Anti-oil activist Chris Miller has settled her lawsuit with the city of Hermosa Beach and others, bringing an end to more than a year of legal wrangling, and closing a wound left by the battle over oil drilling in the city’s tidelands.
Miller filed a lawsuit in federal court last October naming the city, Police Chief Sharon Papa, HBPD Officer George Brunn, the Chamber of Commerce and Visitor’s Bureau, and former chamber president Ken Hartley.
According to a copy of the settlement agreement with the city, Hermosa will implement a variety of administrative reforms, including the re-hiring of an independent auditor to examine progress made by the Hermosa Beach Police Department in implementing previously mandated changes. The city will also pay Miller $135,000. The agreement does not specify how much of the settlement will go toward Miller’s legal fees. A separate settlement agreement with the Chamber and Ken Hartley provides for a payout of $25,000, with $13,102.35 going to Miller and the remainder to her attorney, Morgan Ricketts.
Miller described herself as “relieved” with the settlement. She compared the way in which the events underlying the suit had developed to a game of “telephone,” saying they had spun far beyond what anyone had intended, and was hopeful that the reforms secured would prevent similar incidents from recurring in the future.
“This has been a year and 21 days of my life that I’m not going to get back,” she said. “But in the process, we’ve come to a point where all the parties involved see the benefit in resolving things.”
Miller’s claims stemmed from the evening of March 3, 2015, when Miller and others were at The Standing Room on Hermosa Avenue celebrating the defeat of Measure O, which would have permitted oil drilling in the tidelands. Officer Brunn, who was writing a ticket nearby, claimed to have recognized Miller in the crowd and to have heard her leading the crowd in chanting obscenities about the police. (The city’s public safety unions had supported the oil-drilling measure.)
Brunn formalized his observations in a report eight days later. On March 23, Chief Papa sent a letter to Hartley reporting Brunn’s observations. Miller was subsequently removed from her position on the chamber board, forming the basis of the damages she sought in her suit.
In addition to losing her spot on the chamber board and the business opportunities it entailed, Miller said that the whole incident left her badly shaken.
“Last night was the first night I’d passed without a nightmare in a year,” she said. “All this time, I haven’t been able to get around it. Getting back to normal will be really nice, whatever normal is.”
After filing the suit Miller had declined, on the advice of Ricketts, to discuss what exactly she had said on the evening of March 3. But in an interview Tuesday, Miller said that she never uttered an obscenity that night. Instead, Miller said she had said, “Pack it up, you lost,” quoting a nearby billboard, while the crowd chanted “No on O.”
Although Miller’s legal claims, which included allegations that the city and others had conspired to violate her First Amendment rights, did not rely on disproving she used swear words, Miller said the issue was personally important to her.
“I never said any swear word,” she said. “On top of everything that I was accused of, saying that I would swear out loud with children present is really not fair.”
Miller agreed to the settlement in part due to the implementation a Community Police Advisory Board, which was in the works before the settlement was finalized. The board intended to give citizens a chance to provide input to police officers about community issues. Chief Papa oversaw the implementation of such boards in her previous position with the Los Angeles Police Department. Twelve residents will serve on the board, including Dennis Jarvis, owner of Spyder Surfboards, former council member George Schmeltzer, and Pat Escalante, superintendent of the Hermosa Beach City School District.
The city will also bring back Mike Gennaco, an auditor who had previously worked for the city to assess unrelated complaints. That auditor, retained in 2013, was one of two names suggested by Miller to monitor the department’s compliance, and the auditor may make recommendations about the structure of the police advisory board.
Miller, who grew up in Hermosa and has served as a photographer and documentarian of the city, said she never intended to harm the city with her suit, and plans to renew her civic involvement.
“I hope that Hermosans understand they have a really good city,” she said. “But you have to be vigilant to protect it.”
A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Community Police Advisory Board was formed as a condition of the settlement. In fact, development of the advisory board began before the parties finalized the settlement.
