At the time of the 2010 Edge/Evans application, then-California Coastal Commission Deputy Director Jack Ainsworth admitted that the proposal was in violation of the Coastal Act, but he ultimately approved it.
Last year in a civil trial, a member of the commission, Mark Vargas, recounted that in the past, he had a meeting with Evans at a concert in Dublin just before the commission’s approval of his project, which Vargas supported. Vargas and his fellow commissioners at the time had been accused by the group Spotlight on Coastal Corruption of failing to follow a provision of the state’s Coastal Act, which requires commissioners to promptly report private meetings with citizens or companies lobbying for their causes to be heard by the commission.
Vargas is still sitting on the commission but, thankfully, will be termed out this May.
In 2017, the commission, under Ainsworth, who was newly appointed California Coastal Commission director, approved the Edge’s project in spite of the LCP violations and the commission’s overstepping of authority. The Sierra Club appealed.
On March 21, the California Court of Appeals acted on the Sierra Club’s appeal of the Edge project approval and nullified the commission’s approval.
This violation of the LCP/Coastal Act is reminiscent of then-Deputy Director Ainsworth’s decision in 2006 to support a developer’s scheme to privatize/vacate Ellice Street, a public street here at Ventura County Line, Malibu.
The scheme was appealed by my neighbor and two California Coastal Commissioners—Appeal A-4-VNT-07-009.
The vacation of Ellice was denied by the CCC on April 9, 2008, defeated 10-1.
Why would then Deputy Director Ainsworth eagerly support such a Coastal Act violation?
Reassuringly, we have the Sierra Club and the Spotlight on Coastal Corruption to keep a watchful eye on the current California Coastal Commission’s dubious leadership.
Pamela Campbell