Letters to the Editor

I want to thank the newspaper for all the rich, colorful writing that it published on Adele and Henry Siegel over the years.

As I sit here in Indiana, where I moved from Culver City in 2005, I am deeply saddened by the loss of both Adele and Henry.

Speak now or live with the consequences

Whether you are for or against more oil drilling in the Baldwin Hills, your voice will count only until next Tuesday, Aug. 19, the date the public comment period closes.

[Editor’s Note: With the deadline for public comment on expanded drilling in the Baldwin Hills oil field looming one week from today, land-use attorney Kenneth L. Kutcher has led a Culver Crest-based citizens campaign demanding, he says, accountability for strict regulation by Los Angeles County. Yesterday, he directed the following letter — his fourth — to two County agencies he said have not responded to nearly three dozen questions of importance to residents within the orbit of the oil field. Meanwhile, the next community meeting on the oil drilling dispute will be 6 o’clock Thursday evening at the Consolidated Board of Realtors, 3725 Don Felipe Dr. On Wednesday at 6:30, the City Council will vote on a resolution it will file with County officials.]

[Editor’s Note: Continuing his aggressive, summer-long campaign to urge Los Angeles County to adopt strict oil drilling regulations in the Baldwin Hills oil field, Culver Crest resident/attorney Kenneth L. Kutcher dispatched a third exhaustively researched and detailed letter to the County Planning Commission last Friday. This followed on the heels of equally minutely detailed letters to the County, published here on July 8 and on July 30. (Keyword: Kutcher.) In the present 3,580-word letter, Mr. Kutcher criticizes claims made by the oil drilling company’s lawyer, and he proposes remedies.]

[Editor’s Note: Here is the first response yesterday from any elected official to a distress letter sent out this week by Mike Bauer, President of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Assn., to hundreds of residents and community leaders, vigorously objecting to the way last Saturday’s oil drilling forum at West Los Angeles College was run.]

Re The 6 articles and commentaries published on Monday and Tuesday regarding concerns for and regulations that will govern oil drilling in the Culver City-adjacent Baldwin Hills oil field.

[Editor’s Note: In the wake of Saturday’s heavily criticized community meeting on oil drilling, former Mayor Alan Corlin fired off the following 667-word email to County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke on Sunday night.]

To All Culver Crest and Vicinity Residents:

Thank you to the many of you who showed up (for Saturday’s community meeting at West L.A College on oil drilling), and unfortunately only the few of you who participated (through no fault of yours but because of time constraints) in the L.A. County Regional Hearing RE: the PXP issue. As you can see by the letter written to Supervisor Burke below, we were very displeased at the outcome of the hearing. There wasn't enough time allotted, and the format was disorderly (the format being, the first one to grab a speaker’s seat can talk).

[Editor’s Note: City Councilman Andy Weissman directed this letter to County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, regarded as the key member of the 5-person body that will vote on Oct. 21 on the standards to govern oil drilling by Plains, Exploration & Production Co. in the Baldwin Hills oil field for the next 20 years.]

Today, one day post-5.4 earthquake, while standing in line at the Post Office, I and others were jolted out of our placid demeanors by what I thought was an aftershock.

Is this a precursor to the Big One? somebody joked.