Coastal Commissioners Break Law, Send $1M Bill To Taxpayers

Five current and former California coastal commissioners were found guilty this spring of breaking state open meetings laws … and have been fined by the courts.

Altogether …. the fines plus attorney costs total about 1 million dollars.

Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez has uncovered a secret legal agreement … that the commissioners made amongst themselves.

They voted to send the 1 million dollar hit … to the state taxpayers.

Spokeswoman Noaki Schwartz issued a statement late yesterday.

“The law entitles the commissioners to representation by the State absent malice, fraud or corruption

“This Commission earlier agreed to indemnify the defendants to the full extent provided by law.”

Commissioner Steve Kinsey was fined 30,300 dollars.

Wendy Mitchell was fined 71 hundred dollars.

Martha McClure was fined 26 hundred dollars.

The San Diego County Superior Court judge also hit them for $959,000 in attorney’s fees and court costs.

Taxpayers are picking up that bill, too.

“Unbelievable” says one critic.

“A charade” says another … quoted by The Times columnist.

We have a link to the L-A Times column on the KBUU website:

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-lopez-coastal-indemnified-20180913-story.html

At a meeting last month … the new commission blew right through the open meetings law.

That’s when it took testimony from M R C A officials …. who blasted Malibu residents over the Sycamore Park real estate grab.

Malibu residents were not alerted to the coming attack – it was not on the agenda – so there was no defense mounted.

And the Coastal Commission’s executive director promised to take action against Sycamore park residents … a violation of the state law the prohibits action at a meeting unless the item is on the agenda.