Pro-Drilling Bid Can Remain on Ballot, Judge Says

Concluding that voters will make reasoned choices despite the confusion, a judge ruled Friday that the Occidental Petroleum Corp.-backed initiative to permit oil drilling in Pacific Palisades will remain on the Nov. 8 ballot along with a competing measure.

The initiative had been challenged by its anti-drilling rivals who had asked the judge to order it off the ballot. They contended that the measure sponsored by Occidental “fraudulently” tells voters it protects the coastline when it actually shields Occidental’s drilling project.

After a 90-minute hearing, Superior Court Judge Miriam A. Vogel rejected numerous technical arguments raised against the initiative by Roger Jon Diamond, president of No Oil Inc. Vogel said that the city’s voters should have an opportunity to voice their feelings about the controversial measure.

Trusts the Voters

Vogel said she trusts voters to “make an intelligent, reasoned decision,” despite possible confusion between the Occidental measure and the anti-drilling measure that are both on the November ballot.

Friday’s ruling means that the Occidental-backed measure will vie for voter approval with the rival initiative sponsored by Councilmen Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky in what already has become a bitter and expensive campaign. The measure receiving the most “yes” votes will become law.

Without directly mentioning Occidental, the pro-drilling initiative would leave intact the three oil drilling districts in Pacific Palisades that were approved in 1985 by the City Council and Mayor Tom Bradley. Proponents have been pushing the theme that the drilling project, across Pacific Coast Highway from Will Rogers State Beach, would generate badly needed revenues for police, parks and toxic waste programs and would also direct city officials to oppose off-shore drilling in Santa Monica Bay.

The Braude-Yaroslavsky initiative, meanwhile, would rescind the 3-year-old ordinances and prevent any new on-shore oil drilling within 1,000 yards of the ocean.

Diamond, an attorney and Palisades resident, tried in vain to convince Vogel that the Occidental-backed measure--referred to by its backers as the “Los Angeles Public Protection, Coastal Protection and Energy Resources Initiative”--is “grossly misleading” and therefore should be stricken from the ballot.

Confusion Argument Rejected

Vogel not only rejected Diamond’s voter confusion argument, she also ruled against his attacks on other provisions of the pro-drilling measure. Vogel repeatedly stressed, however, that her refusal to remove the measure from the ballot was not meant to say that the Occidental initiative would automatically withstand a legal challenge.

Vogel also rejected Diamond’s contention that the pro-drilling initiative should be stripped from the ballot because one of its official sponsors--prominent black community leader H. H. Brookins--has been registered to vote since May, 1982, at his South Crenshaw Boulevard office in Councilwoman Ruth Galanter’s district instead of at his residence in the Santa Monica Mountains in Braude’s district. Vogel held that the City Charter does not require an initiative sponsor to be a registered voter, only a city resident eligible to vote, so the question of voter registration does not apply.

Later, Diamond said that No Oil’s limited funds and a lack of time before ballots will have to be printed makes an appeal of Vogel’s ruling unlikely.

Attorney Mickey Kantor, representing pro-drilling forces, said that the attack on the Occidental-backed measure was merely the latest attempt by No Oil to “complicate, prevent or otherwise frustrate” the Palisades project. He also denied that the measure was misleading.