Check yesterday’s edition for the Bernard Parks’ photo downtown at the Los Angeles City Council, and you will spot the permanently peripatetic School Board member Scott Zeidman over Mr. Parks’ shoulder. He was not there for a photo-op pass. He earned his ticket to stand behind the Councilman when Mr. Parks prodded his colleagues into taking a stand for Culver Crest neighbors, among others, in their ongoing campaign to have somebody, anybody, stand watchdog over an oil drilling company.
He is galloping along on a campaign and Cause Campaigns have become one of his trademarks since being elected last November on the promise that he would be an active Board member every day of the week.
A week ago tonight, there was Mr. Zeidman popping questions at the first community alert meeting on the brewing crisis between Baldwin Hills’ area residents and the oil drilling company.
He insisted on answers to his questions. They were not forthcoming. He leaned, moderately at first, then harder, on Jon Pierson, the expert the County sent to Culver Crest to mollify worried residents.
He is not going away. Ever since he was elected to the School Board, Culver City has learned that Mr. Zeidman morphs into an uncompromising bulldog when he meets a school cause that demands attention and resolution.
Look for Him Tonight
Best bet in town this afternoon is that Mr. Zeidman will be at tonight’s 7 o’clock community-workshop meeting at the Vets Auditorium on the same subject.
He is a cinch to formulate the same question he has been posing for days, which has brought into focus one of the seriously neglected dimensions of the Safe Oil Drilling vs. Neighbors debate:
Has the County conducted specific testing to survey the impact on the vulnerable bodies of thousands of Culver City schoolchildren in the event of another gas leakage?
“I have 6500 kids at risk here,” Mr. Zeidman says.
Last week in Culver Crest, in the living room of a private home plump with demanding persons, Mr. Zeidman rose, pretty unobtrusively, as is his style, and gently confronted Mr. Pierson with his uncomplicated question.
Mr. Pierson, bent, swayed and ducked.
Mr. Zeidman reloaded, fired again.
With a practice round under his belt, Mr. Pierson went straight to ducking.
The persistent Mr. Zeidman pressed as firmly, but as civilly, as he could.
At length, Mr. Pierson confessed “No,” the County had not investigated the effects on children because — well, he did not finish the sentence.
Before this summer is over, Mr. Zeidman means to glean two specific commitments from the County — that it will investigate and that it will be prepared with an antidote.
