Re “Cooper, Clarke, Abrams, King Pound the Happy Fracking Trail”
[img]2333|right|Christopher Patrick King||no_popup[/img]With a month to go in the City Council race, fracking emerged today as the first contentious issue in the four-way campaign.
Christopher Patrick King, running hard against the incumbents Jeff Cooper and Jim Clarke, says “there is a real difference in our stances.
“Yesterday’s story reported that I said the City Council has done a nice job of advocating to the state about the dangers of fracking,” being the first municipal government to request a statewide moratorium. “I also said that what we have now is tremendously inadequate for protecting our residents. That is why a local ordinance is needed.’
He criticized the City Council for “lacking the courage to step out and take an impactful stance. I am all for advocacy. But when you are on City Council, you are on a body that has the ability to create legislation at a city level. Responsibilities call for doing a lot more than writing a letter to a congressperson or making a statement at a Council meeting. We can do a lot better than that.”
Where We Differ
“One distinction between my views and Jeff’s and Jim’s,” said Mr. King, “is that I would like the oil companies to put their money where their mouth is. I believe they should be required to post a bond and indemnify Culver City businesses and residents.
“This has worked in other communities. In a California city where a company was doing mining work, it released a tremendous amount of toxic chemicals. What tends to happen is that when a company is allowed to drilling, they go ahead and do it without any thought about the safety and health of residents. If something bad happens, they declare bankruptcy and say, ‘Guess what? We can’t afford it, and we are out of business.’”
If oil companies are forced to post a bond, said Mr. King, the mortgage broker, “this will make them think twice. They would have to post a significant bond, say $1 million, which still is nowhere nearly adequate to what the potential damages could be regarding the lives and property of Culver City residents.”
Mr. King pointed out that when Mayor Cooper stood before the Chamber of Commerce last month in seeking their endorsement, “he stated he would be opposed to a local ban on fracking.
“There is an ordinance being talked about, but it has not been voted on or even moved yet by the City Council,” he said. “Every month that goes by, it is more time the oil companies are continuing to frack. A study I have seen shows they have been fracking since 2003. The more time that passes, the more our residents potentially are in jeopardy.”
