September 11, 2021
We need volunteers with an interest in coastal issues and coastal law to commit time to rebuild our coastal conservation committee in LA and Orange Counties as part of the larger CCC Coastal Committee.
The Coastal Act is a great tool for protecting coastal habitats, It is only a useful tool for volunteers who know what the law contains and how to apply the law in a meaningful way when interacting with Coastal Commission staff, developers, and other stakeholders.
The CCC – California Conservation Committee is a great vehicle to protect the coast as we can coordinate with every chapter in California impacted by the Coastal Act. We need to coordinate in two ways:
- The law is uniform along the coast, so a decision made for or against an issue in San Diego or San Francisco impacts all areas including LA and Orange Counties
- Coastal Commission meetings are held up and down the coast. When an issue impacting our chapter is being heard in San Francisco, it would be nice to have a local Sierra Club member help us by being there in person. This only works if there are volunteers who can attend a Coastal Commission meeting when local in LA or Orange Counties and supporting other Sierra Club chapters’ issues.
Please consider volunteering to help us. We plan to start a Coastal Volunteer training program -learning about the Coastal Act, the Coastal Commission and using tools like AddUp for coordinating attendance for local Coastal Commission meetings.
Whether you are an activist interested in coordinating meetings and other volunteers or an activist interested enough in the law to want to understand the Coastal Act – we can help, but you need to have the interest. You do not need to be a lawyer or have studies being a lawyer or paralegal (but it can be useful) however you must be interested in debate, in the context of understanding and discussing a point of view on a topic using a specific set of rules.
Just email coastal@angeles.sierraclub.org to volunteer and learn more.