Without a single celebrant in sight two years ago this month, the County Board of Supervisors, led by soon-to-retire Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, officially sanctioned an allegedly squishy set of widely unpopular conditions under which the Plains Exploration & Petroleum Co., after years of trying, appeared free to drill the Inglewood Oil Field under rules it deemed pretty friendly.
In her last months, Ms. Burke, replaced weeks later by Mark Ridley-Thomas, was perceived as being so close to PXP and oil-drilling interests that she practically was considered a partner.
These are the views of many or most of the tens of thousands of residents from surrounding multi-cultural neighborhoods, heavily Baldwin Hills, Culver Crest and selected Culver City neighborhoods.
But before PXP could sink the just-certified amount of machinery into the fertile ground, four separate parties filed suit against the Texas-based company to stop implementation of the controversial guidelines that, some residents believed, endangered the health and safety of their families. Their similar suits are linked to the California Environmental Quality Act, CEQA.
With the second anniversary of the lawsuits coming up, and an adjudication still being awaited, PXP has been restricted to a relatively low level of drilling until a decision is reached.
Culver Crest resident/lawyer Ken Kutcher has been in the forefront of trying to block PXP from gunning its engines. If that is a vague phrase, so is the status of the plaintiffs and defendants.
Last June, a trial date of Dec. 9 was set.
Settlement discussions, meanwhile, have been ongoing for months, and they continue.
Does a succession of delays harm the clutch of cases? “Some discussions have been productive,” Mr. Kutcher said cautiously. “We have made progress though we haven’t settled it. The dialogue always makes it closer.”
Mr. Kutcher cannot gave an assessment of the talks.
“The Attorney General’s office is serving as the mediator,” he said, “and we are under a common agreement that binds the confidentiality of our discussions.”
