| Schwarzenegger Announces Appointment - 14 Minutes Before Commission Meeting!
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Wednesday announced the appointment of Jack Baylis to the Fish and Game Commission just 14 minutes before a special meeting of the Commission began at McClellan in Sacramento.
The Governor's Office sent the press release out at 11:46 am to announce the appointment of the guy who would be voting on an extension of the public comment period for the South Coast Draft Environmental Impact Report (DEIR) under Schwarzenegger's Marine Life Protection Act (MLPA) Initiative.
The meeting began at noon, with the new Commissioner joining the other four Commissioners. After over 2 hours of testimony by Tribes, fishermen and environmental NGO representatives, Baylis and the four other Commission members unanimously voted to extend the public comment deadline from October 4 to October 19, a 15 day extension.
Commission President Jim Kellogg made the motion for the Commission to adopt the extension, while Commissioner Richard Rogers seconded the motion.
"When we are dealing with so many people's lives today, I don't see anything wrong with extending time for a decision that will last forever," said Kellogg. "Ultimately, it's the five people on this Commission who make the final decision - we're the ones who have to live with the decision."
He said he found it ironic that the same groups that push for delays in the CEQA process all of the time in his position as a labor leader are the ones opposing an extension of the public comment process.
Tribes, fishermen and environmental justice advocates had asked for a 45 day extension of the public comment period to provide the public with badly needed time to review and comment on the 548-page report, while representatives of NRDC, the Ocean Conservancy, the Coastkeeper Alliance and other NGOs spoke about the initiative's "inclusiveness" and pleaded with the Commission to not grant any extension because it would put the process behind schedule.
"Please respect this great, inclusive process by not delaying the process any longer," Marcela Gutierrez of WILDCOAST urged the Commissioners, citing the hundreds of miles that stakeholders spent in meetings and the hundreds of miles that they drove to and from meetings.
"I understand some of the Commission's concerns about the many hours that stakeholders and Blue Ribbon Task Force members spent on the process, but only two tribal members sitting on the South Coast Stakeholders Group out of 64 people doesn't allow for fair and equitable exchange of information on the South Coast plan," said Atta P. Stevenson, a tribal seaweed harvester representing the Inter-Tribal Water Commission of California and the City of Fort Bragg, after the decision. "The South Coast plan is directly opposite of the single proposal adopted on the North Coast that supports the inherent tribal rights and cultural ways still practiced on the ocean today."
Stevenson, a Cahto Tribe member who sat on the Regional Stakeholders Group (RSG) for the North Coast, added, "My heart goes out to the game wardens faced with budget cuts who have to enforce the law in new marine protected areas when they can't protect the protected areas now in place."
Randy Yonemura, a member of the Miwok Tribe and the Inter-Tribal Water Commission, after telling the Commissioners, "Welcome to Miwok Territory," also recommended an extension of the public comment period.
George Osborn, representing both the California Fish and Game Wardens Association and the Partnership for Sustainable Oceans (PSO), and Vern Goehring of the California Fisheries Coalition urged the Commission to support a 45-day extension, too.
"This decision should be easy," Osborn said. "This decision is not pro or anti-MLPA. The decision has a precedent with the Commission - it has been done before. In 2002, a 45 day extension in the Channel Islands public comment was granted by the Commission."
The Commission will meet in San Diego October 20-21 to discuss the MLPA South Coast Region's new marine protected areas. The Commission is expected to adopt the final set of marine protected areas on December 15. To read the report, go to http://www.dfg.gov/mlpa/impact...
According to the Governor's Office, Baylis, 53, of Los Angeles, has been the U.S. group executive of strategic development for AECOM Technology Corporation since 2006. Previously, Baylis worked for CH2M Hill as senior vice president from 2000 to 2006 and was president and chief operating officer for Linabond from 1996 to 2000. He worked for Brown and Caldwell Engineers as vice president and corporate officer from 1994 to 1995, program manager from 1990 to 1993 and staff engineer from 1988 to 1990.
Baylis was appointed to the Coastal Conservancy in 2009, where he served as a member until 2010. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Baylis is now registered decline-to-state, whereas he was registered as a Republican in 2009, according to a previous press release.
Baylis replaces Mike Sutsos, who sat on the Commission for only 18 days before being removed. This was an obvious move by the Governor to complete his fast-track MLPA Initiative before he leaves office, just like the Schwarzenegger administration is now holding secret meetings of corporate agribusiness leaders, water agency officials, government bureacrats and environmental NGO representatives under the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP) to set in place the Governor's plan to build a peripheral canal/tunnel before he leaves office.
Commissioners Sutsos, Dan Richards and Jim Kellogg would have undoubtedly voted for a 45-day delay if Schwarzenegger hadn't unceremoniously removed Sutsos from the Commission just two days before the vote.
In an interview on Monday with Ed Zieralski of the San Diego Union-Tribune, Richards slammed Schwarzenegger for his underhand move and for the corruption that has flourished under the MLPLA Initiative (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2...-raises-doubts).
"This just shows how corrupt this process is," Richards said. "This process, the Marine Life Protection Act, is so corrupt, so offensive it's unimaginable. Gov. Schwarzenegger is a forked-tongue devil." |
