Fighting to escape from a dead-end street of incessant bickering and seemingly unbridgeable differences over regulating drilling in the Baldwin Hills oil field, settlement talks have taken such a favorable turn that next week’s courtroom date has been continued.
A downtown Superior Court hearing scheduled for Tuesday, March 29, was erased last week. Instead, a status conference or update report will be held on June 29 when a determination will be made whether to go ahead with a trial date of July 15.
After more than two years of virtual paralysis, two recent all-day meetings — both rated upbeat — have brought together for the first time 20 legal personalities representing four different petitioner groups on one side, seeking tighter drilling regulations. They are arrayed against the Plains Exploration & Production Co., and Los Angeles County, the odd duck in this party because it has an interest on both sides of the table.
Ken Kutcher, attorney for one of the petitioners, allowed that “progress has been made, but now we are getting down to the difficult issues.” He is “cautiously optimistic” about reaching a settlement with PXP and the County.
But there are so many parties involved with competing interests that lawyers said forecasting the outcome is akin to predicting the weather 20 years from tomorrow in London.
“Most of the issues that have not yet been resolved,” said Mr. Kutcher, “are in the state because the parties have not seen eye-to-eye. At our last mediation (March 10), we made headway on most of those issues.
“Of course that involves nobody being entirely pleased with the outcome. Everyone is trying to find something that works. They are very happy with one issue but less so with another — but if it takes one to get the other, then what do you do?
“But we have had two solid days worth of effort” in the new round of talks that started last month, prodded by County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas.
Since the content of the talks cannot be publicly discussed, Mr. Kutcher was asked why this series of meetings is different from the largely unsatisfactory earlier ones.
“Everybody is genuinely interested in trying to settle,” he said. “I don’t think it has not always been that way. It ebbed and flowed a bit in terms of different parties’ interests in thinking settlement was the best route.
“My sense of communication in the last two meetings is that there is pretty widespread commitment to make this happen.”
The next meeting date has not been finalized because in addition to coordinating the strands of 20 lawyer schedules, at least two have health problems that may delay an immediate resumption.
