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The six candidates for Torrance City Council appeared at Anza Elementary yesterday evening for a forum sponsored by the Southwood HOA.  Below is a summary of the candidate responses to some of the questions asked.

Q. The Mayor has been critical of the Daily Breeze reporting.  Do you share those concerns? 

• Eng: Any elected official has a special relationship with the media.  This is to be expected.  I don’t see this as a particular issue.
• Herring: The public has an obligation to take what they read with a grain of salt and do their own investigation, but I am endorsed by the Daily Breeze and so I think they are doing an excellent job.
• Rizzo: It’s important to have multiple sources and perspectives.  I have a concern with all media sources that you get the perspective of that individual reporter.
• Griffiths: It is important for the Council to share information with the media so people can understand what is going on in our City.  To shy away from that completely is an oversight.
• Dagastino: The quality of the Daily Breeze has really been declining. They are publishing opinions rather than news or actual facts.  When you try to get them to make corrections, it’s almost impossible to get them to print a retraction.
• Sheikh: It’s immature at this point to make any comments.  We need more time to do more research and do our due diligence.

Sidenote: The relationship between Mayor Furey and the Daily Breeze can be fairly characterized as “hostile.” Mayor Furey has been sharply critical of the local paper and reporter Nick Green.  He once attempted to have Nick Green removed from his position and recently referred to him as a “hatemonger.”

Q. Former Councilmembers have expressed concerns that the unions run the show in Torrance.  Do they?  Is too much union influence a concern?   

• Eng: Collective bargaining is important.  Historically unions have been very good, but they have been in decline so I am surprised anybody would think they wield too much power.  I think in general it’s been a good balance.
• Herring: I don’t have an informed response to that.  I respectfully pass.  We should have a good relationship between City and Union leaders.
• Rizzo: Union members are important stakeholders.  I don’t think they have the power that some people think they have, but they do have a place at the table.
• Griffiths: Unions do a great job representing all the different employee groups in our City, but there should be a line between their representation of their employees and their involvement in politics.  The unions involvement in politics creates a dangerous conflict of interest that concerns me greatly.
• Dagastino: I believe in people’s right to collective bargaining.  You have to work together to come to a decision.  The unions have to work with the City Council.
• Sheikh: I have not heard that so I am going to pass on that question, but unions have done a good job and are an important element of the City.

Sidenote: With regard to this subject, former councilmember and mayoral candidate Bill Sutherland stated in an interview that, “The unions have a lot of power.  They have more power than the Council has.  You can’t do anything without them signing off on it.”  Former Mayor Scotto echoed similar concerns in an article that appeared in the Daily Breeze shortly after the 2014 election.  The public employee unions are a major player in Torrance elections giving thousands of dollars to their preferred candidates.

Q. How would you pay for needed street repairs and infrastructure improvements?  

• Eng: The recession hurt the City, but it’s now turned around.  I would like more polling of the population to identify what streets need to be fixed and in what order.  It’s important that our streets look good.
• Herring: We should be more aggressive when it comes to our infrastructure.  Look at the streetscape around Lomita and Crenshaw where they have new developments coming in.  Why can’t that be all of Torrance?  We must find ways in which to do this.  I will make it priority. 
• Rizzo: It is time to do these projects as the economy is improving and as our revenue is increasing. These things take time.
• Griffiths: Our facilities and infrastructure are aging.  The recession hurt us as well as Exxon being offline, but with Exxon coming back that should help us.  We are spending a large percentage of our capital budget on infrastructure.
• Dagastino: When I was in DC a few weeks ago we talked about how we could secure more grant funding for the City.  We have to stay on top of our representatives in DC and Sacramento and aggressively pursue those grants.
• Sheikh: Spending on infrastructure will bring a good ROI to the City and its residents.

Side Commentary: Everybody agreed that more street improvements and infrastructure spending is needed, but nobody was able to articulate how they would pay for it with the possible exception of Dagastino who cited the need to capture more federal and state grants.

Q. What is your commitment to scrubbing the City’s budget to eliminate waste? How conservative will you be when it comes to spending our City’s funds?   

• Eng: I think Torrance has done a very good job.  I would like to see alternative budgets developed through the Planning Commission that give options on what to do if there is a shortfall or what to do if there is extra money.  Torrance has a conservative budget.
• Herring: I would audit the various departments and see if there is any fat that could be cut.
• Rizzo: I used to handle the police department budget.  Those budgets do get audited on a regular basis.  This is a very conservative Council.  We do spend our money wisely.
• Griffiths: I’ve been impressed with how City staff organizes their projects and how the City Manager determines what they will go forward with.  We didn’t just willy nilly approve everything that was proposed by staff.  I think we are being conservative and doing a really good job.
• Dagastino: My background is in finance.  I have an MBA in quantitative analysis.  I used to manage a billion dollar budget for American Airlines.
• Sheikh: We have to prioritize based on the needs of the City and the ROI.

Sidenote: The City operated at a deficit in several of the last fiscal years.  With an uptick in projected revenues, however, the Council approved at the last Council meeting to set aside funds for several new annual expenditures such as fireworks ($75K), historic preservation ordinance ($169K), tree ordinance ($168K), increase of Torrance Cultural Arts Center donation ($60K increase bringing total to $168K), and Police Department Social Media Manager ($86K).  While still voting yes to the budget, Councilwoman Ashcraft said she opposed the $75K expense for fireworks.

Q. What do you intend to do as a Councilmember to mitigate the risk to the community presented by the use of hydrofluoric acid (HF) at the refinery. 

• Eng: I am the only scientist running for Council.  I think the Council has missed a lot of opportunities dating back to 1989 by deffering to the experts and presuming they had to listen to what they said.  Many of those experts like Norton engineering have a history of working for Exxon and so it’s hard to get an independent expert. I would like to see a refinery commission created made of non-oil industry people that are scientific and technical experts.
• Herring: I am the only candidate calling for an independent safety monitor to be hired and paid for by fines levied against Exxon. It’s important to restore the credibility gap we now have between the community and Exxon.  HF is something that should not be used and we should work with local and state officials to eventually outlaw HF and find other safer additives to use.     
• Rizzo: I have no opinion on HF yet.  I am still waiting for the report to come back to determine whether there is a safer alternative.  Until that report is completed, I can’t give a solid opinion.
• Griffiths: HF is a very dangerous chemical, but dangerous chemicals can be used safely and that is my goal to ensure HF is being used safely.  There is a big misconception by a lot of people that we can just drain out the HF and replace it.  That’s not true.  It has to be redesigned for a different chemical process.  It’s a very complex process.  I am going to defer to the experts and will follow their recommendations on how to operate the refinery safely going forward.
• Dagastino: We should continue to explore alternatives and look to re-establish the Disaster Commission that was abolished about 4 years ago.  We could also form an Ad-Hoc Committee of residents that could provide suggestions to the City Council.
• Sheikh: I would like to get an opinion from experts and then we should ensure the refinery abides by all laws and regulations.

Sidenote: Organizations like the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance continue to advocate for the refinery to stop using HF in its operations.  One recent Facebook post from the organization criticized the Mayor and Council for their absence of a fighting spirit in the battle against HF and claimed that:

City elected representatives cower behind a slogan we hear repeatedly: “I’m not an expert. I will defer to the experts…There’s nothing the city can do.” Don’t ask for a city investigation, they advise. There are better ways to “handle” this problem. This is utter rubbish, meant to evade their responsibility as elected representatives of the public … Show some backbone, take a public stand and SPEAK UP!

 

“We are a well-managed City.” “We are ethical.”

“We are not Bell or Carson or Hawthorne.” “We don’t have those problems, our City officials are not corrupt or plagued by scandals.”

These are refrains oft heard around City Hall. Torrance officials pride themselves on ethics. What will they do now as that ethical compass that has guided and shaped our community hangs in the balance?

We are not Bell.  Or are we?

On November 18, 2014 the Council discussed the award of the City’s emergency services contract. Mayor Furey was under fire.  The FPPC had already initiated an investigation for alleged improprieties dealing with the Furey PAC.  At the meeting, Furey attempted to quell any notion of wrongdoing by forcefully stating:

“I had nothing to do with it…They had no coordination with me…I didn’t ask them to do it.  There was no control that I would have over it…This was no impropriety.  Although there can be a perception and there’s a local newspaper that wants to believe there is a perception.  There is no perception…I don’t see a conflict and I’m sorry that you do.”

The inescapable fact however, long suspected and now confirmed by the $35,000 fine levied by the FPPC, is that his campaign did coordinate with the PAC and even tried to conceal that coordination by going to such lengths as establishing fake e-mail accounts.

His campaign broke the law. The violation enabled powerful backers to pour more money into his campaign than is legally allowed.  That gave him an advantage over his rivals.  He cheated.  Not only did he cheat, he lied about it.

But it’s not just the cheating and the lies, the Mayor’s family was also enriched in the process. Records indicate Mayor Furey’s campaign paid his son nearly $40,000 and the PAC contributed thousands more.

Those improprieties also cast a dark cloud over one of the most important decisions made by the Council under the Mayor’s tenure – the award of the emergency services contract. McCormick won.  Gerber lost and shuttered its doors.

What now? Should Mayor Furey resign?  Should he be recalled?  Should his son continue to serve on City and School Board Commissions?  Should we all just go quietly about our business and pretend nothing happened because we are too afraid to rock the boat or offend our neighbor?  Or should we loudly protest at City Hall and on social media?

So far, questions like this have mostly been met with silence from current and former City officials.  Some, however, have spoken out.  At the council meeting last night, Councilwoman Ashcraft requested concurrence from her colleagues to bring back an agenda item to discuss the removal of Patrick Furey Jr. from his post on the Traffic Commission.  Councilmember Griffith’s nodded his approval, but the request was quickly scuttled by Mayor Furey.

Of that exchange, Councilwoman Ashcraft would later say, “I know it was the right thing to do, in my world honesty and ethical behavior count.”  Former Councilmember and contender for the Mayor’s office, Bill Sutherland, offered his support of the action.  In an e-mail he commented that, “I would have seconded it [the motion] in a heartbeat. Torrance is more important than friendship or feelings.”

In contrast, Mayor Furey would clearly prefer the matter pass quickly and quietly into the night. Will the community allow that to occur?  What does the Mayor continuing to serve say about Torrance?  Does it mean we as a community condone cheating and lying?  Like Councilwoman Ashcraft, can we say that honesty and ethical behavior still count?

We are not Bell. Or are we?

After a lengthy, and at times passionate, discussion on historical preservation the Council delayed implementing a Historic Preservation Ordinance.  The three Councilmembers (Goodrich, Griffiths, and Aschraft) that make up the Community Planning and Design Committee had recommended the following:

1. Adoption of the Historic Resource Survey;
2. Develop Funding for the Program;
3. Hire a consultant to prepare a Historic Preservation Ordinance that would have included establishing historic (HPOZ) districts and allowed a structure to be deemed historic under the Mills Act; and
4. Creation of a Historic Preservation Commission.

The Council did adopt the Historic Resource Survey, and directed staff to prepare an RFP to hire a consultant, but rather than directing staff to prepare the ordinance the Council opted to send the matter back to Committee for further exploration.

An exasperated Bonnie Barnard, who lives in the historic Zamperini House and founded Save Historic Old Torrance, noted that she has been working on the issue with the City for the past 13 years.  She expressed dismay that Council stopped short of implementing the ordinance:

“I’m frustrated.  I don’t know how many more years I can keep coming before Commissions, and Committees, and Councils saying why, why does the City of Torrance not appreciate and preserve this marvelous area designed by world renowned City Planner Frederick Law Olmsted Jr.?”

To that criticism Mayor Furey replied, “I’m tired of the rhetoric.  I’m doing something here tonight that we hadn’t done in a dozen years.  I don’t want to hear the negativity…what we’re here for is a positive discussion on historical preservation in the City of Torrance.”

Despite the Mayor’s comments, the next speaker Janet Payne, a former Jared Sidney Torrance award winner who once was described as the heart and soul of the Torrance Historical Society, seemed to echo the same criticism as Barnard:

“I really would like to see something happen instead of have meeting after meeting, after meeting, after meeting.  People get tired, they get mad, they get afraid, they get disappointed…I’m positive, but I sure would like to see it before I die.”

On the other side of the issue, several residents expressed concern about restrictions an ordinance might pose to their property rights and how that would impact their property values.  Former Councilmember Sutherland seemed to summarize those feelings when at the conclusion of his remarks he pointedly asked the Council, “Would any of you seven want me to tell you how to design your home?”

In addition to wanting the Committee to provide further details, several on the Council worried about the lack of funding.  Finance Director, Eric Tsao, noted in the staff report that the item currently lacked a funding source.  According to staff, a Historical Preservation Program would have initial start-up costs of about $300K plus annual costs of about the same amount.  One resident likened paying that much money to preserve the about 800 structures indentified in the Historic Resource Survey to “paying $1,000 a month for cable TV.”

Later in the evening the Council did adopt an urgency ordinance establishing a 45 day moratorium on the alteration and demolition of any structures identified in the Historic Resource survey.  This action was prompted by the recent demolition of a historic home next door to long-time historic preservation advocate Gene Higginbotham.  Higginbotham took to social media and the local press to voice his displeasure with the demolition of the property and spoke in favor of the moratorium at the meeting.

The moratorium applies only to the original Torrance tract area.