Last Thursday afternoon, just one hour before the deadline, Raymond Dussault filed a Writ of Mandate lawsuit against Hermosa Beach city clerk Elaine Doerfling and five members of the anti-oil coalition contesting the language of the argument against Measure O appearing on the March 3 ballot. Measure O would permit oil and gas drilling in the City of Hermosa Beach.
According to the City Clerk’s office, December 11 was the last day of the 10-calendar-day period allowed by State law for challenging statements in the argument.
The lawsuit challenges five statements in the one-page argument, calling them “false and/or misleading, thereby making the Ballot Argument illegal and subject to challenge.”
Dussault claims the following statements are untrue or misleading: “Oil drilling will be unsafe,” “Oil drilling will be unhealthy,” “Miles of dangerous pipelines will threaten our quality of life and our health,” “Operations will bring unhealthy odors, noise and light pollution,” and “The EIR identifies nine ‘significant unavoidable impacts,’ including air pollution.”
“There seems to be no merit to the lawsuit,” said Stacey Armato, one of the authors of the argument named in the suit. “This is an attempt to drain us of our resources.”
By Friday morning, the City of Hermosa Beach and the five named authors had retained counsel.
In a statement sent out by Eric Rose, head of Public Relations for E & B Oil, Dussault defended his reasoning for filing the suit.
“This suit is simply an attempt to stop opponents of the project from misleading the people of Hermosa Beach,” he said. “I am asking the court to stop language from being put on the ballot that is knowingly deceptive.”
Armato and the other authors say they created their argument carefully, and had it reviewed by several lawyers and medical professionals for accuracy.
“We were so careful so this suit is very surprising,” she said. “We knew the facts are on our side and we wanted to avoid a situation like this.”
Dussault is asking for the Ballot Argument to be thrown out or revised.
“It’s obvious that this is coming from E & B,” said George Schmeltzer, another author of the argument named in the lawsuit. “I don’t think anyone would deny that, especially since Eric Rose sent out the press release. They just had to find a registered voter in Hermosa Beach to file the suit.”
An initial hearing is scheduled for 1:30 p.m. on Friday at Stanley Mosk Courthouse in downtown Los Angeles.
Dussault could not be reached for comment.
