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

Last September the City emptied and fenced the pond at Wilson Park in response to state water conservation requirements. Since that time, the City has been exploring options to re-purpose the pond with the goal of reaching a sustainable and ecological solution.

The proposed solution is to create a smaller pond with a bio-filter and then turn the south end of the current pond into a 3,000 square foot splash pad for use by the public during the warm weather months. City staff estimates this concept would result in a net water savings of approximately 10,000 to 50,000 gallons per year.

To help fund the project, the City has applied for a $300,000 grant offered through Supervisor Don Knabe’s office for park amenities. Under the City’s proposal, another $210,000 needed to complete the project would come from Parks and Recreation Open Space Funds.

The City Council approved the initial concept for the splash pad at their final meeting of last year and the City hopes to have the project completed and open to the public as soon as this summer.

For the past several months members of the Torrance Refinery Action Alliance (TRAA) have appeared at Council meetings during oral communications to express ongoing concerns about the danger posed to the community through the use of hydroflouric acid (“HF”) at the ExxonMobil refinery.

The TRAA claims that as part of the consent decree agreed upon between the City of Torrance and ExxonMobil that the refiner agreed to use modified HF in order to reduce the risk use of the dangerous chemical presents to area residents in the so called “killzone.” TRAA claims they recently discovered that in 1998 Torrance allowed ExxonMobil to reduce the percentage of the additive from the agreed upon 30% to 10% or even less.

In stunning allegations, one member of TRAA claimed at the last Council meeting that in 1998 then Fire Chief R.S. Adams penned a document on behalf of the City approving a reduction in the HF additive.  Subsequently in 1999, according to the speaker, the fire chief retired and was hired by ExxonMobil.  The member then suggested, “you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to see that this smacks of something really awful.”

Several other members expressed continued concerns about the lack of progress on a study the City had promised to conduct at a meeting on the issue last October.

One of those speakers expressed shock that nothing had been done and criticized the Council for what he termed a relaxed approach to this issue as he believed the City has already had sufficient time to complete the study.  He wondered why the Council was not asking questions and demanding action from the City Manager.

Yet another member suggested the City Attorney vacate the consent decree with ExxonMobil suggesting it was outdated while another member called for an independent investigation into the whole affair as the issue is undermining confidence in the City of Torrance.

In response, Mayor Furey took aim at one of his favorite targets, the Daily Breeze.  He stated that “some things published in the newspaper were not paradigms of accuracy,” also noting that was a kind way to say how he really felt.

He encouraged people not to repeat those inaccuracies contained in the local paper and then went on to question the memory process of former elected officials who claim they knew nothing about what was occurring when the additive was presumably reduced because, according to Furey, “that’s not true.”

One of the former elected officials Mayor Furey referred to is current School Board President Don Lee who was quoted extensively in the Daily Breeze article claiming the Council was not informed back in 1998 when the City allowed ExxonMobil to reduce the additive.

Councilman Weideman also took umbrage with the questions proffered by the TRAA.  He offered that it was not the nature of oral communications for the Council to engage in a dialogue and that for somebody to say I would like to ask you all a question is out of bounds.  At the conclusion of the meeting, he followed up those statements by saying that he found it objectionable when a gentlemen stands up here and says I’d like to ask you a question.

The disclaimer included in every City Council agenda and read aloud prior to oral communications states that, “Council cannot act on items raised during public comment, but may respond briefly to statements made or questions posed; request clarification; or refer the item to staff.”

In the spirit of the holidays, the Council will consider suspending parking enforcement from December 20^th to January 3, 2016.  The idea was proposed by Councilman Griffiths at the last Council meeting.  At that time, he noted that “it is a stressful time of the year with all the people visiting” and that he thought it would be a nice gift the City could give the residents.

The lack of enforcement will only pertain to parking tickets issued for street sweeping.  Other parking violations will continue to be enforced.  The staff report noted that over the last three years that an average of 148 parking citations for street sweeping violations occurred during the holiday season.  The expected violations for this holiday season, however, could be much higher as Torrance recently enacted increased street sweeping parking enforcement as part of the Optimized Street Sweeping Program.

The matter will be heard at Tuesday’s meeting.