Mobil Oil Battle: Bid for Safety or for Higher Office? : Torrance City Councilman Is Under Fire by His Colleagues

The smoke was still rising from a flash fire at the Mobil Oil refinery last August when Torrance City Councilman Dan Walker made his move.

If Mobil cannot operate safely, Walker told reporters, the refinery should be closed. Overnight, his comments appeared in newspapers across Los Angeles. Appearances on television news programs quickly followed.

Four months later, Walker announced plans for an initiative campaign to force Mobil to stop using hydrofluoric acid, an acutely toxic chemical, in its refining process.

Critics Question Motives

Walker’s announcement--in the wake of a series of explosions, fires and accidents that claimed three lives at the refinery over the previous 18 months--has generated intense publicity.

It has also generated a storm of criticism.

His council colleagues have accused him of undermining the city’s efforts to regulate the refinery and of using the issue to promote his own political career. Some critics, pointing to his long record as a supporter of Torrance development, also question his motives.

To some, he appears to be a political chameleon, trying to change his colors: a frequent opponent of environmental concerns who has jumped to the forefront of the city’s most critical environmental issue, a vocal advocate of business and development who has taken on the city’s largest landowner and taxpayer and one of its largest employers.

Torrance Mayor Katy Geissert accuses Walker of trying to be “a born-again environmentalist.”

During his 11 years on the council, the former billboard industry lobbyist, who is a public relations consultant for swap meets and drive-in theaters, has consistently supported more growth in Torrance, often over the objections of homeowners. He has voted with the council majority for construction of such major projects as the massive Park Del Amo development, the Computax high-rise at Hawthorne and Torrance Boulevards, and medical offices opposed by neighbors.

Ironically, the anti-Mobil initiative is being financed out of Walker’s campaign war chest, which was largely built over the years by contributions from Torrance developers, city employee unions, trash haulers, theater chains and small oil companies.

The 48-year-old councilman, who makes no secret of his aspirations to higher office, acknowledges that his campaign against Mobil represents a break from his past.

“This initiative with its somewhat environmental nature came from a conservative Republican who has a pro-business history,” he said in a recent interview.

But Walker said he sees no conflict between the two. Business can prosper “and still be responsive to the health needs and the environmental needs of the community,” he said. “The two can and must exist.”

Walker’s council colleagues see his initiative as an affront to the council’s decision-making process. They say he never discussed his plan with them, and they were particularly incensed that he launched his direct-mail campaign just days before the city filed a suit seeking to regulate the refinery.

In a highly unusual action, they issued a public letter last month accusing Walker of plotting to “capitalize politically on the community’s fears” about Mobil. “Public safety is much too serious a matter to be dealt with through questionable political tactics designed to benefit a single individual,” the letter said.

Geissert said in a recent interview that Walker’s hunger for higher office is the real motive behind the initiative campaign. “It seems very apparent this is a carefully planned political maneuver to promote Dan Walker,” she said.

Walker defended himself. “It’s good politics to be supportive in the area of great community concerns,” he said. “It is bad politics to be an obstructionist or to oppose the will of the majority of the community on any issue, especially health and safety issues.”

At the same time, Walker and his consultant on the initiative campaign acknowledge that the Mobil issue has political value.

“His name identification will probably appreciably increase because of it,” said Allan Hoffenblum, the Los Angeles political consultant who prepared an anti-Mobil mailer for Walker and who persuaded him to call the measure the “Dan Walker Initiative for a Safer Torrance.”

Hoffenblum said politicians want to find an initiative that will address a problem of concern to a significant number of people. “They are all looking for the Proposition 13,” Hoffenblum said. “Whoever heard of Howard Jarvis until he decided the property tax was a proper issue?”

The Mobil issue is not the first time that Dan Walker has attempted to alter his political persona.

The son of a car salesman, Walker grew up in a Democratic household in Long Beach and graduated from Cal State Long Beach in 1962. He jokes that he was “a fraternity major who minored in business.”

For years, Walker was active in Democratic politics, but disenchanted with the direction of the Democratic Party, he joined the GOP in December, 1984.

“I had always been . . . a conservative, pro-business Democrat,” Walker said. “There was no room for my thinking anywhere but in the Republican Party. I said enough is enough and I walked in and changed my registration.”

In the overwhelmingly Republican 51st Assembly District, it was also an astute political move.

In 1986, at the height of the conservative effort to unseat then-state Chief Justice Rose Bird and two other Supreme Court justices, Walker created his own South Bay Committee to Defeat Rose Bird.

A colorful mailer designed by Hoffenblum urged Republican voters to cast “Three Votes for the Death Penalty” by ousting the justices.

The mailing was sent not just to Torrance voters but to Republican households in the 51st Assembly District, which also includes Lomita, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. The mailer fueled intense speculation that Walker was eyeing a run for the state Assembly, an office he concedes he covets.

Running for Higher Office

Walker said he was planning to run for the Assembly in the spring of 1988 until Assemblyman Gerald N. Felando (R-San Pedro) decided against running for Congress and sought reelection instead.

“At some time in the future, I would certainly look to the possibility of running for higher office,” Walker said. “Had Jerry not changed his mind in the last election and had he run for Congress, I would certainly have run for his Assembly seat.”

To broaden his political experience, Walker sought appointment by Gov. George Deukmejian to the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board. He was named to the board in May, 1987. In the last year, he has opposed dumping of sewage sludge off the Palos Verdes Peninsula and pushed for clean-up of ground-water pollution under the Mobil refinery.

Walker said he sought the appointment at the suggestion of Lt. Gov. Leo McCarthy, a Democrat, who told him that water and water quality would be a major political issue in the years ahead.

Slow to Sever Ties

In some ways, Walker has been slow to sever his Democratic ties.

His campaign reports for 1987 show that while he was making regular contributions to GOP causes, Walker continued to donate money to the campaigns of liberal Democrats, including San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos and Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

Looking back on the $500 contribution to Agnos, Walker now says: “That was dumb.”

Dan Walker made his debut in Torrance as a defender of billboards.

As a lobbyist for Foster and Kleiser in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he objected to efforts by Torrance and other communities to restrict billboards and limit electric signs.

In 1970, Walker, a new resident of Torrance, persuaded city officials to back down on plans to phase out all billboards.

Not long afterward, he went to work at the Torrance Chamber of Commerce selling memberships. That was followed by a short stint as an aide to Democratic Rep. Charles Wilson of Torrance.

In January, 1973, Walker went to work full time for Pioneer Theatres, which operates the Roadium, a sprawling swap meet at a drive-in theater site on Redondo Beach Boulevard, east of Crenshaw Boulevard, on Torrance’s northern border. He later became vice president of Pioneer Theatres, supervising the Roadium and other property holdings outside of Los Angeles County.

Planning Commissioner

Walker took his first steps toward entering the political arena in 1975, when he narrowly won appointment to the Torrance Planning Commission.

A year later, he ran for the City Council and lost. His record campaign spending--more than all his opponents combined--was an issue in the race. Walker’s political ambitions, his fund-raising ability and some of his actions as a planning commissioner alienated a majority of council members and he was removed from the commission in 1977.

Undaunted, Walker ran for City Council again, in the spring of 1978, and lost again, despite record campaign spending. Again, his fund raising was an issue in the race. “I raised too much money and I spent too much money,” Walker says now.

Elected in 1978

After running a less-expensive, lower-key campaign, he won a council seat in a November, 1978 special election.

By the time he was sworn in, Walker had spent $59,740 to win a council position that pays $100 a month.

Walker won his first full council term in 1980. He was the top spender and top vote-getter in the race, which was dominated by the city’s battle with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development over low-income housing. Walker has consistently opposed such housing.

While a councilman, he has remained actively involved in Pioneer Theatres’ business operations and has been a public relations consultant and political strategist for the company for the last six years. In that capacity, Walker acknowledges, he distributes campaign contributions to other council members.

Blocked Competition

In January, 1983, when the Carson City Council approved a swap meet that would compete with the Roadium, Walker went to work.

With the help of Carson Councilwoman Vera Robles DeWitt and a Carson community group, Walker gathered enough signatures to place a referendum on the ballot aimed at overturning approval of the swap meet, which would be run by a rival theater chain.

After a hard-fought and expensive ballot campaign financed by both theater chains, Carson voters blocked the swap meet.

It is one of the rare instances in which Walker has opposed a development.

In Torrance, at the same time, Walker was supporting construction of the massive Park Del Amo condominium and office project east of the Del Amo Fashion Center.

Favored Maximum Density

For years, residents and environmentalists had opposed the project in an effort to save nearby Madrona Marsh from development.

Throughout the long fight, Walker cast votes for the project.

Sam Suitt, founding president of Friends of Madrona Marsh, said Walker consistently favored the maximum density for Park Del Amo--”pretty much what the developer wanted.”

Suitt said Walker uniformly voted against the marsh until the final vote in August, 1983.

Walker made the motion to approve a development agreement that allowed construction of Park Del Amo in exchange for preserving 43 acres of marsh as open space. “I will very much enjoy seeing this built,” he said then.

Today, Walker concedes that he didn’t consider himself an environmentalist five years ago and “I’m still not the sort that looks to taking $50 million worth of property so as to protect five ducks.”

Center of Controversy

Although growth and traffic issues dominated the 1984 council elections, Walker, the lone incumbent on the ballot, again was the top vote-getter.

The following year, however, he found himself the center of controversy.

Walker suggested that Torrance study the possibility of granting an exclusive franchise for garbage collection at commercial buildings and multifamily residences without competitive bidding. Walker argued that the city would benefit from increased revenues and fewer complaints about the multitude of trash haulers operating in Torrance.

But the proposal ran head-on into fierce opposition from the business community and from many of the trash haulers operating in Torrance.

Walker himself came under fire because he had received $6,000 in campaign contributions in 1984 and 1985 from officials of Western Waste Industries, which held one of the Torrance contracts and which supported his proposal for an exclusive franchise.

Trash Franchise Issue

Three of Walker’s council colleagues, who asked not to be identified, say Walker lobbied them on behalf of Western Waste when the council was considering the trash franchise issue.

Walker denies that. “What we were talking about was a study of the concept,” he said. “It wasn’t a matter of one company or another company.”

At a September, 1985, council meeting at which the study was voted down 4-3, Walker, stung by public criticism, announced that he had donated $2,500 to $3,000 of the $6,000 he had received from Western Waste to charity.

Since then, he says he has given all of it to charity.

“I didn’t want even the hint of any possible impropriety,” Walker said last week.

The charitable donations made only a small dent in Walker’s campaign treasury, which stood at $104,485.

Special Interest Contributions

During his council career, Walker has raised an unprecedented amount of money from special interests. In 1987, for instance, he reported receiving $69,259 in contributions, 72% of it from Torrance developers and business interests.

In the five-year period from Jan. 1, 1984, to Jan. 1, 1989, Walker raised a total of $227,300, according to his campaign reports. He estimates that he netted another $40,000 from a gala fund-raiser last March at a Beverly Hills bistro.

“I have always had the ability to sit across the table from someone, look them in the eye and ask them for money,” Walker said.

One of Walker’s council colleagues said Walker sends invitations to his fund-raisers and follows up with phone calls if the company doesn’t buy enough tickets. “He is just very, very good at putting pressure on people,” the council member said.

He Charges More

Walker said he has held a single fund-raiser annually, usually in December, and that he raises more than other council members in part because he charges more.

His campaign reports read like a Who’s Who of development and business interests in Torrance. He has received contributions of $2,000 or more from Watt Industries, Del Amo Fashion Center, Oxford Properties, Bayco, Real Property Resources, Kelt Oil and Gas, former Kelt attorney Peter LaCombe, Western Waste, Paragon Cable TV, Pacific Theatres and his employer, Pioneer Theatres.

Walker has often voted in favor of building projects proposed by his contributors, including those of developer Ray Watt, Del Amo Fashion Center owner Guilford Glazer, Oxford Properties, and many others.

No Special Treatment

But Walker contends that his contributors receive no special treatment.

“People who have the ability to donate significant amounts of money understand there is nothing implied by that contribution. . . . If someone asks me for a favor, their money wouldn’t be accepted,” Walker said.

In a five-year period, Walker spent $275,076 on campaign activities, fees paid to political consultant Hoffenblum, donations to Democratic and Republican candidates, meals, travel and contributions to charitable groups.

Changes in state campaign finance laws, approved by voters last year, prevented Walker from using the campaign war chest on his own behalf, but other uses, including the initiative campaign, were permitted.

Without the contributions, Walker said he would never be able to run his $50,000 direct-mail initiative campaign against Mobil. “Without the ability to communicate in this city, hell, I might as well be using crayons,” he said. “If that breeds jealousy, that’s life.”

Springboard to Sacramento

Criticism of Walker’s fund raising surfaced during the 1988 City Council campaign. In the final days before the March election, one of Walker’s opponents sent out a mailer accusing Walker of supporting his campaign contributors’ development projects and criticizing him for making contributions to politicians, including Agnos. Opponents charged that Walker was attempting to use his council seat as a springboard to Sacramento.

Walker called the charges lies, but when all the votes were counted, he came in last of three incumbents on the ballot, with 18.8% of the vote. Although Walker was not in danger of losing his seat, an unknown and under-financed candidate with no history in Torrance politics finished a surprisingly strong fourth with 13.1% of the vote.

Council colleagues said the election returns were a blow to Walker, who had placed first in three previous council races. “Dan realized if anybody (serious) had run against him he would have lost,” a fellow council member said. “He was scared.”

Less than five months after the election, Walker seized the Mobil issue.

It was a new role for him.

Explosion Kills 3

The first serious safety problems at Mobil surfaced in December, 1979, when an explosion and spectacular two-day fire killed two refinery workers and a passing motorist.

Until then, Walker said in a recent interview, Mobil had an impressive safety record. “We thought it was an isolated incident that would not happen again,” he said.

Neither Walker nor the rest of the council proposed action against the refinery.

“We unfortunately succumbed to the Mobil line, which is still being given today--’Trust me. It’s safe,’ ” Walker said. “I was as negligent as anyone else in city government in not recognizing the true problem we had in front of us.”

Walker says his concern about Mobil grew after a massive explosion and two-day fire that rocked the refinery in November, 1987. The blast was caused by an excess of hydrofluoric acid in a refinery unit that produces unleaded gasoline.

Safety Record Examined

The explosion and a series of later incidents, combined with a greater understanding of hydrofluoric acid, prompted council members to hire consultants to examine the refinery’s safety record.

Walker was not the first member of the council to raise questions about the potential danger of hydrofluoric acid at the refinery, but he was the first to exploit the political potential in the Mobil issue.

“It wasn’t until it became a sexy political issue that Dan decided to do something,” said Councilman Mark Wirth.

Wirth echoes the sentiments of other council members when he accuses Walker of engaging in “a blatantly political act for his own benefit and not really for the safety of the community.”

Walker dismisses such statements as “nonsense.”

Elimination of Risk

“The issue is safety at Mobil Oil,” Walker said. “The issue is the storage of massive quantities of hydrofluoric acid at that refinery. And the issue is going to be the elimination of the risk in this community.”

Mobil officials have said that use of the acid poses almost no risk to local residents. But Nevada desert tests sponsored by the oil industry show that a 1,000-gallon spill of the acid can produce a toxic gas cloud that could be lethal to all who are exposed within five miles.

After the flash fire at the refinery last August, Walker asked then-City Atty. Stanley E. Remelmeyer to study Torrance’s options for dealing with problems at Mobil. Despite his strong comments about the refinery to the press a few days before, Walker was not present at the council meeting when Remelmeyer told the council about Walker’s request.

Instead, appearing as a consultant to Pioneer Theatres, Walker was at Gardena City Hall, fighting a proposal to establish a rival indoor swap meet across the street from the Roadium.

How Important Is Mobil?

Back at Torrance City Hall that summer night, council members noted Walker’s absence and questioned just how important the Mobil issue was to him.

“In all honesty,” Walker said in an interview, “I work for a living and I had a responsibility to my employer. Had I been able to take care of the matter in Gardena quickly and gotten back to Torrance for the balance of the council meeting, that would have been fine. . . . It was just an unfortunate situation.”

But he said his decision to spend $50,000 on the initiative campaign is evidence of his commitment to the Mobil issue.

Some of Walker’s critics remain skeptical.

“This is a classic example of doing all the right things for all the wrong reasons,” said Suitt, the Madrona Marsh activist.

“What this is all about is getting Dan Walker votes.”