The California Coastal Commission (CCC) voted 7-5 to dismiss its executive director, Dr. Charles Lester, during its Wednesday, Feb. 10 meeting in Morro Bay, Calif. With Lester’s firing effective immediately, Senior Deputy Director Jack Ainsworth will temporarily take over his responsibilities until an interim director is selected.
The meeting, which began at 10 a.m. Wednesday and ran until almost 9:30 p.m., included over six hours dedicated to statements of support for Lester from hundreds of environmental leaders, activists, staff members and private citizens from around California.
Most in the audience appeared to believe the proposed dismissal of Lester would pave the way for a less conservation-minded staff to allow more development along the coast.
Former commissioner Mel Nutter was one of a handful of former CCC panelists who came to speak in support of Lester, referencing a letter signed by 35 commissioners who argued for the retention of Lester.
“I’m one of those [former commissioners] that signed that letter … the 35 commissioners who wanted you to know that we believe that Charles Lester should be retained, not simply because of who Charles is, but because of our perception of the symbolism and the importance that your decision will make, in terms of the entire coastal program,” Nutter said.
At the start of the meeting, Lester delivered a lengthy statement regarding his background, vision and goals for improvement of the CCC.
“The path forward to deal with [complicated] situations is to communicate better and more clearly about what people are hearing and saying,” Lester said. “We are committed to improving communication with the commission.”
His words, it would seem, were too little, too late.
Votes were cast in closed session, which raised eyebrows among an already skeptical audience; however, many commissioners spoke up to provide long-awaited rationale for why Lester’s employment was put under review — not at all, they claimed, because of his environmental-mindedness.
Commissioner Mark Vargas, who in the end voted to terminate Lester’s employment, said that CCC staff under Lester were unable to provide necessary and timely information for commissioners to make informed decisions.
“I’m not sure whether we are purposely being denied this information or whether there is no way of knowing, but either way it is unacceptable,” Vargas lamented.
“The Coastal Act is stronger than one man,” Vargas later added, likely in response to comments from public speakers who seemed to suggest firing the executive director was tantamount to trashing the 40-year-old document.
Along with Vargas, Commissioners Olga Diaz, Erik Howell, Martha McClure, Wendy Mitchell, Effie Turnbull-Sanders and Roberto Uranga voted to dismiss Lester.
Chairman Steve Kinsey and Commissioners Mary Shallenberger, Dayna Bochco, Carole Groom and Mary Luévano voted in favor of retaining him.
“Obviously, I’m disappointed in the vote, but I do want to say it’s been a privilege to serve the commission as executive director for the past four to five years,” an emotional Lester said following the report of the vote. “I’ve worked hard, I’ve accomplished a lot and hopefully that work continues into the future, so thank you for the honor to have served.”
After the meeting, Kinsey said complaints about Lester had to do with leadership, communication and other issues not related to conservation.
“I want to emphasize — I didn’t hear any commissioners say they wanted to see [a reduction in] the standards for coastal protection of natural resources,” Kinsey told The Malibu Times.
Kinsey also said commissioners would be looking for the next executive director to “care as deeply about the coast as the four preceding directors.”
Kinsey stated that the whole situation was “unfortunate,” and that commissioners would have to “restore the trust” of the public.
Commissioner Uranga stated during the meeting that it would not have been proper to share details about Lester’s job performance with members of the press before the meeting.
“We can’t talk about it. The executive director has rights, and I’m not going to air out his dirty laundry to the press,” Uranga said. “I’m not going to air it to anybody.”
“We still can’t get into details of what got us to this point,” Uranga added. “We’re here for reasons.”
Why Uranga and the other commissioners kept mum about why Lester was on the chopping block — both he and Kinsey cited vague “reasons” — remains a source of angst between the conservation community and commissioners. For his part, CCC Staff Counsel Chris Pederson said in effect that commissioners had been free to discuss the agenda item and could have cleared the air with the public before Wednesday’s showdown.
“So by requesting that public hearing … [Lester] consented to public discussion regarding commissioners’ evaluation of his job performance and how that leads to the final decision commissioners will make regarding whether or not to dismiss him,” Pederson explained. “The limitation on public discussion by commissioners is specifically about specific comments of the evaluation forms [and] the closed session discussions that have happened in the past.”
This was news to commissioners, they claimed.
“I think that the confusion comes because it’s a very unusual situation in which personnel matters are discussed in public. Commissioners are not used to that,” Kinsey said.
“I want to strongly emphasize that I think it was unfortunate that it was turned into a black and white, evil versus good debate, when in fact the issues are much more authentic and substantial than that,” Kinsey told The Malibu Times. “At the same time, I do believe we can learn from this and it’s going to take the whole community, from the public, to the staff to the commission itself, to recover from this. I don’t think any commissioner is joyful about this — I think all of us see it as our sober responsibility to restore the trust and continue to protect the coast.”
