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Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber today announced he has appointed Richard Whitman, director of the state Department of Land Conservation and Development, to become an interim member of his staff.

According to , Whitman will become Kitzhaber’s new natural resources adviser through the 2011 state legislative session. He could then become the governor’s permanent natural resources adviser, but a determination won’t be made until after the legislative season.

Whitman has been the director of DLCD since the beginning of 2008. Before that he spent 10 years as the attorney-in-charge of the Natural Resources Section of the Oregon Department of Justice.

At the Department of Justice, Whitman was a major player in the adoption of several land-use and environmental laws. This includes the passage of ballot measures 37 and 49, which provide legal guidance for the rights of property owners facing public enforcement of environmental and land-use regulations.

Before working for the state, he was a lawyer in Portland with the firm Ball Janik. He worked on land- and water-use cases around the state. He was also an economic development program manager for the state of California in Sacramento during the mid 1980s.

Kitzhaber has recommended Jerry Lidz, the former solicitor general for Oregon Attorney General John Kroger, to be acting director of DLCD.

Lidz, who oversaw state appeals for Oregon, resigned last June because he was upset over the attorney general’s investigation into a contract between the University of Oregon and former athletic director Mike Bellotti. Bellotti was paid $2.3 million, a payout never written into his contract, after he was let go last year. Lidz’s wife and the university’s general counsel, Melinda Grier, was fired over the ordeal.