Hermosa Beach Self Storage Lot & Civic Center Roulette

(Option 1) Drilling for Oil = Relocating City Maintenance Yard Here

(Option 2) Keep Current Hermosa Beach City Maintenance Yard

I was shocked to hear at the planning commission meeting that CITY STAFF and not the Planning Commission know all of the information about future plans of the City Hall.  New Downtown Civic Center? Apparently, Hermosa Beach's long term plan is to develop a downtown Civic Center.  This plan is now in jeopardy because of the proposed oil drilling project?  Why, because the City Maintenance yard would have to be relocated to the City own Storage lot across the street from City Hall.  What would happen to City Employee parking?  City Staff seems to think that the City Yard can be relocated onto the storage lot without disrupting the parking.

The City was planning to expand City Hall across the street to the Storage Lot above which makes a lot of sense.  But what more do they need downtown and hope to understand in the future?  Transparency please?

According to Mike Flaherty, Public Works Director say this.  "The EIR for the oil project has to address the City yard relocation.  Is E&B going to pay for the relocation?"  No.

Former Hermosa Beach City Councilmen Gary Brutsch said, "oil revenue from the Tidelands could pay for a police and fire substation on The Strand. Brutsch, "believes many people who were in favor of oil drilling in 1984 didn’t have the energy to defeat the anti-oil forces. Brutsch said, "he wanted to designate Hermosa Beach the environmental portal to the Santa Monica Bay by using tidelands revenues to install filters on storm drains that empty into the ocean."   See Easy Reader article.

Zoning for the new City Yard location next to homes would have to be reconsidered to light industrial.  Is the planning commission going to be involved oil EIR process?  Lets hope so.  Will the planning commission be involved in the EIR?  Lets hope so because I bet Planning Commission Chairman Ron Pizer has some input.

You might also want to read this. How does Hermosa Beach plan to pay $17.5M?

Reasons Why E&B Oil is a Bad Deal

Based on my discussion I think the deal the Hermosa Beach City Council struck is a bad one for several reasons. The only good news is we have an actual $ settlement number and its not going to bankrupt the city. Here are my top 10 talking points to be used with anyone you know.

1. No public forum was held.  Only 1 company (E&B) bid on the deal behind closed doors. 
2. The oil site will be within 100 feet of homes and businesses.  California recommends a 300 foot  setback and Colorado law requires 350 feet setback.  
3. $1B destruction of real estate values for a new police station or new storm drains on the beach? 
4. Santa Monica Bay is a no-drill sanctuary (Hermosa drilling map). 
5. State Lands Commission Staff recommended against this Oil Drilling project because it expected poor results.
6. Hb cannot use any of the money shared "net revenue" NOT gross for anything that is not on the beach or greenbelt.  See Tidelands Act. 
7. City Council “settlement” is a collective punishment for citizens daring to reject their plans for siting an industrial project next to homes. 
8. Schools won’t benefit much if at all from drilling.  The .20 cents per barrel for the school system was a horrible deal struck in 1990's. Oil was trading at $20 per barrel in 1990's and now at $110 per barrel.
9. Experts claim only 2M-9M barrels are possible at this location at best.  That is only $400,000 to $1.8M for schools at .20 cents per barrel over the lifetime of the project.  Over a 20 year period that is nothing per year for the schools, maybe $20K to $40K per year. Can't even hire one person for that $.
10. Once E&B is entrenched in Hermosa Beach, say good-bye to local control. E&B will call the shots, influence local elections, etc. Hermosa Beach will be forced to jump when E&B says ‘jump’.
11. Oil seeping from the ocean naturally will undoubtedly be disturbed by the slant drill. Do you want more oil washing up on the beach similar to Santa Barbara and Huntington Beach? 
12. HB can pay off E&B Oil company and it will not bankrupt the city.
1. Sell the city storage property next to the fire station for $7.5M 
2. Get a $10M "Judgement Bond" from the State of California at 3% and service loan which will cost the city $300,000 per year. (not much in the grand scheme of things). 
13. Do you want to see a 75 foot drilling tower as you look out over the ocean. (See pic)
14. Drilling on this lot will destroy a perfectly fine $5M lot.  
15. Drilling is noisy and you want to smell fumes of oil downwind everyday? 
16. The oil tar sands used "if found" would be low grade oil and only used for ships and heavily machinery. It takes more energy to refine the crap than regular oil. 
17. Lethal gases and possible explosions?  
18. Additional ground settling and possible earthquakes. 
19. Not a green Hermosa sustainability initiative if that is what the city wants. 
20. Its low grade oil, used by crappy machinery and will have an unknown impact on the sea and surrounding environment. 

Please share this with you friends and neighbors who might be helpful spreading the world that the oil settlement should be a no vote. It may not be on the ballot for a long time but it is never too early to start campaigning against something this stupid. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or concerns. If you have any neighbors that should be on the list please copy them and lets start building the campaign now.