Passing of the old guard
Peter Douglas passed away Sunday. Peter was an environmental icon, and for 25 years was the executive director of the California Coastal Commission. Unquestionably, Peter has left his personal stamp on the California coast. How you might feel about that personal stamp is due in no small measure to whether you were a homeowner trying to build or rebuild a house, an environmental group, a city, a county, a special district, a tree hugger or hater, and everything in between. The Peter Douglas story was always a bit like the movie ?Rashomon.? What you saw depended on whose eyes you used to see it. For a number of years, Malibu had its own problems with Peter and the Coastal Commission. The longtime, if periodically rocky, alliance between Peter Douglas and Malibu?s Sara Wan generally had the city coming out on the short end. Recently, with Peter retired and Sara gone, and many new commissioners appointed, that relationship has improved significantly.
The Coastal Act is a strange beast, and the Coastal Commission even stranger still. The act itself was a trade-off of control and power among the stakeholders along the coast. The Coastal Commission and the local governments were to share control of the coast. Private and public interest were to share the right to use the coast and access the beaches. Development and preservation were to be balanced. Commerce was to be encouraged, but controlled. The entire act was a series of checks and balances presided over by a 12-person board, which itself was divided, with four appointed by the governor, four appointed by the speaker, the leader of the Assembly, and four appointed by the Senate pro tem, the leader of the Senate. That was the way it was supposed to work, but Peter always had his own agenda, and it never included what the legislature may have had in mind, nor often what some of the commissioners might have had in mind.
Over the 25 years Karen and I have owned the newspaper I?ve had a chance to watch Peter close up, and like many others I have very mixed feelings. On one hand, his desire to protect the coast was very real and came from a deep conviction that the coast belonged to the citizens of California, and that no special interest should control it. The problem is that Peter seemed to define a special interest as any group or individual he wasn?t particularly sympathetic to. In that regard Peter, European born, was really kind of a 1930s European socialist, skeptical of private property rights and not at all unwilling to stretch the law as far as the courts would allow him, which in California was generally quite far.
Peter?s political and manipulative skills were remarkable. Over the years there were several attempts to kick him out. At one point there was a Republican governor and a Republican Assembly speaker, and Peter looked like toast. Somehow Peter managed to turn a couple of the Republicans around, and when the dust had settled there was Peter still standing and still the executive director, which was nothing short of remarkable.
There were also a number of attempts in the legislature to clip Peter?s wings, reduce the power of the commission, or limit him by cutting the commission?s budget. In the main, all those attempts failed.
Last year Capitol Weekly, our newspaper in Sacramento, held an all-day conference on the California Coastal Commission. It was probably the first time anyone had taken a serious and systematic look at the commission in years. We invited Peter to be the keynote speaker, and, not to put too fine a point on it, the coastal staff was somewhat apprehensive that we were going to do a hatchet job on Peter, so Peter and I, our editor and one of his people had lunch to talk about it beforehand. It was clear to us that he was very ill, but Peter was quite out front about where he was coming from, and when I suggested to him that after his talk we open it up to the audience and let them have their shot at him he said, ?Sure, no problem.?
We had our conference and Peter?s keynote speech was very articulate. Afterward, he took on all comers in the Q&A and if the disease had worn him down, it sure didn?t show.
I guess in time we will know the staying power of Peter?s legacy but I don?t think any of us, whether fans or opponents, will ever forget Peter Douglas.