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The six candidates for Torrance City Council congregated at Richardson Middle School yesterday evening for a forum sponsored by the Riviera HOA.  Below is a summary of their responses to the questions posed.

Q. Now that ExxonMobil is resuming operations, what should the Torrance City Council do to ensure the health and safety of residents? How comfortable are you that the City will have adequate oversight of the refinery going forward?

• Eng: I submitted a Citizens’s Petition to the AQMD raising concerns prior to the recent hearing where approval was given to re-start the refinery. I would love to have a City Council observer ensure the refinery adheres to obligations imposed upon it at the recent hearing.
• Herring: I am proposing to use the fine money to appoint an independent safety monitor to provide input to the community.
• Rizzo: I’m not happy with what happened.  We should improve training regimens and how we communicate to the public.  We should rely upon state regulators to enforce regulations.
• Griffiths: We are very concerned about safety, but we are not the experts or the regulators.  We do need to develop better tools to communicate with the community.
• Dagastino: I served on the ExxonMobil advisory panel and felt like we did not get the full picture of what was happening.  I would hope people make suggestions to AQMD about what they should do with the fine money.
• Sheikh: Exxon should undergo a safety and compliance audit every three months.

Sidenote: Several residents affiliated with the group FLARE spoke at the last Council meeting on this issue urging the Council to take steps such as:

1. Install real time air quality monitors, easily accessible to the public and managed by a third party, surrounding the Torrance Refinery.
   2. Remove Hydrofluoric Acid from the Torrance Refinery.
   3. Better track and investigate Cyanide emissions from the Refinery.
   4. Implement a MUCH BETTER disaster preparedness plan to communicate with schools, residents, and local hospitals, etc.
   5. Conduct public outreach with residents, schools, businesses, and homeless populations as to what to do in the case of disaster such as an explosion or Hydrofluoric Acid leak.

Mayor Furey responded to these concerns by saying there was really nothing the City could do to address the issues as it was outside their jurisdictional authority.

Q. In light of FPPC findings against Mayor Furey’s Campaign what, if anything, would you like to see happen next?  How would you deal with division it has exposed in the community?

• Eng: We shouldn’t indict the mayor.  People that scream the loudest may not necessarily represent the truth of what happened.  The wheels of justice will turn and we should wait for all the facts to come in.  I’m glad to see his son resigned from the Traffic Commission.
• Herring: My military service taught me values such as truth, honor, and integrity.  I’m content to let the investigation takes its course.
• Rizzo: The FPPC investigation has concluded and there is an ongoing DA investigation.  I learned from my days in law enforcement not to comment on an active investigation.
• Griffiths: This has been a difficult time for our City government. Even just the perception it has created has let down the people.  It presents a black eye to the City, but there is not much the Council can do.  Only the people have the right to determine what they want to see happen.
• Dagastino: We are not privy to all information.  There has been too much premature judgment.  The mayor’s son resigned.  The fine has been paid.  The city needs to move forward.  It’s a terrible distraction.
• Sheikh: We need political stability.  It’s too premature to make a final judgment.  It’s time to move forward.

Sidenote: The Council has declined to take actions such as a formal censure of the Mayor or recommendation to the School Board Personnel Commission that Patrick Furey, Jr. resign from his position on that Commission.

Q. Do you support a Tree/View Ordinance?

• Eng: Yes, I think it’s good.  Interest in privacy and views should be balanced. Trees should be maintained.  View seeker should be required to pay costs of vegetation maintenance.  View seeker should not be allowed to have line of sight view into homes of neighbors.
• Herring: Yes, let’s get this resolved.  It’s been kicked down the road for too long. I applaud this Council for taking action.
• Rizzo: Yes, it’s long overdue.
• Griffiths: Yes, I am the Chair of the Committee on this issue.  We need to balance privacy and view protection and keep costs neutral.  City shouldn’t bear costs.    
• Dagastino: Yes, we should use examples from other cities.  An ordinance is a long-time coming.  Views should be protected.
• Sheikh: Yes. City should be involved in helping neighbors resolve this issue.

Side Commentary: The City has conducted ongoing outreach and studies on this issue for years.  Considering that everyone seems to support it, the question that should be asked is how come the ordinance has not come up for a formal vote by the Council.  Why does it take so long?

Q. How do you feel about mansionization?  Would you advise the planning department to strictly adhere to the Hillside Overlay Ordinance? 

• Eng: It’s a good guideline that allows for appeal.  System is good as it is.
• Herring: Should be looked at on a case by case basis.
• Rizzo: There might be exceptions to the ordinance.
• Griffiths: We shouldn’t apply it as a blanket.  It’s a good mechanism that allows for extra levels of review.
• Dagastino: Strict adherence is critical.  Views should be protected.
• Sheikh: We should support ordinance.

Sidenote: For an interesting case study on this issue and the passions/conflicts it can create among neighbors review the lengthy discussion at the last Council meeting about the property located at 406 De Encanto.  It got so heated at one point that a resident had to be escorted out of Council Chambers by uniformed law enforcement.

Q. Many residents are concerned about developments like Legado that are located on the border between Torrance and neighboring cities.  What can Torrance do? How would you deal with neighboring cities in these situations?  

• Eng: Torrance gets the traffic, other cites get the revenue.  We should be more proactive in working with the residents to determine if development works for us.
• Herring: I am concerned.  Best thing to do is to ask residents to voice their concerns to neighboring cities.
• Rizzo: We need to have open lines of communication.
• Griffiths: I have individually shared my opinion.  We need to improve traffic and are working on key intersections like PCH and Hawthorne.
• Dagastino: Cities should work with South Bay Cities Council’s of Governments (SBCCOG).
• Sheikh: It’s a concern.  We should propose new guidelines to alleviate traffic.

Side Commentary: I recently attended a community meeting led by a Councilmember from Redondo Beach where the Legado development was discussed.  The Redondo Beach Councilmember revealed at that meeting that Redondo Beach has had no formal communication with City of Torrance staff or officials on Legado.  Why doesn’t the Torrance City Council formally take a position on the issue and then send a letter to Redondo Beach either in support or raising concerns?

Q. Are pensions a concern?  

• Eng: We should do a comparison study and see where we fit compared to other cities.
• Herring: Torrance has a balanced budget and I will work to ensure we balance the budget in the future.  We are moving in the right direction.
• Rizzo: It’s a concern as it will consume a larger portion of the budget.  We are not in trouble.  We should stay the course.
• Griffiths: They are damaging our City.  Pension expenses take away from city services. Not much we can do about it as people under the old program need to retire.
• Dagastino:  Only been an issue since 2012 when they made changes to how the unfunded liability was calculated.  Things will balance out.
• Sheikh: It’s a concern. We need to retain small businesses in order to create more revenue to cover the cost.

Sidenote: Comparative studies have already been conducted by organizations such as the California Policy Center and the Wall Street Journal.  Those studies have found that Torrance’s penision risk is high compared to other cities.  Also, while Torrance does plan a balanced budget it actually ran a deficit in the last fiscal year.

Q. How do we improve business and employment opportunities?

• Eng: Small business should pay less in taxes and fees while big business should pay more.
• Herring: We should increase Economic Development Department by two people and create business development district for downtown.
• Rizzo: We need more Economic Development Department staff and should work with the Chamber of Commerce and groups like the United Small Business Alliance.
• Griffiths: Need to do more outreach to businesses interested in coming to our City that will fill the void left by Toyota leaving.
• Dagastino: We should find more business ourselves and think of Torrance more like an international City and hub for Exports/Imports.
• Sheikh: We should eat, and shop Torrance.  Toyota leaving is their loss.

Side commentary: How are we going to pay for increased Economic Development Department staff?

Q. What can we do about increases in burglaries?

• Eng: Put more cameras on streets.
• Herring: Encourage residents to “see something/say something” and organize neighborhood watches.
• Rizzo: Use the community as our eyes and ears.  “See something/say something.”
• Griffiths: City should lobby state for more funds.  They stopped paying to imprison people, so they should pay to help us protect people.
• Dagastino: Torrance is down 23 officers.  We need more police.
• Sheikh: We need more police presence.

Side Commentary: How are going to pay for more police or cameras?

Q. Do you support City paying for Rose Float and Fireworks?

• Eng: Maybe to Rose Float; Yes to fireworks.
• Herring: Yes to Rose Float; maybe to fireworks.
• Rizzo: Yes to Rose Float; maybe to fireworks.
• Griffiths: Yes to both.
• Dagastino: Yes to both.
• Sheikh: Yes to both.

Side Commentary:  The City is currently using one-time money for the Rose Float and monies stemming from the Water fund for the fireworks.  There is no budgeted plan for these expenditures in the future.  How are they going to pay for these expenses?

Q. Who are your primary donors?   

• Eng: I received a check from my first individual donor.
• Herring: I’m honored to have the support of the Torrance Police and Firefighters Association.
• Rizzo: I’m supported by the Torrance Police and Firefighters Associations.
• Griffiths: I’m supported by several individual donors.  I am not receiving contributions from any unions.
• Dagastino: I’m supported by the Torrance Police and Firefighters Associations as well as the National Women’s Political Caucus.
• Sheikh: I don’t have any major organizational donors.

Side note: Interestingly, Councilmember Griffiths received the endorsement of the Police Officer Association in the last election, but as he noted not in this election.

Prior to closing, the moderator conducted what he termed political theater.  He said a few hardball questions about the Furey issue were received from the audience.  He noted that the panel seemed relatively disinclined to engage on the first question about the Furey’s and didn’t think they would be willing to offer much more, but said that he didn’t want to overrule the sentiment in the room by not asking the questions.  He asked the audience if they really wanted to put the candidates on the spot and ask the questions or was it that only a few people wanted to hear them.  He did not reveal what the questions were. Only a handful of the about 50 or so people in the room raised their hand acknowledging that they wanted the questions asked. I learned afterward that the questions received by the audience, but not asked were:

1. Have you ever hired Patrick Furey, Jr. as your Campaign Manager?
2. Should the Council recommend that Patrick Furey, Jr. resign his position on the School Board Personnel Commission?
3. Should Mayor Furey be recalled if the DA investigation reveals further adverse findings?

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.

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?