Torrance Lawsuits Could Upset Its Budget Planning

As Torrance financial planners start the process of creating a budget for the coming fiscal year, officials are expressing concern that a flurry of expensive lawsuits could upset their best-laid plans.

Planning for the 1990-1991 budget began last week with a brief report to the City Council from City Manager LeRoy Jackson, who predicted little increase in funding for the city’s $89-million operating budget.

“We see more and more requirements put upon us by other government agencies without the resources to implement them,” Jackson said, citing recycling laws, hazardous materials control and air quality programs.

Mayor Katy Geissert warned that the city’s careful budget planning could be upset easily by pending legal decisions.

“We have come face-to-face with some pretty hard realities this year,” she said. “I am worried about how we would handle any substantial judgments against the city.”

Primary among Geissert’s concerns are:

* A city lawsuit seeking greater control over Mobil Oil Corp.’s Torrance refinery, which has already cost Torrance more than $1 million in attorney’s fees.

* The potential costs of a Mobil lawsuit if voters approve a city ballot measure March 6 that would ban storage of large amounts of hydrofluoric acid.

* The city’s pending appeal of a $6-million jury award and $2 million in attorney’s fees in a judgment against the Torrance Police Department for an alleged cover-up concerning an officer’s involvement in a fatal 1984 traffic accident.

* Settlement negotiations with the victim of a 1988 police shooting, in which three officers allegedly conspired to make the accidental shooting appear to be justified.

Geissert warned that even if additional money could be found to pay such costs, the state’s spending-limit law could force the city to cut existing services to make the payments.

Under the Gann spending-limit law, government agencies may not significantly increase spending without a growth in population or permission from the voters. The city will ask voters on March 6 to raise the city’s limit $2 million per year for four years.

The Torrance budget now runs about $4 million to $5 million below the Gann spending limit, which was named for its author, Paul Gann.

Torrance Finance Director Mary Giordano said she has some concerns about costs stemming from the Mobil litigation.

“It may curtail a lot of improvements we want to make,” she said.

City department heads have been asking for years for more clerical help, more gang and graffiti control experts and more people to maintain the increasing number of city parks, buildings and landscaped areas.

“We may have to put some of that off again,” Giordano said.

In addition, the city will have to begin hiring support staff for its new cultural arts center when that facility opens in the summer of 1991.

The city will conduct a hearing at 7 p.m. Tuesday in City Council chambers for public comment on how Torrance should spend its money.