Palisades Oil Vote Sets Tone for Critical Election Issues

When Los Angeles voters finally decide the question of Pacific Palisades oil drilling this November, they will not just tack a conclusive ending on the 18-year quest by Occidental Petroleum Corp. to sink wells along Pacific Coast Highway.

The outcome of that election will also offer an early look at the mood of voters before next spring, when Mayor Tom Bradley, a key player in the lengthy Occidental saga, bids for a fifth term in a city that has grown increasingly intolerant of traffic, smog and the other prices paid for economic progress.

Also underlying both Bradley’s reelection attempt and the vote on oil drilling is the question of ethnic tensions. With Bradley, the city’s first black elected official, starting his campaign against Zev Yaroslavsky, a leader in the Jewish community, the possibility of ethnic animosity erupting is being taken seriously. In the oil initiative fight, the Occidental plan is being talked about as a racially divisive issue, pitting a white area of the city in competition with poorer, minority areas.

More than 70,000 beach-goers and commuters a day pass the vacant plot of earth where Occidental wants to drill across from the sand at Will Rogers State Beach. Few probably realize the spot’s emerging role in Los Angeles politics and in Bradley’s future.

It was Bradley, as a city councilman running for mayor 15 years ago, who first turned Occidental’s plan to drill along the coast into an election issue. Bradley demanded a grand jury investigation of the project, which he described in a May 2, 1973, press release as a “Watergate West” being allowed to occur “directly below the unstable cliffs of the Pacific Palisades and right across the street from . . . one of the heaviest-used beaches in Southern California.”

At the time, standing up to Occidental was credited with helping Bradley become mayor, and when the application to drill came to his desk, Bradley vetoed it. Then in a celebrated--or notorious, depending on your side of the issue--turnabout, Bradley announced in 1985 that his objections had been resolved and Occidental should be allowed to go forward.

Now it is Bradley’s expected challenger next April, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who is behind a measure that would overturn City Hall and block Occidental’s plans. Yaroslavsky voted for the first Occidental application that Bradley vetoed, but now they find their positions reversed. The initiative in November could serve as a test of strength on a significant issue between the mayoral rivals, particularly for Yaroslavsky, who is not as well known as the mayor and must overcome Bradley’s popularity.

Until now, the rhetoric in the November initiative battle has stuck mainly to issues of safety and whether it was appropriate to sink oil wells within a shout of the beach, below a neighborhood of expensive homes.

The racial issue was raised by a committee, financed by Occidental, that has placed a rival, pro-drilling initiative on the November ballot. This group, which includes a number of longtime Bradley supporters and advisers, says the Yaroslavsky initiative is designed to curry favor for the mayoral race with the politically sensitive, upper-middle class--and mostly white--Pacific Palisades community where opposition to drilling is strongest.

Yaroslavsky and Councilman Marvin Braude, a co-sponsor, “don’t care about the beach--all they’re really opposed to is this one project in Pacific Palisades,” said Mickey Kantor, a Westside attorney who is a key advocate for Occidental. “We all know why. . . . You don’t see them trying to stop oil drilling in a Hispanic area.” There are drilling sites in East Los Angeles as well as Latino areas of the city.

Kantor said the Occidental project could turn up 60 million barrels of oil and 120 billion cubic feet of natural gas. Opponents say the oil deposit could be far smaller and may also have a high sulfur content, which would make it unsuitable for most uses in the United States. But Kantor said the anti-drilling forces are trying to stop poorer areas from sharing the revenue the oil could produce.

A similar aura of racial tension has arisen in Los Angeles recently in the debate over growth. Although unhappiness with traffic and bad air can be sensed everywhere in the city, the strongest moves to limit growth have come from better-off white areas, sometimes at the expense of economic development in poorer, minority areas.

Bradley’s election in 1973, with strong support from blacks and liberal white voters, many of them Jewish, is generally hailed as a major step in healing the racial tensions aroused by the Watts riot in 1965.

But a Bradley-Yaroslavsky contest has prompted fears of a mayoral campaign that could raise instead of quell such tensions.

Some key Jewish and black leaders, including the Urban League, have met to form a watchdog committee that will monitor rhetoric as the campaigns unfold. “Our hope is it will never be used,” said Neil Sandberg, a top official of the American Jewish Committee.

Despite the argument used by Occidental’s supporters, the lineup of ethnic communities on the oil-drilling issue is far from clear-cut.

Occidental’s initiative was co-sponsored by the Rev. H. H. Brookins, an African Methodist Episcopal bishop who is looked up to by many blacks in Los Angeles. But the Yaroslavsky initiative was sponsored by one of the council Latinos, Gloria Molina, and by Asian council member Michael Woo. It has also been endorsed by Rep. Julian Dixon, who is black, and by Latino Rep. Matthew Martinez.

If the early rhetoric is any indication, it will not be easy for voters to sort out the confusing claims about the initiatives.

Yaroslavsky and Braude say Occidental put its initiative on the ballot to muddle the minds of voters. Their own measure, they say, would simply invalidate the city’s approval for Occidental drilling and also ban new oil drilling within 1,000 yards of the surf along the coastline of the city of Los Angeles. Existing oil wells at Venice Beach and in Wilmington are not affected, Yaroslavsky said, because the city has no power to take away vested rights to drill.

Supporters of Occidental have jumped on the provision for existing projects--and another that allows slant drilling beneath the coast from inland rigs--to say the Yaroslavsky-Braude initiative is riddled with exceptions.

Kantor, the key advocate for Occidental in debates with Yaroslavsky, first argued on KABC Radio in July that the exceptions mean Yaroslavsky’s measure would allow drilling on beaches. “So therefore you are allowing drilling on the beach,” Kantor said in a heated exchange on a talk show hosted by KABC commentator Bill Press.

In an interview this week, Kantor recanted somewhat, saying the Yaroslavsky measure does not clearly allow beach drilling, but may be interpreted to allow it since the practice of slant drilling is not specifically mentioned.

Based on the early rhetoric, Los Angeles voters can also expect to be bombarded with confusing definitions of “beach” and “inland.” Yaroslavsky says his initiative will stop beach drilling and protect the beaches, although the Occidental project is not on the beach.

Kantor insists, meanwhile, that the Occidental drilling site, though below the Pacific Palisades bluffs and within sight and smell of the beach, is inland.

There is also debate about what effect the initiatives would have on offshore oil drilling in Santa Monica Bay. In his KABC appearance, Kantor said the Occidental measure “would prohibit offshore oil drilling.” When interviewed this week, Kantor said he did not recall making that claim and backed off, saying the measure would only call on city officials to take steps to block offshore drilling, which is regulated by the federal government.

Yaroslavsky’s measure is silent about offshore drilling, but he and Braude contend that their initiative is the best way to stop drilling in the bay. The city already has a formal policy opposing drilling in the bay, but approval of Occidental’s plan to drill next to the beach would send a signal to Washington that offshore drilling is acceptable to Los Angeles residents, Yaroslavsky said.

A key provision of the Occidental-backed measure would turn over up to $275 million in oil revenue over 20 years to the city, with the requirement that it be used for libraries, parks and added police. Some money would also be set aside for enforcement of toxic waste laws.

The two sides haggle over even that. Yaroslavsky, who is chairman of the council’s Finance and Revenue Committee, said the annual share to the city, about $13 million, would not have a large impact on the $3-billion city budget. The share would be less if Occidental’s estimate of the amount of oil beneath Pacific Palisades is too high, Yaroslavsky said.

Although it was Bradley’s 1985 switch in positions that reinvigorated the Occidental controversy, by granting a city permit to drill, Bradley is claiming neutrality on the November initiatives.

In an appearance on KABC radio last month, the first question put to the mayor was about his stance on Occidental. Bradley dodged it. “I’ve taken my action. I’m finished with the matter,” Bradley said.

That appearance on KABC also highlighted some other issues the mayor is likely to face when running for reelection. A caller, Ralph, said Los Angeles was “the laughingstock of the country” because of smog, freeway shootings and gangs.

Measures Prodded by Mayor

Bradley tried to convince Ralph that measures prodded by the mayor, such as ride-sharing and computerized signals, were reducing traffic jams. But the caller was not mollified.

“If you’re trying to tell us your traffic plan is working, you must think we’re all crazy,” Ralph told Bradley.

Some polls, including a comprehensive survey last year by The Los Angeles Times Poll, have found indications that Bradley’s hold on the city’s voters is waning. But Bradley aides said they were heartened recently by a poll, done by Bradley’s longtime pollster, Richard Maullin, that found the mayor rated favorably with 80% of those who knew of him. In a match-up with Yaroslavsky, Bradley came out ahead 56% to 26%, Maullin said.

However, the same poll also found that Yaroslavsky was also rated favorably by those who knew him, though his name was far less known than Bradley’s.