Denial of anti-Iseman bid

Barbara Diamond

Public statements to the contrary, environmental groups denied

Wednesday a campaign to decommission Councilwoman Toni Iseman.

Iseman, whose term on the California Coastal Commission ended May

20, is seeking reappointment. The Sierra Club and the Surfrider

Foundation, which embraced her original appointment, said they have

made no recommendations against her reappointment, but they have

publicly questioned her commitment to their environmental goals.

“It’s very disappointing that the people she has supported have

turned on her,” said Mayor Elizabeth Pearson-Schneider, who has

developed a good working relationship with Iseman, despite a deep

philosophical and political divide.

“I respect Toni because she has learned over time, as I have, that

you have to work together to move forward. She has done a good job of

extracting benefits from developers and the people who oppose her

don’t understand that in the political reality, you have to accept

give and take.”

Both the Surfrider Foundation and the Sierra Club deny lobbying

against Iseman’s reappointment as an elected official to the

commission.

“It is our position that in each case of any open coastal

commission seat the appointing authority should call for lists of

interested, qualified local government officials,” club spokesman

Mark Masara said. “The Sierra Club makes its recommendations after

evaluating the submitted lists.”

Masara said it would be unfair to say Iseman has been targeted by

the Sierra Club, which has also asked for lists of candidates to be

submitted for Dave Potter’s seat.

Potter, whose term also ended on May 20, is an elected official in

Monterey County.

“Having an open process is critical to the integrity of the

commission,” Masara said. “There is cause for concern when

appointments are made behind closed doors. That is particularly true

of Dave Potter, who voted as a Monterey County Supervisor to approve

the removal of 17,000 pine trees from a Pebble Beach Co. property

even though the commission staff has made it clear that it is

illegal.”

Masara said the club has confidence in only three of the seated

commissioners’ commitment to the coastal environment.

“We are disappointed in Toni,” Masara said. “I’ve told her it

isn’t personal. Personally I like her, but we are desperate for

passionate environmentalists on the commission.”

Former Laguna Niguel councilman Eddie Rose, who would like to

replace Iseman on the commission, is less restrained. He is asking

people to call or write the governor or the chair of the state Senate

Rules Committee and demand that Iseman not be reappointed, although

the governor has no say in the appointment.

“It appears there is a full-court press to unseat me,” Iseman

said. “But when I took my oath for the commission, it was not to the

Surfriders or to the Sierra Club, but to the state of California.”

The commission is composed of 12 seats, six of them elected

officials, six not. Appointments are divided equally between the

governor, the state Assembly and the state Senate, with two to be

chosen from each category.

Iseman was appointed by John Burton, who termed out. Senate Pro

Tem Don Perata (D-Oakland) chairs the Senate Rules Committee, which

will fill the vacant seat.

At the time Iseman was appointed, there were no limits on the

term. Four months later, four-year terms were approved, with

appointments set for every two years. To establish the pattern, two

of Burton’s appointees were given four years, two were given two

years, Iseman said. She drew one of the two-year terms.

Iseman will continue to serve until an announcement is made on the

appointment.

“The rules committee has 60 days to make a decision,” committee

appointments director Nettie Sabelhaus said. “Lists (of candidates)

must be submitted by Orange County and Los Angeles.”

There is only one seat open for the two counties. Three of the

current commissioners are from Los Angeles, Iseman said, one

appointed by the governor and two by the legislature.

“If Toni is not reappointed, we could have no voice on the

commission,” Clean Water Now! founder Roger Von Butow said. “The

problem is that her supporters raised the bar so high, no one could

live up those expectations. It’s not fair for them to think she has

to vote their way all the time.”

Surfrider Foundation spokesman Rick Wilson said the group’s

position on Iseman is based on a voting chart compiled by the

foundation, the Sierra Club, Coastkeeper Alliance and the League for

Coastal Protection.

“The Foundation did not ask for Toni to be replaced,” Wilson said.

“We asked for her to be evaluated against other candidates. If she is

reappointed we would work with her.

Thirty-one commission votes in 2004 were analyzed, Wilson said.

According to those calculations, Iseman voted 34 percent of time in

accordance with the environmental groups. Her percentage was the

lowest of any of the senate appointments but higher than two of the

assembly appointments, one of whose terms also has ended.

Iseman earned her environmental spurs in Laguna Beach, where she

opposed development in Laguna Canyon.

Only in recent years has it become common knowledge that she was

the “phantom” of the canyon, planting anti-development signs along

the roadway, when a huge development seemed inevitable. Iseman fought

long and hard against the loss of peripheral parking at the ACT V lot

in the canyon and succeeded when she formed an alliance with

Pearson-Schneider.

She has been consistently critical of the deal the city cut with

Athens Group for the redevelopment of the Treasure Island Mobile Home

At the May 17 council meeting, Iseman voted, against the advice of

the city attorney, to deny the construction of a home on a lot on an

unmapped watercourse, but deemed a legal building site years ago

because she thought it was an environmental disaster waiting to

happen and unsafe.

Iseman devoutly believes in the importance of the commission.

“It would have been a tragedy for the California coast if the

commission had not been in effect for the past 30 years,” Iseman

said.