SANTA CRUZ — The Central Coast seat on the California Coastal Commission is once again open for nominations. That means the seat’s occupant, Santa Cruz County Supervisor and current Coastal Commission Chair Justin Cummings, will have to vie for a full four-year term.
California Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, who wields the authority to make the appointment, sent a letter to the county on March 4 requesting nominations for the position, which represents Santa Cruz, San Mateo and Monterey counties.
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Cummings was chosen from a pool of candidates from all three counties in 2023 by then-Speaker Anthony Rendon who himself was succeeded by Rivas as the Assembly’s leader only a few months later. Cummings was chosen to finish the last two years of the current term after the seat was vacated by its previous occupant, and with that term set to expire in May, Rivas is preparing to make a selection of his own.
Cummings, the county’s first representative to serve on the commission since 2012, told the Sentinel he wasn’t surprised when the letter from the speaker’s office came through, as Rivas had given him the heads up at a meeting in January that he planned to solicit nominations.
“Part of it is that I was appointed by the previous speaker,” said Cummings. “I was able to fill out (my predecessor’s) term and now that the new speaker is in (his) seat, it’s an opportunity for (him) to consider people from around the region as well.”
Though Rivas ranks among the most powerful public officials in the state as leader of the Assembly, he also has deep personal and professional ties to the Central Coast region. Rivas was raised in Paicines, went to school in Hollister and now, as leader for the 29th District, represents areas in Monterey, San Benito and Santa Cruz counties including Watsonville, Freedom, Interlaken, Amesti, the Aptos hills and Larkin Valley.
Asked by the Sentinel to share his thinking around opening up the appointment process, a statement from Rivas’ office was in line with Cummings’ understanding.
“This is the first time the Speaker will have an opportunity to make this commission appointment from his home region, and he would like the input and recommendations of local elected officials and community members,” wrote a spokesperson for Rivas. “Our office is happy to consider the current appointee, as well as any other candidates recommended through this important public process.”
There are two local entities with authority to put forward nominees from Santa Cruz County — the county Board of Supervisors and the City Selection Committee.
The City Selection Committee, composed of mayors from all four incorporated Santa Cruz County cities, drew intense scrutiny and criticism when the nomination process played out in 2023 after it was revealed that the group had been meeting in private for decades. Though county officials told the Sentinel at the time that a case could be made that the committee was not subject to the Brown Act — the state’s public participation and government transparency law — they changed their view after an inquiry from a member of the public and decided to redo the selection process in a public setting.
Nominations must be submitted to the speaker’s office within 45 days of receipt of the letter, which is April 18. The City Select Committee is next set to convene April 16 and Cummings said he expects the board will consider who to nominate at its March 25 meeting.
“I think (during) my time on the commission I’ve done a really good job of trying to balance housing production and coastal protection,” said Cummings. “I hope that that is the basis upon which people really evaluate whether I continue on or not. But ultimately, it’s up to the speaker to decide.”
The board and committee put forward three nominees in 2023: Cummings, Supervisor Manu Koenig and former Capitola Mayor and new CEO of United Way Santa Cruz County Yvette Brooks.
As part of the California Coastal Commission’s mission, its 12 voting members are tasked with managing land use and public access along California’s coastal zone stretching about 1.5 million acres from Oregon to Mexico — an area larger than the state of Rhode Island.
National limelight
The commission is also the target of recent ire from Republican officials and lawmakers at the federal level. Republican Rep. Kevin Kiley, whose district stretches along the California-Nevada border from Plumas National Forest to Death Valley National Park, earlier this month introduced the Coastal Commission Accountability Act, which seeks to strip the agency of its powers under federal law.
Kiley said the commission is “out of control and has veered far from its purpose of protecting the coast,” and that it has “repeatedly threatened the safety of Californians and weakened our national defense, while needlessly undercutting innovation and economic progress.”
Among the actions cited by Kiley as beyond the pale include a 2024 decision to reject plans by the Air Force to expand the number of permissible rocket launches from SpaceX, owned by then-candidate Donald Trump’s top donor Elon Musk, at Vandenberg Space Force Base in Santa Barbara County.
Though Cummings was among the minority of commissioners that voted to approve the launches, he joined his colleagues in expressing concerns about Musk himself or SpaceX’s labor practices, according to media reports about the meeting.
The decision, which Cummings said did not actually stop SpaceX from continuing with the launches, led to a lawsuit from Musk that named Cummings directly and cited several of his comments during the meeting.