The Los Angeles Times might want to do its homework before it makes a saint of California Coastal Commissioner and Malibu resident Sara Wan, whose beach-squatting stunt at Broad Beach was prominently covered in the August 25 California section. (“A Malibu Civics Lesson: Beach is Open”). The next day a Times editorial (“Free to Sit on the Sand”) went a step further and praised Wan for being around “to show what’s right” in defending public access to private beaches.
Wan is well-known to Malibu residents, and not for doing what’s right. Her husband, Larry, was elected to Malibu’s first city council in 1990, but resigned in a huff two years later after voters removed his council allies. In 1996, Wan secured herself an appointment to the Coastal Commission, a position she has consistently abused in waging a political war of vengeance against Malibu’s citizens and her enemies on the city council, determined to impose her will on a community that wouldn’t think of electing her to office. As the Commission’s chair from 1999 through 2002, she oversaw the contentious battle over Malibu’s state-mandated Local Coastal Plan, refusing to recuse herself from the proceedings despite obvious conflict of interest involving her own property.
Had the Times bothered to dig just a little they would have uncovered a litany of other ethical violations, conflicts of interest and dishonorable behaviors in stark contrast to the holy crusader they attempted to depict in their August 26 editorial. Even Wan’s colleagues on the Coastal Commission have publicly characterized her leadership as abrasive and contentious, sentiments, which contributed to her ouster as chair this last December.
As for the matter of “beach access,” it should be pointed out that the United States Supreme Court previously ruled in 1987’s Nollan vs. the California Coastal Commission that the practice of demanding property easements in exchange for permits was an “out-and-out plan of extortion” that violated the takings clause of the fifth amendment to the United States Constitution. The Coastal Commission simply refuses to abide by the ruling, daring beach residents to take it to court instead. Hence, Wan’s sit-in not only broke the law, but perpetuated the arrogant Coastal Commission propaganda that their illegal extortion scam is, in fact, legal.
The truth is that Wan’s protest photo-op-conspicuously arranged with the cooperation of Times photographer Al Seib-had nothing to do with “what’s right” and everything to do with drawing attention away from the mounting legal troubles faced by the California Coastal Commission and its entrenched, intransigent executive director, Peter Douglas.
No, Sara Wan doesn’t know a thing about what’s right. And neither, it seems, does the Los Angeles Times.
Wade Major