Support for Oil Drilling
Ted Vollmer’s article on the formation of “the Los Angeles Public and Coastal Protection Committee,” underscores the desperation of oil drilling proponents. It is troubling because it seeks to pit one community against another just when our city is coming together and working across geographic, income and racial lines. Shame on former Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown for saying that the city should not become divided against itself, and then proceeding to do that very thing!
Other than Occidental’s project in the Palisades, what recent oil drilling has been proposed elsewhere in the city for any community to oppose? The issue is a red herring.
Furthermore, in a hands-across-the-city effort, Pacific Palisades homeowner groups were very supportive of Concerned Citizens of South-Central in their fight to block the proposed LANCER project, a series of three municipal trash incinerators proposed for South-Central, West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.
Clearly, no community is safe when an objectionable project, whether trash incinerators, landfills, prisons, Westside Pavilions, garment factories, or oil pipelines, is forced on them. That is why homeowner and environmental activists formed Not Yet New York three years ago. We understand that the city can only be as great as the sum of its parts.
The voters of this city expect our elected officials not to be conned by a group that lacks a constituency and whose rhetoric is demagogic. Every time the people of Los Angeles have united, we have prevailed for the common good.
LAURA LAKE
Not Yet New York
Los Angeles
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