Westpoint Harbor Woes, Again

On Thursday, January 18 Mark Sanders and Westpoint Harbor once again squared off against the Enforcement Committee of the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC). Although the Enforcement Committee voted 5-0 in November 2017 to refer their Cease and Desist Order (CDO) for consideration by the full Commission at the January 18 meeting, that order was withdrawn and replaced with a revised CDO on January 8, 2018.

However, prior to hearing public comments on the new CDO at the January 18 meeting, the Enforcement Committee retreated to private session, and announced upon their return that the new CDO was being withdrawn, the prior CDO was being reinstated, and no additional public comments would be allowed.

This announcement did not sit well with the almost 50 people attending the hearing who had planned to speak on behalf of Westpoint Marina. According to one observer, "Near riot conditions ensued. People were shouting, the Chair was calling for order, and a representative of the Attorney General’s office had to intervene." Under pressure from those in attendance, the Committee ultimately agreed to allow comments, and about 20 people eventually spoke. 

These comments did not have an impact on the outcome of the hearing. The Enforcement Committee voted 4-0 to once again refer the CDO that had been approved in November to the full Commission for consideration in February or March. So all that was really accomplished in this effort by the Executive Director to substitute the new CDO is that staff time at BCDC was wasted preparing a new order, Sanders and Westpoint Harbor were compelled to prepare new legal briefs — at significant cost, no doubt — and consideration of the CDO by the full Commission was delayed, thereby depriving all parties of any resolution of the dispute.

Since the decision to withdraw the new CDO was made in closed session, the reasons for making this change were not publicly discussed. However, it seems likely that the new order was prepared in response to the BCDC’s court loss in the Pt. Buckler decision, but that when the Enforcement Committee met to discuss the new order, Committee members realized that the new order had not been legally issued.

Whatever the reasons for withdrawing the new order, such disarray does not lend any kind of credibility to the proceedings. BCDC has alleged that the permit violations by Sanders and Westpoint harbor are so egregious that they warrant more than a half million dollars in fines. These ‘egregious violations’ will presumably continue — because if the presumed violations had been corrected there would be no need for enforcement — until the full Commission rules on the case, thereby subjecting the public to a continuance of the ‘harm’ that BCDC alleges is being caused by Sanders and Westpoint Harbor. Either the violations are egregious, in which case they should be dealt with right now, or they are not, and the entire enforcement action is nothing more than a shakedown operation.

For more information about the January 18 hearing, go to www.bcdc.ca.gov and look under the Public Meetings tab, or go to www.westpointharbor.com.

Almost 4,000 people have signed this petition in support of Westpoint Marina. What do you think?