Commissioner Uranga about our perspective piece on changing the state Senate Rules Committee's current practices on appointing Coastal Commissioners and also sought his responses on some other related matters.

Since our discussion extended for more than a few minutes, and preparing a transcript would take considerable time, we suggested and Councilman Uranga agreed that LBREPORT.com could webpost the audio of our discussion. It's "smoothed" (similar to the way written transcripts elsewhere are sometimes smoothed) to remove digressions, side issues and the like that occur in extemporaneous discussions. On the substantive matters discussed, it's accurate.