Bumpy start for stem cell program
Critics say board isn't as public as it ought to be

By Carl T. Hall
Chronicle Science Writer

California's big stem cell enterprise is up and running, but critics claim it's headed the wrong way.

After canceling most of its first meeting because of legal concerns, the board created to direct the voter-approved Proposition 71 stem cell program is trying again with a second meeting Thursday. And once more, complaints are being heard about inattention to some of the peskier details involved in conducting public business.

The second meeting of the state Independent Citizens Oversight Committee is "problematic" in the view of at least one critic of the $3 billion stem cell enterprise.

The 29-member committee was created in November by state voters as part of Proposition 71. The committee's job is to direct activities of a new "California Institute for Regenerative Medicine," which is supposed to distribute $3 billion of taxpayer-backed bonds for research and facilities during the next decade. Already, open-government advocates charge that the new state-sponsored institute isn't trying hard enough to conduct its affairs in public.

The committee's first meeting on Dec. 17 -- called by the state's two top fiscal officers, Treasurer Phil Angelides and Controller Steve Westly -- was a near disaster.

Angelides and Westly, who were given authority under Prop. 71 to get the stem cell program up and running, advertised an agenda full of such critical items as consideration of bylaws, ethics matters, location of a headquarters and the hiring of top staff.

Nearly every item had to be canceled at the last minute. Critics complained that the initial meeting plan essentially shut out public input, provided no background on complex questions and gave inadequate advance notice.

After lawyers cited potential violations of the state Bagley- Keene Open Meeting Act, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer's office advised that the first meeting be radically abridged. Angelides and Westly then moved to limit the Dec. 17 meeting to swearing in the new committee members and electing a chair and vice chair.

Now, essentially the same agenda that was scrapped the first time is back on for the board's second meeting, set for noon Thursday at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles.

Charles Halpern, a Berkeley public-interest lawyer who filed a complaint with Lockyer about that first meeting, has issued a new set of charges in letters sent to the three state officials and all 29 stem cell committee members. He provided a draft copy of the letter to The Chronicle last week.

Halpern said the official descriptions of Thursday's agenda items were "cryptic, vaguely worded and do not meet the requirements of the law." He said the stem cell committee should clarify exactly what kind of research it plans to finance, so that the public can assess the adequacy of financial disclosures and conflict-of-interest provisions.

"The meeting is problematic," he said during a phone interview. "They're trying to run before they've learned to walk. They have to lay a foundation for the work they do before they start shooting off in all directions."

Background materials for the meeting still are not being provided to the public. However, calls to members of the stem cell board suggest they haven't gotten any homework materials, either.

That's because "there aren't any" materials, said Ed Penhoet, the veteran scientist, foundation president and Bay Area biotech executive who serves as vice chair of the stem cell committee.

The committee has no staff as of yet. Reporters and others seeking more information about the meeting are referred to a nonprofit group allied with the Prop. 71 campaign, whose chairman, Palo Alto developer Robert N. Klein, also chairs the stem cell committee.

Amy Daly of Klein's California Research and Cures Coalition, which has been providing clerical and public-relations support, said the group is trying to assist until a regular state bureaucracy is in place.

One of the main agenda items Thursday is creation of a search committee to hire a full-time president to run the day-to-day business of the new stem cell institute. Some hiring authority will be delegated to Klein if the board goes along, and a process may be started to appoint outside advisers to three working groups.

At the same time, Klein's nonprofit group plans a series of public hearings about the stem cell effort, starting Monday in San Francisco.

Halpern said the quasi-official role of the nonprofit group is "an odd arrangement" that is "creating confusion" about the public status of the stem cell program. He called on Klein to quit the nonprofit and cancel the hearings, which he said the stem cell agency should handle on its own.

Klein was out of town and unavailable for comment Monday, according to his staff. A spokesman for Lockyer said the attorney general's staff hadn't seen Halpern's latest objections and so had no immediate comment.

Terry Francke, general counsel of Californians Aware, an open-government advocacy group in Sacramento, wrote a letter of his own Monday, backing Halpern and urging officials to pay closer attention to the rules governing a public enterprise. He said the stem cell operation is creating "needless confusion for the public."

Some glitches might be understandable at the outset, Francke said during an interview. But he added that it seems especially important to maintain an open process during this early phase.

This is when "the most fundamental issues are resolved," he said. "These issues are foundational, and so it's all the more important that people understand from the beginning what's involved and who's proposing what."

An Oakland pro-choice group, the Center for Genetics and Society, which opposed Prop. 71, also jumped into the fray, issuing a news release critiquing the stem cell startup.