Davis Appointee to Water Board Quits Under Fire

By SEEMA MEHTA

Aug. 31, 2001 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

Embattled regional water board member Frank Williams asked Gov. Gray Davis to withdraw his appointment Thursday, less than a week before he was expected to face a contentious confirmation hearing in Sacramento.

Williams, whose blunt talk and conservative voting record have united environmentalists across the state to oppose his confirmation to the Santa Ana Regional Water Quality Control Board, said he plans to run for elected office instead.

“I’ve just always been interested in politics,” said the Pomona resident, who served six terms in the Florida House of Representatives before moving to California. “I’ve got the bug again.”

The self-described “lightning rod” said he plans to run as a Democrat for a state Senate or congressional seat based somewhere in Southern California next year.

“I’m kind of cutting back on everything that I’m doing. I’ve got so many irons in the fire,” he said.

“Mr. Williams chose to withdraw his nomination. It was his own personal decision. It had nothing to do with the governor,” said Hilary McLean, a spokeswoman for Davis. “People have to make decisions as to what’s best for them.”

Though Williams said the controversy over his confirmation did not influence his decision, activists and even some water board officials were skeptical.

“The writing was on the wall,” said David Beckman, a staff attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council’s Los Angeles office. “ . . .This is a face-saving gesture allowing Mr. Williams to step aside without enduring a grueling hearing next week.”

The governor appointed Williams, executive director of the Baldy-View chapter of the Building Industry Assn., to the Santa Ana water board last November. A Davis spokesman cited Williams’ long history of public service, including founding a nonprofit organization that helps home buyers with down payments, as the reason the governor selected him.

Appointment Was Unusually Contentious

The Santa Ana board is one of nine regional panels across the state responsible for enforcing the federal Clean Water Act and state water laws. It has jurisdiction over the Santa Ana River basin, a 2,800-square-mile area encompassing northern and central Orange County, southwestern San Bernardino County and western Riverside County.

Members can serve for a year while awaiting confirmation by the state Senate Rules Committee.

Appointments to the board typically get a quick nod from state lawmakers, especially when the governor and the legislative leaders are from the same political party. However, Williams’ nomination has drawn the opposition of environmentalists, with letters and petitions pouring into the Senate Rules Committee.

Activists have criticized Williams as being a biased advocate for the building industry, and intolerant of other viewpoints. They argued that the combination makes him unfit to serve on the influential regional board.

His supporters--city and county officials, building industry colleagues and developers--paint a starkly different picture. They describe Williams as a fair-minded, collegial man victimized by environmentalists.

His confirmation hearing was scheduled for last Monday but postponed at the last minute, giving rise to speculation that Davis was reevaluating the nomination.

“I would love for everyone to love me,” Williams said. “I know that’s not the case. . . . I have an opinion. Sometimes it’s a very strong opinion.”

Williams is not the first BIA official to serve on a water board, and he is not the only board member whose conservative voting record angers environmentalists. Yet few previous appointments have generated such controversy.

Williams believes he was so strongly opposed because of comments he made at a January board hearing--when he compared Beckman and his Natural Resources Defense Council to a group of “eco-terrorists.”

The comment came after Beckman questioned whether Williams ought to vote on a permit opposed by a BIA colleague.

At the meeting, Williams said that if the lawyer had “a personal beef with me, then we’ll take care of it outside.”

“Once Mr. Beckman had, as I took it, questioned my integrity, . . . I may have been somewhat unkind to Mr. Beckman,” Williams said. “ . . . I’ve talked to Mr. Beckman and indicated to him that if I had offended him in any way, it wasn’t my intent.”

Water board Chairman John Withers later sent Beckman a letter of apology.

Withers declined to comment on whether Williams should have been appointed, but conceded that Williams made “some rookie mistakes, getting a little more excited than he should have.”

But “he’s settled in nicely--he contributes, he’s a smart guy, he does his homework,” Withers said. “He has strong views on things--he’s a passionate guy.”

During his 12-year tenure in the Florida House, Williams was once dubbed “Don Quixote” by legislators for sponsoring an unsuccessful bill to have the state license lawyers.

To back up his environmental claims, Williams said he was a “prime sponsor” of a bill urging the U.S. Congress to adopt the Endangered Species Act of 1973. But Florida archives show no involvement with that failed motion, nor with the landmark Florida open records law that Williams claimed to have sponsored the previous year.

“They’re absolutely mistaken,” Williams said. “I was one of the prime sponsors. They didn’t look far enough back then. I prided myself on that.”