This spring, Governor Newsom will be appointing a member to an important agency: The California Coastal Commission, the only agency with the legal authority to enforce the public’s right to access the coast. The following is a letter from Parks Now coalition members asking the governor to appoint a commissioner that will prioritize protection of and access to the California coast for the benefit of everyone.
Dear Governor Newsom:
On behalf of the Parks Now Coalition, we would like to thank you for your dedication to building a “California for All” and elevating equitable outdoor access to our lands and waters as state priority. We write to you now to urge you to sustain this commitment through your upcoming appointments to the California Coastal Commission, by selecting commissioners who resolutely center their decisions on the expansion of public access and coastal conservation.
Parks Now is a diverse coalition of over 30 outdoor equity champions and community activists, representing conservation, public health, faith-based, and environmental justice organizations from all over California. We are united in the belief that just, equitable access to public lands such as parks and the coast are fundamental to healthy, vibrant and just communities for all Californians.
We appreciate the statewide momentum and new funding streams that your administration has helped create to promote access and create new parks, especially those for underserved communities long denied the same opportunities and public amenities enjoyed by more affluent Californians. These actions are creating meaningful, new, and long-overdue opportunities for those who historically have faced barriers to experiencing the amazing landscapes that make our state so special.
The beaches and bluffs of our coast are perhaps the state’s most beloved outdoor spaces. This spring, your administration can build on its success by ensuring that your selection to fill the vacant South Central Coast seat on the California Coastal Commission is a true champion of the principles of environmental justice and conservation that underpin our work to advance equitable access to the outdoors.
Public access to the state’s cherished beaches and coastline is a right guaranteed by the California Constitution and further reinforced by the Coastal Act of 1976. Despite this legal enshrinement, there is a long history of (and continuing problem with) coastal property owners, developers, and extractive industries working to limit public access to the coast. Your recent signature on AB 1680, authored by Assemblymember Monique Limón, helped address a long-standing example of this, in which a wealthy coastal enclave actively denied the public access to the beach at Hollister Ranch. Unfortunately, such illegal obstructions to the California coastline continue to occur up and down the coast. Furthermore, conserving coastal resources and actively enforcing public access will only increase in urgency as climate change squeezes the coastal zone between rising seas and existing development.
The California Coastal Commission is the only agency with the legal authority to enforce the public’s right to access the coast. Its decisions determine not only whether some people have access to the coast while others are excluded, but also who will bear the burdens of the climate impacts that are here and worsening every day. Our coalition strongly believes that the Coastal Commission’s responsibility is to all of the people of the state of
California, and not just the interests of elite developers, property owners, and extractive corporations that remain willing to sacrifice the public trust for their profit.
Consequently, we believe it is imperative that Coastal Commission appointees reflect the diversity of all the communities they represent and serve, and that commissioners carry out their legal duties based on the principles of vigorous protection of our imperiled coastal resources and advancement of equity and environmental justice, especially when that requires confrontation with California’s most wealthy, influential, and powerful.
The Environmental Justice Policy adopted by the Coastal Commission in 2019 states:
The California Coastal Commission’s commitment to diversity, equality and environmental justice recognizes that equity is at the heart of the Coastal Act, a law designed to empower the public’s full participation in the land-use decision-making process that protects California’s coast and ocean commons for the benefit of all the people. In keeping with that visionary mandate but recognizing that the agency has not always achieved this mission with respect to many marginalized communities throughout California’s history, the Commission as an agency is committed to protecting coastal natural resources and providing public access and lower-cost recreation opportunities for everyone. [emphasis added].
As a coalition that works every day to promote equity and access to outdoor spaces, Parks Now celebrates the spirit of this state’s commitment to these principles and will continue working side by side with your administration to see it one day fully realized. But we are under no illusions that this will be achieved without an unwavering focus and willingness to keep fighting for justice and equity.
This spring, you have an important opportunity to be a champion in this effort as well, through appointment decisions that ensure the Coastal Commission continues to embody your goal of building a “California for All,” rather than one that walls off- or sells out the coast for profits. We sincerely hope the opportunity does not go to waste. Our organizations will be watching closely to ensure that it is an opportunity that doesn’t go to waste.
Sincerely,
Rico Mastrodonato
Government Affairs Director
Trust for Public Land
Ben McCue
Executive Director
Outdoor Outreach
Kim Bailey
CEO
Youth Outside
David Diaz
Executive Director
Active San Gabriel Valley
Mira Manickam-Shirley
Executive Director
Brown Girl Surf
Ed Reyes
Executive Director
River LA
Marcela Gutiérrez-Graudiņš
Founder & Director
Azul
Sergio Carranza
Executive Director
Pueblo Unido CDC
Luis Villa
Executive Director
Latino Outdoors
Sammy Nunez
Executive Director
Fathers & Families of San Joaquin
Sandra Celedon-Castro
Executive Director
Fresno Building Healthy Communities
Toody Maher
Executive Director
Pogo Park
Belinda Faustinos
Executive Director
Nature For All
Nina S. Roberts, Ph.D.
Dept. of Recreation, Parks & Tourism
San Francisco State University