"E&B Won't Fool Hermosans" - Howard Longacre Letter

The Beach Reporter Letter February 6, 2013

Steve Layton, president of E&B Natural Resources, condescendingly portrayed 12 Hermosa residents who spoke out at a recent meeting as just those “remaining concerned” of E&B’s plan to drill 35 oil wells in city (Jan. 31 Beach Reporter letters).

Those residents and others are again having to give of their own valuable time and expenditures to challenge the insanity of drilling oil wells next to million-dollar homes in tiny Hermosa Beach. Now they’ve received this latest insulting, ignorant, and self-serving Kool-Aid response from Layton.
Why wasn’t Layton personally in attendance at the council/school board meeting when an E&B item was on the agenda? Is The Beach Reporter instead to be printing Layton propaganda responses every time Hermosa residents speak out in a public forum regarding E&B’s less than honorable deal, as made and signed secretly with Hermosa’s City Council?

E&B, with the outrageous secret help of Hermosa Councilman Michael DiVirgilio and Mayor Kit Bobko, and probably a few others behind the woodwork, has slickly weaseled its way into Hermosa Beach, a 21st-century city with stated goals fostering health, being green and carbon-neutral. And now E&B is to be drilling toxic oil wells?

E&B’s pitchman, Layton, has now moved himself into Hermosa Beach to better manipulate its 1.3 square miles of beach, ocean, residents, businesses and home-owners to E&B’s needs. E&B evidently views Hermosa’s electorate as being stupid and easily conned into returning to the 19th-century’s oil-drilling greed and ugliness.

If Layton actually believes Hermosa residents will be fooled into turning backward from a forklift pallet-full of smoke-and-mirrors documents, glossy PR and tempting elixirs to be dumped at their doorsteps and filling their mailboxes, than perhaps he needs to wake up and smell the coffee. Layton’s stuck in a dream and seems to have no clue that what he heard at the Jan. 23 meeting from those residents was merely the tip of the iceberg that E&B has so recklessly navigated into.

Howard Longacre
Beach Reporter Letter

Shame On You Hermosa Beach City Council. 13 Minutes of Shame

"Don’t Be Fooled by E&B" - Michael Keegan Beach Reporter

The Beach Reporter Letter February 13, 2013

E&B oil drilling recently placed full-page ads in this paper touting the benefits of industrializing our coastal areas. Here are some of the more informative “did you know” things about E&B and their massive oil-drilling test project.

Did you know that E&B plans to drill 35 oil well sites on 1.2 acres of land, making Hermosa Beach the home of the most densely drilled oil exploration site in the country?

Did you know that E&B’s Steve Layton and Francesco Galesi negotiated with our city council to carry a mere $1 million of liability insurance over the 30-year life of the project? This policy is to protect the city residents and government from the extraordinarily high risks associated with oil drilling and exploration. These risks include chemical, electrical and mechanical fires, intense gas pressure explosions, blowouts with fire (like the one BP had in the Gulf of Mexico), earthquakes, oil spills, truck crashes, falling power lines, lightning and tsunamis. Any of these events could produce claims in the $200 to $500 million range.

Did you know that E&B was formed primarily through acquisition of the bankrupt Equinox Oil Drilling of Louisiana, whose principal was Steve Layton?

Did you know that Mr. Layton left his creditors unpaid and changed his shirt for a new one with the label E&B on it after a record oil spill in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana? The oil spill covered approximately two square miles of wetlands — that is an area larger than the entire city of Hermosa Beach! E&B has a problem with truthfulness. These people have a well-documented history of bankruptcies and environmental disasters. Are these the type of “partners” the citizens of Hermosa Beach want for the next 30-plus years? Don’t be fooled. E&B has embarked on a very slick campaign to win votes and influence the community. They will say and promise anything for your support, but they will put nothing of relevance in writing.

This is about our health, our community and our environment.

Michael Keegan

Hermosa Beach

Editor’s note: Keegan is a former two-term city councilman and former public works commissioner.

Beach Reporter Letter

Michael Divirgilio's Beach Reporter Letter

Michael Divirgilio's Letter to Beach Reporter & Easy Reader

Transparency Needed

Michael Divirgilio

As a public entity, the City of Hermosa Beach goes to great lengths to publicize its decision making process whenever outside vendors are hired or public money is spent. We do everything possible to demonstrate what we are doing and have public discussions about why we are doing it. We did this for Pier Avenue street repairs and before building beach restrooms. We did it before hiring a website designer and we’re doing it now as we hire a waste hauler. We do it every time.

During last week’s City Council meeting I proposed implementing the same process as we begin hiring a new bank. Of all the things we should evaluate publicly, this seems like the most obvious since our banks will hold millions of dollars of the city’s money.

Only Councilman Kit Bobko thought this was a wise idea, keenly suggesting that what we needed in this process was “transparency.” Alarmingly, none of my other colleagues on the City Council were interested in public review or debate on this issue.

No doubt, we should have instituted this level of oversight a long time ago. But nonetheless, now that my proposal failed, it means our next bank will be evaluated and hired by one person: our new city treasurer, behind closed doors, without public input, without City Council oversight. The city’s funds will move from bank to bank without any oversight or public review at all. This is not how we do business in Hermosa Beach.

This is public money. A city treasurer is a public official, acting on the public’s behalf. No matter who the person, it is neither prudent nor responsible for a single individual to make financially driven decisions like this. The public and City Council should be involved at every step.

As your city councilman I will do everything possible to bring these background details to light and create standard operating procedures moving forward.

I was recently inspired by a Hermosa resident and Los Angeles Times reporter who won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking the Bell, California, salary scandal. He set a new standard for government transparency across the country.

Let’s show the same kind of leadership by setting a new standard for transparency in Hermosa Beach.

Michael DiVirgilio