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By Jorge Casuso

March 19 -- Santa Monica Council member Bobby Shriver said he was “stunned” that his brother-in-law, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, refused to reappoint him to the State Park and Recreation Commission this week.

“A gentleman from his office called me Monday night,” Shriver, who chairs the committee, said Wednesday. “I was surprised. I was stunned.

“I thought we had a great commission that was doing a very good job,” Shriver said. “We were working pretty well, and that commission hasn’t always worked as well.”

Shriver, the brother of California First Lady Maria Shriver, and actor Clint Eastwood were not re-appointed to the commission after their four-year terms expired, a move Schwarzenegger said was not unusual.

But Shriver said his brother in law’s decision was in retribution for he and Eastwood’s opposition to the governor's plan to build a toll road between Orange County and San Diego that would have cut through San Onofre State Beach.

“We’re there to represent the views of the people of California, not the governor’s views,” Shriver said.

Park advocates and other commissioners said they were stunned by the decision, noting that both men had championed the beleaguered state parks system and that the governor’s decision could send a chilling message.

"The governor has been pressuring various commissions ... to vote the way he wants," State Parks Commissioner Caryl Hart told the San Francisco Chronicle. "Now we have this refusal to renew.

“Everyone who is on a commission is going to say, 'Wow, if I want to continue to serve, I better follow the party line,'" Hart said.

Eastwood and Shriver joined the other commissioners in a unanimous vote to oppose the toll road and also joined a lawsuit charging the toll road authority with violating the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).

The commission also outlined their opposition in a letter to the California Coastal Commission, which voted against the plan after several thousand opponents showed up at a hearing in February.

Schwarzenegger and other proponents argued that the turnpike would relieve rush-hour congestion and give beach access to poor and minority families.

The commission’s rejection of the plan is awaiting an appeal filed in court by toll road officials.

Shiver and Eastwood also oppose a plan to erect a transmission line through the Anza-Borrego desert, a first at a state park.

Both Eastwood and Shriver were appointed to the nine-member commission by Gov. Gray Davis, a Democrat, in 2001 and re-appointed by Schwarzenegger, a Republican in 2004. They had both submitted their names for reappointment when their terms ended last year.