Last week, in what has been characterized as a "highly unusual" action, State Senate President 
Pro-Tem Don Perata convened a hastily called meeting of the Senate Rules Committee where, with no notice (and on a party-line vote), he "rushed through" a reappointment of Sara Wan as a State Senate appointee to the California Coastal Commission. Sara Wan is the ultra-liberal former Chairman of the Commission who has been at the center of many controversies. Why would Perata "rush" this at the last minute, on the date her term was set to expire?
First of all, there are really only three groups of people out there who really know who Wan is…
1) The eco-nut, ultra-leftist, anti-human activists (the base from which Wan comes, and from where she derives her support). These folks are the ones who believe that there is some sort of moral equivalance between the El Oro Parakeet and… people!
2) The poor victims of Ms. Wan’s influence on the Commission — which would primarily be those property owners who have gone to extreme lengths to try to mitigate any negative environment impact to the use of their property in the coastal zone, not realizing that there is no such achievable goal with Wan. Her goal would be to render all property on the coast as unusable by humankind.
3) Her fellow Coastal Commissioners and the close group of ‘constituents’ around the Commission (staff, consultants, lobbyists) — all of whom have had to suck-it-up and deal with that fact that Wan is not only liberal, but is probably one of the rudest, meanest and shallow people to hold a position of public trust here in the Golden State.
Over the past few months, I have penned a few stories relating to the Coastal Commission. These have ranged from the Commission’s role in reviewing (and ultimately disapproving) an application to place a needed liquified natural gas platform off of the California coast where it can help get fuel to PEOPLE (the same "people" that Sara Wan likely wishes would simply all move to Arizona, and stop populating coastal California). I have also written about some of the insider-mechanations behind some ill-advised legislation introduced by Assemblyman Lloyd "I don’t have a coastal district" Levine that would have, in practice, ended hotel resort development along the coast. I am convinced that Commission Executive Director Peter Douglas played a key role in having that legislation proposed. But that is a different story.
Why did Senator Perata ‘rush through’ her re-appointment, with no notice (after the back-room "spin" was that she might not be reappointed?) — presumably Perata, who understands how unpopular Wan is with California moderates (never mind the conservatives), did not want to get into a public, protracted debate over whether Wan should be reappointed. Perata chose to listen to the eco-nut activists and now Californians are going to have to endure years more of Wan’s snarky demeanor, questionable dealing, and ultra-left wing views.
PERATA SHOULD HAVE REJECTED WAN’S REAPPOINTMENT
If you need some reasons why Don Perata should have rejected pressure from the eco-nuts and let Sara Wan’s term on the Coastal Commission Expire:
Sara Wan has a big mouth. She yells at people in meetings, and she says rude things from the diaz. On behalf of her special interest eco-nut friends. Here is a video of Wan spewing out her leftist rhetoric, ironically bashing Arnold for attempting to "greenwash" people into thinking he is an environmentalist. It’s enough to make one ill.
Sara Wan is so extreme in her ideology and in her temperment that back in 2002, the Democrats had to clean up their own mess. Wan was actually serving as Chairman of the Commission (all twelve commissioners were Demcrats) and, as it was widely reported in newspapers, now-disgraced former Governor Gray Davis and then-Assembly Speaker Herb Wesson were forced to team up and ‘take her out’ as Chairman. At the time, one of her Commission colleagues even said, "It’s (her) need to win at all costs without regard to what’s true that is patently offensive to me."
Rhetorically, Wan’s head is buried in the sand, but in real life, nutty Sara Wan ACTUALLY laid down on the sand of Malibu Beach until five Sheriff’s Deputies arrived. Why? Because of her ongoing battle with beachfront property owners in Malibu who prefer to not have the public trapsing through their property to get to the ocean. (In Wan’s "ideal world", undoubtedly there would be no home ownership allowed on the coast.)
**There is more – click the link**
May 29th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Many Malibu property ownwers would indeed “prefer not to have the public trapsing through their property to get to the ocean”.
But the law protects the right of the public to such access. Sarah Wan is both an advocate and enforcer of the rights of the public.
If her enthusiasm for protecting public right makes her brusque, remember what Barry Goldwater said:
“Extremism in the pursuit of virtue is no vice”.
May 29th, 2007 at 12:00 am
Bill,
As a former Berkeley professor, and multi-decade Democrat operative in the State Capitol, I can understand your support of Wan’s ideological agenda — but she’s just rude, and that can’t be “explained away” as ethusiasm.