Gov. Gavin Newsom is looking for a new Central Coast representative to serve on the California Coastal Commission, and Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, and Ventura counties nominated a few familiar faces for the position on March 16. Santa Barbara City Councilmember Meagan Harmon stands out as the only nominee to receive support from groups in all three counties.
“As a real estate and land use lawyer, I do understand how challenging it can be to work at the intersection of the Coastal Act and private property rights, and I understand how important it is that we’re sensitive to both,” Harmon said at a SLO County Board of Supervisors meeting on March 16, where supervisors nominated Harmon for the Central Coast seat. “I love our coast. I’m committed to protecting it, but it’s also vital that we move beyond entrenchment to all the problems of our time. I wrote about this in my letter, but issues like affordable housing, like job creation, these are connected to the Coastal Commission.”
Harmon was raised in Lompoc and has served on the Santa Barbara City Council as a progressive Democrat since February 2019. Throughout her time in Santa Barbara, Harmon said she’s witnessed first-hand how issues like climate change, coastal erosion, private property rights, and affordable housing are all intertwined.
“We have to work toward the solutions to real problems that are facing real Californians,” Harmon told the Sun, “and I see the Coastal Commission as part of that equation.”
The Santa Barbara County Board of Supervisors also nominated Harmon for the South Central Coast seat, along with 1st District Supervisor Das Williams. Williams has years of experience in both local and state politics, serving first on the Santa Barbara City Council for seven years before a six-year stint in the California State Assembly. He was elected to his position on the Board of Supervisors in 2016.
Williams said at a March 16 Board of Supervisors meeting that as an Isla Vista native and surfer, he’s deeply passionate about coastal preservation.
“And yet I find that so much of the potential that could be reached in the deliberations of the commission is lost in a fundamental disconnect with local government,” he said.
This disconnect, Williams said, often leads to overly stringent decisions on the commission’s part and lesser outcomes for both the coast and local communities. It’s not just that the Coastal Commission goes up against developers hoping to build within coastal zones, he said.
“It’s that it butts its head with local government about how to approach environmental community,” Williams said, “when often local communities know the body politic, know the stakeholders, and know the science well enough that they should be supported.”
The California Coastal Commission is made up of 12 voting members and three non-voting members charged with regulating land and water use on the coast. All voting members are appointed to the Coastal Commission by the governor, the Senate Rules Committee, or the speaker of the Assembly, and half of the voting members are local elected officials in specific coastal districts. In 2014, former Gov. Jerry Brown appointed former Pismo Beach City Council member Erik Howell to the commission to represent the South Central Coast, which consists of SLO, Santa Barbara, and Ventura counties.
Howell served on the Coastal Commission until he lost his bid for reelection to the Pismo Beach City Council in November 2020, leaving the South Central Coast seat up for grabs. Once supervisors and city selection committees—groups made up of representatives from each city in a county—in the Tri-Counties have all nominated elected officials for the position, the governor may vet and appoint one of the officials nominated, or ask for new nominations.
In Ventura County, the Board of Supervisors nominated Ventura County Supervisor Linda Parks, and the city selection committee nominated Harmon, along with Oxnard City Councilmembers Vianey Lopez and Gabriela Basua, and Port Hueneme City Councilmember Laura Hernandez. The Santa Barbara County city selection committee nominated Harmon and Williams on March 18, and on March 19, the SLO County city selection committee nominated Harmon and Morro Bay Mayor John Headding.
“I’ve known John for a long time, I’ve served on boards and commissions and met with him at mayors’ meetings and I have the deepest respect,” Pismo Beach Mayor Ed Waage said at the city selection committee meeting on March 19. “He’s very thorough, he’s very knowledgeable, he digs into issues. … At the same time, Meagan Harmon has got experience on the City Council in Santa Barbara. With her background in law and property issues, I think she would also be a good person to represent this region on the Coastal Commission. And I’m prepared to support both of them.”
This article appears in Mar 25 – Apr 1, 2021.
