Torrance City Council – A Town Hall Style Conversation About Local Politics

A 13 hour flaring event at ExxonMobil marked a heated and disturbing week in Torrance. Early Wednesday Torrance Alerts notified residents that a planned meeting for March 19^th hosted by the South Coast Air Quality Management District was cancelled.

Local activists had been rallying the public to attend the meeting as it was scheduled to consider a proposed order to allow ExxonMobil to violate emission standards as it restarts gasoline refining equipment damaged in last year’s explosion. The City provided no explanation for why the meeting was cancelled, but rumors have circulated that it was postponed at the behest of Exxon’s lawyers.

The drama escalated later that evening as residents received a flurry of conflicting communications from the City about the flaring. Some of those are as follows:

“ExxonMobil is experiencing a large flaring event.”

“TFD responded to ExxonMobil for a HazMat response.  Upon arrival TFD investigated and found a flaring event due to a power outage.”

“A second flaring event is taking place at ExxonMobil.”

“There is not a second flaring event. Both ExxonMobil Flares are occurring simultaneously.”

“ExxonMobil refinery is coming back online. Planned flaring will continue.”

Other reports would surface that the incident was caused by a single mylar balloon. Some cast doubts, however, on the entire story by claiming So Cal Edison never reported any power outages.  Current School Board member Don Lee also questioned the power outage explanation by writing on the Torrance Town Hall FB Group:

 “Doesn’t ExxonMobil generate their own power? I know they have a cogeneration plant and they have high priority service from SCE (this means they have their own service into the refinery) that isn’t supposed to be affected by local power outages.”

While ExxonMobil purportedly has 30 days to report the amount of excess emissions, the Torrance Refinery Alliance is already claiming on their FB page that the flaring resulted in several toxic chemicals being spewed in the air.

What really did happen? Was it a planned flaring event per the last communication from the City?  If not, how could a single mylar balloon cause such an event?  Why all the miscommunication? How many chemicals were spewed into the air and what is the impact to the air quality?  What is the plan for future flaring events as the refinery comes back online?

Yet, despite the perturbation created by these unanswered questions surrounding the refinery, the real heat in Torrance may be emanating from City Hall and the Mayor’s office. A Daily Breeze article revealed that the District Attorney’s office is now reviewing the circumstances that led to the FPPC fining the Mayor’s campaign $35,000.

Mayor Furey dodged accountability for the incident saying he was not personally involved. His son, Patrick Furey Jr., blamed the entire affair on political enemies of his father.

It is unlikely, however, that critics will be placated by those responses. Last Council meeting, Arthur Plourde – who was controversially removed from a Commision post last year – angrily denounced the Mayor and claimed he was going to have him recalled. Another speaker called for the removal of Patrick Furey Jr. from his Traffic Commission post.

Councilwoman Ashcraft and Griffiths have supported discussing the removal of Patrick Furey Jr. from his post on the Traffic Commission, but appear to be hoping the community will take the lead with Councilwoman Ashcraft openly wondering how many people would come to the next Council meeting to speak out on the matter.

With that backdrop, next week’s meeting should prove interesting.  Are this week’s flares emblematic of a political firestorm underway in Torrance? Will more people speak out? Or will this scandal die down?

Last Council meeting former Jared Sydney Torrance award winner and consistent Council meeting attendee, Janet Payne, decried the lack of decorum of many residents who expressed their displeasure at the Council’s action on historic preservation by clapping at the end of each speaker who spoke out against it. If Ms. Payne is concerned about clapping, she may not want come next week as we might see more fireworks in the chambers.

“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?

Last April the City Council raised the salary of City Attorney, John Fellows, from $260K to $280K a year further increasing what was already one of the most generous compensation packages in the state for a City Attorney.  The raise also made him the highest paid City employee in terms of salary eclipsing the $268K earned by the City Manager.  According to Transparent California his total compensation in 2014, prior to the increase in pay, amounted to $365K.

The salary increase for Fellows came at the expense of four Legal Secretaries that support his office.  Despite a salary survey showing the secretaries made 12.8% less than their peers, the Council removed a raise for them from the budget.  The money from Fellows raise alone would have been enough to provide each of the four legal secretaries about a 10% raise.

In addition to the four secretaries, Fellow’s staff includes an Assistant City Attorney, 5 Deputy City Attorney’s, a Law Office Administrator, and a part-time Office Assistant.  The cost in salaries and benefits alone for the department is $2.3 Million. The City Attorney also approves untold millions in contracts with private law firms.

As most of the discussion pertaining to legal matters occurs in closed session out of public view, the public has little insight into what it receives for the millions of tax dollars it spends on legal services.

One recent case exemplifies how the public is often left in the dark.  In that instance, a police officer sued the City after being tasered by his supervisor.  The City approved a $1.9 Million settlement after spending $650K in legal fees.  The public was not made aware of the settlement, however, until over a year later after an inquiry led by the Daily Breeze.  Responding to why that settlement was not disclosed to the public earlier, Fellows was quoted as saying:

“It wasn’t done intentionally…we’re not trying to hide it. We’re just not trying to publicize it. It’s a fine line.”

A flurry of other recent cases that were made public raises the question of whether the City is receiving the best legal advice and getting the best value for the taxpayer.

As one prime example, the Daily Breeze detailed a recent case in which a citizen was criminally charged for violating of pair of City ordinances written in the 1950’s pertaining to gun carrying that allegedly violated current state law and the constitution.  Despite the apparent unconstitutionality of the old statutes, the City prosecuted the individual anyway.  This action led to threats of a lawsuit that eventually prompted City officials to quietly repeal the old laws.

In another case, Torrance filed criminal charges against a small business owner for temporarily erecting four decorative Halloween signs.  The City eventually dropped the charges after a drawn out 7 month legal process.  Deputy Community Development Director Linda Cessna was quoted about the case stating:

“As it turns out, the way our sign code is written, what we thought was clear is not clear to our legal department, so we need to revamp.”

In relation to that case, City Assistant Attorney Patrick Sullivan stated:

“The charge was based upon a section of the code that officials eventually concluded didn’t apply to his alleged violation.”

Notably, the opposing attorney in that case claimed the City was “extorting money from people accused of crimes.”

Other recent cases where the City received questionable legal advice include:

• Lawsuit involving a 32-year-old disabled woman with cerebral palsy who sued the city for a permanent handicapped parking space on the street in front of her home in accordance with the American with Disabilities Act. According to the Daily Breeze, the City has already spent $243K and allocated another $315K to prohibit the lady from obtaining the parking space.
• A lawsuit challenging Torrance’s ban on tattoo parlors. Torrance had continued to enforce the ban despite a 2010 Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals decision declaring such bans unconstitutional.  Torrance later adopted an urgency ordinance allowing Tattoo Parlors.
• A lawsuit where Torrance spent an estimated $600K to prevent a former Police Officer from holding an evidentiary hearing where he planned to present evidence that a background check conducted by TPD was biased.
• A lawsuit where Torrance illegally failed to return firearms to their rightful owner and ignored two court orders requiring them to do so.
• A lawsuit where plaintiffs claim the City of Torrance erroneously froze their bank account leaving them unable to access the $340K in the account for four years.

Questions surrounding the City Attorney’s office are compounded by other recent situations where the office has failed to publicly act/comment/advise.  Some of these include:

• Accusations by the Torrance Refinery Alliance that the City secretly reduced the amount of the additive in Hydrofluoric Acid used at the ExxonMobil refinery. In one article, the City Manager admitted to the reduction but declined to say by how much.  Activists have claimed the reduction was a violation of the Consent Decree agreed upon between Exxon and Torrance and called upon City officials to conduct a full review of the Decree.  The City Attorney has made no public comment nor made any public move to enforce Torrance’s rights.
• Penske Cadillac has apparently continued to operate in violation of several City codes and Penske’s Conditional Use Permit.  The lack of enforcement has led to many complaints from surrounding neighbors.
•  Use of Water Funds (an enterprise fund) to pay for expenditures like celebratory fireworks that would normally be paid for using General Fund monies. City Attorney provided no comment at public hearing despite one resident openly questioning the legality of the transaction.
• City’s implementation of “Optimized Street Sweeping” Program under guise that City would be subject to fines of $10K a day unless Program was implemented. When pressed at a public hearing, City officials could not cite/provide state law that granted the state authority to levy such harsh penalties.  Program was implemented in May 2014.  City admitted in December 2015 public meeting that state is not enforcing fines.

The City Attorney’s office Mission Statement includes the phrase that, “We are committed to serving the public fairly and justly.”  When asked by the public at a meeting last year, however, whether an internal e-mail circulated amongst the Council constituted a violation of the Brown Act, Assistant City Attorney Patrick Sullivan made it clear who he serves by declining to answer the question and stating that, “I don’t give advice to the public … the Council and the City is my client.”

Since the City Attorney’s office does not consider the public a client and conducts most of it’s business behind closed doors, how do we know we are getting the best value for the taxpayer when it comes to legal advice?

The City’s self insurance fund has recently been depleted so much due to legal fees that it required the Council to divert large sums from other sources to replenish the fund.  With so much money going to legal fees, money that could be spent on other priorities like fixing our ailing infrastructure, who is holding the City Attorney’s office accountable for all those dollars they are spending?