Group eyeing high court

A Newport Beach activist continued to battle the California Coastal

Commission on Tuesday with an attempt to bring his case to the U.S.

Supreme Court.

Sacramento-based attorney Ronald Zumbrun filed the petition for

the Newport Beach-based Marine Forests Society on Tuesday.

Rodolphe Streichenberger, head of the Marine Forests Society, has

been locked in a five-year dispute with the Coastal Commission over

an artificial reef project that was started in 1987. The reef was

built off Newport Beach.

By law, the U.S. Supreme Court’s next session does not begin until

October.

Zumbrun said he hopes the Supreme Court will agree to hear the

case by the end of this year. He said a victory in Washington could

lead to the case going back to the California Supreme Court, which

ruled in favor of the Coastal Commission earlier this year.

Streichenberger first went to court in 2000 after the Coastal

Commission issued a cease-and-desist order against the reef project

in 1999. The petition states that the Marine Forests Society had

permits for the reef from several governmental bodies, but not the

commission.

In June, the California Supreme Court issued a unanimous opinion

that affirmed the legality of the Coastal Commission and its past

decisions. That decision reversed two earlier rulings in which trial

and appellate courts declared the commission to be unconstitutional.

After the June ruling, a Coastal Commission official said the

agency wants the reef removed. Tuesday, Streichenberger said he’s

confident the reef will stay.

“I don’t think they will succeed in the removal of our site,” he

said.

Before the state Supreme Court heard the case, Zumbrun and

Streichenberger had successfully argued that the Coastal Commission

violated the separation of powers principle because eight of the

body’s 12 members served at the will of legislators. The commission

wields executive powers, such as the ability to issue or deny coastal

development permits.

In 2003, Gov. Gray Davis signed a law that adjusted the

commission’s structure by giving legislative appointees fixed terms.

In June, the state Supreme Court ruled that the reformed structure

was legal and did not consider the constitutionality of the agency as

composed before the 2003 modification.

Zumbrun said he wants the U.S. Supreme Court to require the state

Supreme Court to issue a ruling on whether the Coastal Commission’s

makeup was legal before the body was restructured.

The case is relevant under federal law, Zumbrun said, because the

14th Amendment prohibits state agencies from taking property without

due process. He considers Coastal Commission officials’ intentions of

removing the Marine Forests Society’s reef to be destruction of

property without due process.

A representative of the Coastal Commission could not be reached

for comment Tuesday.

California Deputy Atty. General Joe Barbieri represented the

Coastal Commission before the state Supreme Court. Barbieri said he

had not read Zumbrun’s petition, and said that state officials do not

consider the case to be a federal matter.

“We’ve taken the position in the past that this case posits a

question solely of California law and not a federal question,”

Barbieri said.

* ANDREW EDWARDS covers business and the environment. He can be

reached at (714) 966-4624 or by e-mail at

o7andrew.edwards@latimes.comf7.