The mayor who would be king

BY ANNE QUINN

Morro Bay Mayor Roger Anderson admits he blew it.

It all started at the Jan. 28 City Council meeting, when the council was discussing a document prepared by the city of Monterey. The document detailed 10 "points" – expressions of that city’s concerns about being located in the largest of the 12 National Marine Sanctuaries.

Marine sanctuaries are designated by the federal government, and jointly managed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U. S. Department of Commerce.

Each sanctuary has a unique management plan, which must be updated every five years, providing for research and education of visitors and residents, and listing restrictions on activities.

The Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary management plan prohibits exploring for oil and gas, discharging of most materials into the bay except for fish, engine exhaust, dredged material unless it’s disposed of in sites specified by the Environmental Protection Agency, biodegradable effluent and water from vessels. It forbids taking any marine mammal, sea turtle, seabird or historical artifact and limits aircraft and personal watercraft to specific areas. Attracting any white shark out to seaward limit of state waters is also not allowed.

Since the southern border of the MBNMS is Cambria, Morro Bay considers itself a neighbor and reviewed Monterey’s document to see whether to lend its support.

The sanctuary management plan was a consensus document, but apparently its implementation hasn’t been by consensus. When the city of Monterey was asked for input during this review, it was only too happy to give it in the 10-point document – and it wasn’t always complimentary.

Besides pointing out that "the positive accomplishments of the program should be lauded and actively supported by the city, such as the Water Quality Protection Program; education; research; offshore ship traffic; no oil or gas exploration," the 10-point document chronicles a decade’s worth of frustrations.

Apparently, being a seaport surrounded by a 5,322-square-mile marine sanctuary is a little like being a member of the royal family – the city enjoys enhanced status and fame but is so encumbered by protections that it can’t accomplish ordinary tasks.

When the Morro Bay City Council was deciding whether to lend its support to Monterey, Mayor Anderson took the issue a step further, adding a strong statement saying Morro Bay didn’t want to be included in the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary – should it want to move its border south – to his motion to support Monterey’s document.

But, Anderson’s refusal was premature, points out city council member Colby Crotzer, since Morro Bay was never asked.

The mayor persisted, making two more motions which both included strong statements about Morro Bay’s disinterest in joining the MBNMS, as well as supporting the document.

Finally, Crotzer suggested that the mayor separate his statements. When he did, the council voted unanimously to support the 10-point document from the city of Monterey, but the separate motion proposed by the mayor to say that Morro Bay does not support any expansion of the MBNMS any farther to the south did not even get seconded.

Council member Janice Peters then suggested a different motion about sanctuary status; the bland, neutral kind that is much easier to float.

Peters’ motion said that the city of Morro Bay would "support the idea of a marine sanctuary for the Central Coast if local control of the sanctuary can be maintained."

Says Peters: "My resolution did not address [a specific] sanctuary at all. Morro Bay could become part of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary if that boundary moved north, or the Monterey Bay Sanctuary if the boundary moved south to include Morro Bay – or it could mean a separate, Central Coast sanctuary."

Peters’ motion was ingenious. It both opened the door on sanctuary status – which pleased sanctuary advocates and environmentalists – but at the same time it made that status conditional on maintaining local control, a prerequisite for the mayor and others, like the many fishermen who expressed fears of becoming entangled in a sanctuary’s regulatory net. Peters’ motion passed unanimously.

None of this word-wiggling is unusual. Frequently, city council motions are left untouched, then restated in a more neutral way by a fellow council member, and finally passed.

But rarely, if ever, does a mayor take official action the next day to promote his personal opinion as if that was the official city stance, which is exactly what Anderson did.

Jan. 29, Anderson sent a letter to Bill Douros, superintendent of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary, and Stephanie Harlan of the Sanctuary Advisory Council, describing the city of Morro Bay’s public hearing as "widely attended" with "a considerable amount of public comment." Then the mayor writes, "the city of Morro Bay does not support expansion of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary any further to the south."

Huh?

That raised a ruckus among those in Morro Bay and elsewhere who want the bay to have sanctuary status someday.

Two days later on Jan. 31, Michael Multari, program director for the Morro Bay State and National Estuary, also mailed a letter to Monterey. His letter was addressed to Sean Norton, MBNMS management plan coordinator, and it sent a different message.

Like Peters’ council motion, Multari’s letter both closed a door and opened a window. He told Norton that the "coastline and near-shore area of San Luis Obispo County south of the current marine sanctuary boundary certainly includes resources of national significance warranting special protection and management," but, specifying a laundry list of "potential problems," Multari concluded by saying, "We are unsure, at this time, whether expansion of the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary is the best way to provide that special protection and management." Then he adds, (and here’s the window), "but carefully analyzing this as an option seems reasonable."

Two days after that another letter was fired off to Monterey, this one from council member Crotzer to MBNMS’ Douros and to Harlan, the Sanctuary Advisory Council chair.

What the mayor said simply wasn’t true, Crotzer’s letter explains. "It is clear that it is the mayor’s personal opinion that the sanctuary to the north of Morro Bay should not be expanded to the south, since he made that statement," he writes. "Those in support of a sanctuary off the Central Coast were pleased with the results of the resolutions passed," which he then goes on to explain.

A letter was also sent by ECO-SLO director Pam Heatherington. Hers was accompanied by a video tape of the meeting.

There probably hasn’t been such a flurry of letters between Morro Bay and Monterey since they were both missionary outposts.

Anderson was forced to send off a correction in a follow-up letter dated Feb. 4.

This letter, the mayor’s second, was hardly contrite. His first letter, the one in which he mistakenly said that the city did not want to become part of the MBNMS, was a two-page missive, accompanied by a four-page attachment detailing all the reasons why sanctuary status would be detrimental to the city.

By contrast his retraction letter was only one paragraph, and the actual council motions were stapled to it as an attachment.

By now MBNMS superintendent Douros, Sanctuary Advisor Council chair Harlan, and MBNMS management plan coordinator Morton must have been thoroughly confused about what Morro Bay, that little harbor to the south of them, really wants.

Although the mayor’s actions may be comical, Anderson’s opponents aren’t laughing. Crotzer accuses the mayor, who also owns a fish restaurant on the waterfront, The Galley, of having "his own agenda."

"He goes to Washington (D.C.) on our taxpayer money to lobby for dredging, and makes it clear while he is there to everyone that the city of Morro Bay has a position against marine sanctuaries. We have no position against sanctuaries," says Crotzer.

Since the sanctuary status is designated on a federal level, accusations that the mayor is misrepresenting what Morro Bay wants in Washington are serious.

If true, it jeopardizes the city’s chances of being included in the National Marine Sanctuary program, which many citizens of Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo County say they want. The question Crotzer, and others, ask is: How willing is the mayor to represent his city when he disagrees with the will of the council majority or the people?

Crotzer points out that Anderson’s letter stating Morro Bay does not support expansion of the sanctuary was sent not only to Douros and Harlan, but also to a dozen national and state officials such as Rep. Sam Farr (D-Monterey), Lois Capps (D-San Luis Obispo), state Sen. Jack O’Connell and state Assemblyman Abel Maldonado, and Donald Evans, the Secretary of Commerce.

"I am sitting next to the mayor watching him read from a paper someone had prepared for him when he proposed the motion. It didn’t even get a second, yet that is the document he attaches to the letter where he says Morro Bay does not support a marine sanctuary. He mailed that letter to all these officials," says Crotzer.

When confronted, Anderson is too worried about the implications of becoming part of a sanctuary to apologize. "Obviously we could not possibly become part of [the MBNMS] given the 10 points," he says.

What the mayor fears most is loss of local control. Because the program is a federal one, it supersedes the powers of local and even state agencies. "Talk to someone in Caltrans," he says. "Say there is a landslide on the steep peaks of Highway 1, where the road is just a flat shelf. For 60-plus years, Caltrans has taken an open tractor blade and pushed the dirt over the edge. They can’t do that anymore. Now they have to put it into a truck and haul it away."

Sanctuary status also impacts dredging, which Anderson sees as a direct threat. According to the 10-point document, the sanctuary management plan’s "existing language characterizes all dredging as bad."

Since Morro Rock sits like a plug at the harbor entrance, from which little sand can escape, harbor dredging is viewed as essential for the continued safety of boat traffic, and one of Anderson’s main issues. "When the [MBNMS] was being negotiated, harbors were told that the sanctuary would not have permit authority over dredging, but it does," reads the 10-point document.

Dredging does make harbors safer for boating, but it also has an impact on marine life which sanctuaries are established to preserve, according to a Jan. 19 article in the San Francisco Chronicle. In it, the Army Corps of Engineers reports that the "amount of mud dumped in San Francisco Bay from dredging activities increased from 87,000 cubic yards in August to 412,000 cubic yards in September and 252,000 cubic yards in October of 2001," and offered this as an explanation as to why salmon fishing was so terrible last fall in San Francisco Bay.

"Just like that the bay was turned into a mud bowl right when the salmon were migrating through and the fishing went right into the dumper," Keith Fraser, founding president of United Anglers of California, tells the Chronicle.

Anderson has close ties to the Morro Bay fishing industry. During the public comment portion of the Morro Bay City Council meeting, many fishermen expressed fears about the impact that sanctuaries are having on their industry. "The sanctuary has control on licensing, fishing and on establishing ‘no-take zones,’ " Anderson says. "They want the fish to outlast the fisherman."

The city of Monterey’s document reports that once a harbor joins a sanctuary, permits and regulatory oversight become problematic. Areas that originally seek sanctuary status for the ban it imposes on oil and gas exploration may find they got more bans than they bargained for.

The sanctuary management program "needs to stress its need to accomplish its goals by working with other agencies rather than becoming a larger organization itself," the document says. It also adds that an appeal process is needed.

That tells Anderson that being involved with a sanctuary makes it difficult to get things done, and he is not comfortable with the lack of an appeal process. "They call the shots. Actually, I understand it is one person," he says, referring to Douros, the MBNMS superintendent.

Anderson advised the Morro Bay City Council that "we should lobby Congress regarding the guidelines that were envisioned by people who are now frustrated with the power that the director has given himself in decision-making."

This could change if the sanctuary review team follows another recommendation by the city of Monterey, which suggests changing the protocol of the Sanctuary Advisory Council.

Currently, the sanctuary superintendent has the power to appoint all the Sanctuary Advisory Council members, and all of the council’s agendas and correspondence have to go through him (or her). Giving the council more freedom in setting agendas, allowing the committee to draft its own correspondence – even to Congress – and appointing members through a community process might lead to fairer representation.

If these changes were put in place would Morro Bay be more interested in becoming part of the 5000-square-mile Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary?

Shoosh Crotzer, Colby’s wife who is also a community activist, suggested that voters, not the council, should decide whether Morro Bay becomes part of the MBNMS.

For now, the City Council has only authorized Peters’ motion, to "support the idea of a marine sanctuary for the Central Coast if local control can be maintained."

"Ideas" don’t restrict fishing, or dredging.

The idea of creating a Central Coast sanctuary is not new. In 1990, Karl Kempton, John von Reis and Richard Murphy, then working for County staff, wrote a proposal to NOAA, asking the agency to consider a Central Coast National Marine Sanctuary from Mill Creek in Monterey County to the southern flank of Point Sal in Santa Barbara County.

Their document, intended to convince those inside the Beltway who have never seen the Central Coast that the bay is a rare and valuable treasure, listed features such as "a major upwelling – one of the most significant nutrient sources in the northern Pacific basin, a 3,000-meter-deep, five-fingered submarine canyon, 10 percent of the coastal California kelp forest, high coastal dunes, migratory paths and gathering spots for all kinds of whales, Chumash archaeological sites that have been continuously occupied for more than 9,000 years, elephant seal rookeries and haul outs, a large sea otter population and magnificent views and vistas attended by millions of visitors."

The abundance that’s chronicled in this proposal, and newer studies from the Morro Bay National Estuary Program, should impress scientists and bureaucrats in Washington, but many local citizens who have to live with the consequences of their decisions still need convincing. And they’re the one’s who vote for mayor.

Staff writer Anne Quinn can be reached for comments or story ideas at [email protected].