“To be honest, people will read the first sentence and vote yes or no,” Hermosa Beach Mayor Peter Tucker observed four hours into a city council discussion about what 75 words will be included in the March 3, 2015 oil ballot measure. The measure will ask if residents wish to approve oil drilling from the city’s maintenance yard into the city’s tidelands.
The discussion began at 8 p.m. Tuesday and ended at 1:30 a.m. Wednesday, with the council still divided on the ballot language, which is limited by law to 75 words.
The ballot wording presented to the council by City Attorney Michael Jennings, was the result of five meetings over the past six months between E & B Natural Resources and council subcommittee members Michael DiVirgilio and Hany Fangary.
Tuesday’s discussion centered on whether or not the measure should contain the language “nine unavoidable environmental impacts” without also mentioning the project’s projected $200 million-plus financial benefit to the city and its schools.
The council also debated what language should be included in the oil development agreement that will accompany the ballot measure. Some council members wanted E & B’s offer of a one percent royalty to the school district stricken from the agreement. Others wanted that language left in the agreement.
Before the ballot measure discussion began, Councilwoman Carolyn Petty asked for the opportunity to respond to an allegation that she had coached E & B at the last council meeting on how to win voter support for oil drilling. The allegation was in a letter to the council from Hermosa Beach resident and political consultant Fred Huebscher.
“We don’t know what will happen in March. But if there is a yes vote, we will have done residents a disservice by not having negotiated as hard as we can,” Petty said.
She noted that E & B had proposed indemnifying home owners within 300 feet of the project who suffer property value loss and she convinced E & B to extend the range to 600 feet.
“As a result, more people will benefit if the measure passes. I have a clear conscience,” Petty said.
Continuing in this vein, the councilwoman expressed disapproval of colleague DiVirgilio for supporting E & B’s request to put the school royalty language in the development agreement. At previous meetings the council had unanimously agreed not to mention school royalties in the agreement.
“This is a fatally flawed negotiation because the council is negotiating out of fear, completely of of fear. That’s not the way a development agreement is negotiated… We are so afraid of a lawsuit that we are just throwing our hands up and saying, ‘Take what you want.’ If a hotel developer wants a higher height limit, are we going to roll over?” Barragan asked.
“Those are cheap arguments, with no facts,” DiVirgilio responded. “Just saying E & B is bad sounds good from the podium, but doesn’t get the job done.”
“I’m trying to propose a solution that gets the development agreement done. The $16 million in school money will pay for things the district needs.”
Mayor Pete Tucker appeared to defuse the discussion by arguing, “Funding for the schools is not a bad idea, but I don’t know why E & B doesn’t give the schools a notarized letter [promising the one percent royalty] and be done with it. There’s no reason to put it in the city’s development agreement. The city and the school district are two different entities.”
Fangary agreed.
“There’s been no indication from the school board that they want us to butt in. It’s disrespectful of us to decide for the school district if they want oil money,” Fangary said.
Michael Finch, E & B’s vice president of health, safety and environmental affairs, explained to the council that the oil company was trying to approach the school district sensitively.
“This is a controversial project,” Finch said. “ It’s difficult to put an organization in the cross hairs, so we’re treadling lightly, not forcing [the education foundation] to take the money,” Finch said.
“If the school money is in the development agreement, giving it to the schools will be something we have to do. We wanted to be sure the school benefit is codified and not just a verbal promise.”
Barragan voted with Tucker and Fangary not to include reference to the school royalties in the development agreement.
The council also split three to two on a motion to delete the modifier “nine” from “nine unavoidable environmental impacts.” But this time Tucker sided with DiVirgilio and Petty, though initially he argued in favor of keeping “nine” in the measure.
“We know there are nine unavoidable impacts, but we don’t know the dollar about of the benefits,” Tucker said.
Finch countered that the nine impacts identified in the Environmental Impact Report were estimates, the same as the estimates of $100 million to $500 million in revenue in the Cost Benefit Analysis.
“We would like the ballot question to be fair and balanced,” Finch said in arguing for the addition of the revenue estimates.
Tucker then proposed deleting both the “nine” estimate and the revenue estimate.
Finch agreed to the proposal.
“I know you’re not happy, but we need to move on,” Tucker said in response to Fangary’s and Barragan’s protests.
At 1:30 a.m. the council finally found unanimity in a motion by Barragan to not specify the projected benefit’s dollar amount in the development agreement because voters can find the projections in the cost benefit analysis.
“Are we going to have to go through this again in two weeks?” Petty asked the city attorney, Jennings.
“Staff will come back with a rewritten ballot measure [at the October 28 meeting] and if council members stick to their votes, we will not have this conversation again,” Jennings said. ER
