Ballot Petitions Allegedly Didn’t Contain Key Page

Los Angeles police are investigating allegations that a key page containing major details of Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s pro-drilling initiative was removed before some petitions were circulated to qualify the measure, officials said Tuesday.

The Occidental-backed initiative, which would protect its plans to drill in Pacific Palisades, and a competing measure sponsored by anti-drilling forces were recently certified by City Clerk Elias Martinez for the Nov. 8 ballot.

Several people involved in the signature-gathering drive told The Times, as well as election officials and police, that the front page of the Occidental-backed initiative was removed from petitions when they were sent out to be signed and later reattached. There is no specific requirement that the front page be attached to the initiative sheets when they are signed, but it must be available for inspection by signers.

The front page of the Occidental initiative contains the names of five key backers as well as most of the initiative’s major provisions.

Los Angeles Police Cmdr. William Booth confirmed that police are investigating the allegations and said the case has been assigned “top priority.”

David McNabb, a substitute teacher who worked briefly as a circulator, said: “I sure don’t remember seeing names of proponents on the petitions I had. I never saw sheets that had proponents’ names on them.”

McNabb received his 17-page petition booklets from Ellen Goldin, who had worked part time for Marsha Goldstein & Associates, a firm that subcontracted with the initiative campaign specifically to gather signatures.

Goldin told The Times that she worked for several months as a Westside signature coordinator for Marsha Goldstein’s firm. Goldin said she repeatedly saw unsigned petitions, without the front sheet, taken out to be circulated. Only late in the initiative drive did she see front pages, which Goldin said she was told had been stapled to already-signed petitions.

“I never saw a top sheet until one day toward the very end,” said Goldin, who said that although she helped in the Occidental petition drive, she actually opposes the measure. “The proponents’ names just leaped out at me.”

Goldstein did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

But the president of Kimball Petition Management Inc., which contracted with Goldstein and other companies to gather signatures, said all petition booklets were distributed to subcontractors with the front page stapled to them.

“What would be the intent of tearing off the front page?” asked Kelly Kimball. He noted that popular issues addressed by the Occidental-backed measure--opposition to offshore oil drilling and earmarking money for police and education--are on the cover page.

Key Provision

While the Occidental-backed initiative does call for opposition to offshore drilling, its key provision would protect the oil company’s ability to bore a number of exploratory wells at a site across Pacific Coast Highway near Will Rogers State Beach. Opponents of the onshore drilling project, approved in 1985 by the City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley, are seeking to stop Occidental’s plans by banning oil drilling within 1,000 yards of the ocean.

Goldin contacted Councilman Marvin Braude over the weekend, who in turn asked City Clerk Martinez and City Atty. James Hahn to investigate.

Martinez said Tuesday that he personally inspected about 40 petition packets to determine whether there was any evidence that the front page had been removed and then reattached.

“Our review of the petitions didn’t show anything unusual,” Martinez said. “The covers were attached to the petitions in the proper manner.”

Firm Decision

Martinez confirmed that he had spoken to Goldin and one other person who had worked with Goldstein and that they both told him that the front page had been stapled on after the signatures were turned in. Martinez added that he will stand by his earlier determination that the pro-drilling initiative has qualified.

Detectives in the LAPD’s Bunco-Forgery Division began an immediate probe of the charges, interviewing Goldin on Monday night. Lt. Fred Reno, head of the bunco section, said a detective will be working “full time” on the case.

Braude said, “If it turns out and the evidence shows that this was a widespread, deliberate practice, that seems to me to raise the whole issue of decertification of the ballot issue. . . .”

Mike Qualls, spokesman for the city attorney, said that there is no provision in the City Charter or Election Code to achieve decertification. But he said a court could decide to remove the measure from the ballot if it were determined that voters were deceived into signing the petitions.