SPEAKING OF RICO PROSECUTIONS:

Donors to Davis get coastal permits: State agency smiles on governor's contributors (Lance Williams, October 20, 2002, San Francisco Chronicle)

David Geffen, a billionaire music mogul and world-class fund-raiser for Gov. Gray Davis, wanted a seawall on the beach in front of his Malibu estate.

Children's television tycoon Haim Saban, a $642,000 Davis donor, hoped to build a palatial Malibu beachfront compound.

And investment banker Gary Winnick, whose firms have pumped $525,000 into Davis' campaigns, was backing a huge housing development in a West Los Angeles wetland, as well as a bold plan to lay fiber optic cables across the Pacific Ocean floor.

In the end, these three wealthy, politically connected donors overcame controversy and environmental concerns to obtain the permits they needed from the California Coastal Commission, a powerful agency charged with controlling development along the state's spectacular 840-mile coastline.

So did almost everyone else on a long list of heavyweight Davis donors who sought permits from the commission during the governor's first term, a Chronicle analysis of state records shows.

Davis spokesman Roger Salazar said the Democratic governor has a firewall between campaign cash and official action. Davis "in no way, shape or form" allows political donations to influence policy decisions, he said.

But the records of contested and controversial seaside developments raise serious questions about whether Davis, who was elected on a save-the-coast platform, has put the coast itself in play when it comes to political money.

Here's the problem though: does anyone doubt that the Chronicle will endorse Mr. Davis for re-election? You can't complain about dirty government and help install the crooks. Posted by Orrin Judd at October 21, 2002 10:02 AM