Barbs Traded Over Palisades Oil Issue as Panel Vote Nears

In advance of a showdown next week in the lengthy fight over Pacific Palisades oil drilling, partisans traded charges Friday that each side was trying to mislead the public over the much debated issue.

The Los Angeles City Council’s Board of Referred Powers--made up of five council members--is scheduled to meet on Monday to cast a key vote on whether to repeal ordinances passed in 1985 permitting Occidental Petroleum Corp. to drill on a Pacific Coast Highway site.

On Friday, City Controller Rick Tuttle joined the battle, adding his support to those pushing Councilman Marvin Braude’s uphill efforts to repeal the drilling ordinances. Tuttle said recent geological studies indicate that drilling at the coastal site could make it unsafe during an earthquake.

Attacks Liability Agreement

Tuttle also attacked a controversial liability agreement supposedly protecting the city’s interests in case of an accident at the proposed site, near Will Rogers State Beach.

“Allowing Oxy to drill could put the city in serious jeopardy,” Tuttle said. “The financial gain for the city is uncertain. The environmental factors surrounding the site are too dangerous. And the fiscal risk to the city is too great.”

Hours later, Occidental fired back. Longtime Occidental board member Arthur Groman said Tuttle’s comments were nothing more than “scare tactics . . . which are completely unfounded.” Groman said the geological studies were not new and had been considered by the California Coastal Commission before that panel approved the drilling project.

Groman said the opponents were resorting to “Chicken Little, the sky is falling” tactics to defeat the drilling project. He also defended the liability agreement, although he acknowledged that it does not provide as much protection to the city as drilling opponents think it should.

Monday’s session takes place before the Board of Referred Powers in its capacity as a City Council committee that considers issues after city commissions are disqualified due to a conflict of interest. In this case, the board will be sitting as the city Planning Commission after it was ruled that Planning Commissioner Daniel Garcia had a conflict because his law firm performed some legal work for Occidental.

Numbers Game for Vote

The meeting Monday begins a numbers game over votes that Braude would need for repeal once the issue is referred to the full council, and later to Mayor Tom Bradley.

Braude’s preference would be to gain a three-member board majority in favor of the repeal, or as a backup, for the matter to be sent to the full council without a recommendation. In both cases, Braude would need only eight votes in the council to repeal the ordinances and send the matter to Bradley.

If Bradley vetoed the repeal, Braude would need 10 votes to override the mayor. (Bradley, who signed the original ordinances, has refused to say how he would respond if the repeal measure were to reach his desk.)

If the Board of Referred Powers opposes the repeal, Braude would have to muster 10 votes on the council floor and 12 to override a mayoral veto. He has all but conceded that he cannot count on 12 votes to kill the project.

Of the five council members on the board, Joan Milke Flores and Hal Bernson have consistently supported the Occidental drilling plan. Two others, Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky, have strongly attacked the project.

Viewed as Braude’s only other possible vote is that of Councilman Richard Alatorre, who was a state assemblyman when the 1985 drilling ordinances were adopted and so far has not taken a public position on the issue. Alatorre did not, for instance, join seven other council members who endorsed Braude’s drilling repeal motions that were introduced last November.

Despite his ostensible neutrality, Alatorre is viewed by anti-drilling forces as probably sympathetic to Occidental. Neither side, however, is certain.

Still Undecided

Alatorre said Friday that he has been lobbied by both sides and has not yet made up his mind on the issue.

Braude, who joined Tuttle at the controller’s news conference, first lumped Alatorre into the pro-drilling forces, then said, “He’s promised me that he will be open-minded about it and will listen to all of the evidence.”

Braude said that he has not given up on Flores or Bernson and hopes they will at least vote to move the issue to the council floor without a recommendation. But both council members said they intend to cast votes on the issue Monday.

Flores said she has several new questions about the project since meeting earlier this week with Robert Sulnick, president of the principal anti-drilling organization, No Oil Inc. She said her main questions surround safety and liability.

In addition, Flores said Sulnick mentioned a possible inland alternative to the Pacific Coast Highway location on Temescal Canyon Road near Pacific Palisades High School.

Sulnick said that the Coastal Commission staff had identified Temescal Canyon Road as a possible alternative but that No Oil Inc. had taken no official position on it.

But Roger Diamond, an attorney with No Oil Inc. and a Pacific Palisades resident, said moving the drilling project to the Temescal Canyon site would be preferable to the existing location.

“I personally don’t want to see oil drilling anywhere in the Palisades,” Diamond said.

“But if we’re forced to choose between the lesser of two evils, that would be the site preferred; it’s away from the beach and away from the bluffs where the potential landslide exists.”

Occidental’s Groman said the Temescal Canyon Road site is unacceptable to the oil company.