The California State Transportation Agency is holding secret meetings to plan the railroad’s future, avoiding the required participation of community stakeholders.
COSTA MESA, Calif. — Orange County Coastkeeper is calling on the California State Transportation Agency (CalSTA) to immediately comply with state law SB 1098, authored by State Senator Catherine Blakespear in 2024. The law instructed CalSTA to create a community-driven plan for the railroad’s future, which faces numerous issues due to sea level rise and coastal erosion. The agency missed the statutory deadline of February 1, 2026, held undisclosed meetings, and systematically excluded the legally required working group participants, which included environmental organizations, business stakeholders, and the California Coastal Commission.
SB 1098 required CalSTA to convene a working group to develop consensus recommendations on improving track resiliency from San Luis Obispo to San Diego, also known as the LOSSAN Rail Corridor. The law required CalSTA to deliver a final report, informed by public input, to the California State Legislature by February 1, 2026. CalSTA missed that deadline, even after Sen. Blakespear sent a letter to the agency in August 2025 to remind the agency of the upcoming deadline.
Since the law was enacted, the agency has held only one known working group meeting and made no meaningful effort to include the California Coastal Commission. Environmental organizations, including OC Coastkeeper and its allies, were never invited.
Only after Sen. Blakespear publicly called for the report on February 13, 2026, did CalSTA begin holding additional meetings. Coastkeeper learned of two meetings held on February 19 and March 27, neither of which was posted publicly or included the required stakeholder outreach.
Coastkeeper is deeply concerned that the working group’s forthcoming report will recommend Coastal Act exemptions and heavy reliance on shoreline armoring, a short-sighted approach that can accelerate coastal erosion, harm marine ecosystems, and undermine the long-term resilience of the very infrastructure it seeks to protect. These are precisely the tradeoffs that a transparent, multi-stakeholder process is designed to highlight and scrutinize.
“This is exactly the kind of closed-door process SB 1098 was designed to prevent,” said Garry Brown, Founder and President of Orange County Coastkeeper. “We’re concerned that a report without public input will heavily favor coastal armoring at the cost of our beaches. The community needs to be involved to ensure our environment, culture, and economy are considered.”
SB 1098 did not merely suggest inclusion; it mandated it. Any recommendations produced through this flawed process lack the credibility and legal foundation the Legislature intended.
Orange County Coastkeeper insists:
- Sen. Blakespear rejects any report that comes from this secret process.
- CalSTA immediately opens all future working group meetings to the full slate of stakeholders required under SB 1098, including environmental organizations and Coastal Commission staff.
- All working group meetings be posted publicly with adequate advance notice.
- No final report be submitted to the Legislature until a genuine consensus process, inclusive of all required parties, has been completed.
“The communities and ecosystems along the Southern California coast deserve a process that is open, lawful, and driven by real consensus,” said Brown. “Coastkeeper will not stand by while decisions about the future of our coastline are made behind closed doors.”
For more information or to request an interview, contact Matt Sylvester at matt[at]coastkeeper.org.
