AQMD’s Hearing Board Chairman Stepping Down

Harold V. Brown abruptly resigned Thursday as chairman of the South Coast Air Quality Management District hearing board, declaring that he wanted “to get rid of some of the hassles.”

Mark Abramowitz, a member of the five-member panel and a former leader of the Venice-based Coalition for Clean Air, was elected to succeed Brown effective Jan. 1. Abramowitz will serve through June 30.

The hearing board, whose members are appointed by the AQMD’s governing board, is a quasi-judicial body that rules on polluters’ appeals of district staff decisions.

Lately, there have been complaints that the board has fallen behind schedule in issuing decisions and has not been evenhanded in its rulings.

“We don’t move our (agenda) very well. I think a lot of people see me as someone who can move the agenda. People also need to be given swift justice and there has been some concern they haven’t gotten that,” Abramowitz said.

Brown, 72, a retired occupational health specialist who was first appointed to the hearing panel in 1985, said he was tired of dealing with “motions, counter motions, objections, the vagueness of the law.”

Abramowitz told fellow board members after his unanimous election that he intended to “sit down and look at concerns procedural about our operations.

“I want to ensure that everybody who comes before the board is going to be assured of a very fair hearing--as they always have. They will have the benefit of my full attention,” Abramowitz said.

In 1984, Abramowitz successfully sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to require it to disapprove the AQMD’s clean air plan. Abramowitz argued that the plan failed to guarantee that the region could comply with federal clean air standards.