Hermosa Beach City Council is Warned You Are Not Acting Impartial
In case you missed the meeting last night here is a summary of Stacey Armato, Barbara Ellman & Chris Prenter warning the Hermosa Beach City Council & City Attorney Michael Jenkins about the lack of impartiality with oil drilling. Here are 15 excellent points they bring up that the City has not address and has simply ignored. Are they acting impartial by not including our due diligence?
1) "Oil Drilling" is the proper term not "Oil Production" which makes it sound like you siding with oil. Lets not "sugar coat" it because it makes it sound like you are siding with oil.
2) Hermosa Beach web site discussing oil landing page is not properly updated. It says you are waiting on the project application but also says you are reviewing it? The project application is not properly displayed on the page. No current information is posted and no way to notify what has changed.
3) The illegal settlement agreement is buried in the site. How about a quick click? Its important component that needs more attention to detail and FAQs.
4) City is encouraging the timeliness of the EIR encouraging a quick and efficient process and the project timeline is of critical importance. Lets encourage the accuracy of the report not the timeliness. Lets not speed up the process unnecessarily
5) As the City Attorney, Michael Jenkins should be going through the settlement agreement that is not properly reflected in the FAQs.
6) Web and FAQs do not say anything about giving the City Yard up which could be valued at $8-10M dollars.
7) Web and FAQs do not not talk about a 35 year lease of the City Yard.
8) If the ballot measure passes and there is no significant oil royalties we are obligated to pay $3.5M within 90 days. How will the City pay for $17.5M if it does not pass? City says on their web site "they will undoubtedly need to issue municipal debt to pay E&B." How do we pay for it and you are scaring the residents by not explaining your plan. What you are implying is that we will need to issue municipal debt and that scares the residents. This is an overstatement because we have $30M in the bank and a $100M in real estate assets.
9) Web site talks about gross percentage sales goes to the City and schools without discussing the Tidelands trust? This is not true and illegal.
10) We would like to see a much more impartial analysis of on the web site because you sit there and have no opinion on the oil project.
11) E&B's propaganda machine has been advertising in the paper before a public hearing has been done is ridiculous?
12) The community of Hermosa Beach does not own the oil. Its out in the ocean and the resources of the City are not oil. Our resources are the beach, ocean, parks, people and health and safety.
13) Steve Layton has a poor environmental track record and no where does the City web site disclose his horrible track record.
14) Oil drilling is banned in Hermosa Beach and does not say this on the web site.
15) The planning application is hundreds of pages and hard to read. Its not easy to read and has not been discussed in public. You have to hire an attorney to understand it.
Here is the public information sharing slide in the video.
This is Tom Bakaly's slide on the public input process. Michael Divirgilio is looking into a tracking document to inform folks about the changes they are making to the web site. There is no way for anyone to know that they are adding any items. Track document changes, adds and edits. The web site is the minimum require to stay up to speed.
