In 1976, millions of Californians were told by the Legislature that “the placement or erection… on land in or under water… of any solid material or structure” was prohibited unless they had a permit from the state (C.A. Sec. 30600, 30106). Under pretense of “saving the coast,” and by the enactment of a set of questionable laws, the so-called California Coastal Commission has taken total control of the use of millions of acres of land and water. Such simple acts as erecting an umbrella in a backyard, fencing a garden, placing a mooring on the sea bottom and farming avocados rather than grapes are no more the liberty of millions of Californians.
Moreover, and in violation of the constitutional law of Separation of Powers, the 1976 legislators have granted the California Coastal Commission (CCC) the legislative, executive and judicial powers of government. Since 1976, in California, a nonelected 12-member commission and a nonelected executive director control millions of people while they themselves are uncontrolled.
The judicial activity of the CCC, which is unconstitutional, is a perfect example of perverted justice. The CCC’s commissioners, acting as judges, are politically appointed. They are often willingly or unknowingly misled. The CCC’s executive director, Peter Douglas, has made of his staff a bureaucratic machine capable to fabricate false information at will. Due process does not exist. The CCC’s justice is a mockery of justice, as it is in totalitarian countries.
As a government agent, Peter Douglas is scary. The 1976 Coastal Act, which he wrote himself, gives him the arbitrary power to accuse any coastal inhabitant of violating the law. He can ruin whom he wants, and so he does. Commissioners with a 2-year mandate dare not counter the powerful director who has been in place for 26 years. Douglas controls the commission, which is supposed to control him.
Contrary to the policy of decentralization recommended by political scientists and pursued by the presidents of the USA during the past 30 years, the CCC is reinventing the centralization of government. It duplicates and supersedes local governments and agencies, nullifies property rights, and extends its authority everywhere it can. The CCC indulges itself in the ill of megalomania.
Rodolphe Streichenberger