By the anticipated country-mile margin of 4 to 1 last evening, the City Council rejected the passionately supported proposal of a Citizens Committee on Fracking.
Notwithstanding the fervent pleas of 13 anti-fracking advocates, the Council concluded the present approach, which relies on City Hall’s environmental experts and individual reporting by the community, is more practical.
Council members said they receive regular correspondence from anti-fracking activists, which they digest and pass on to staff with their own observations appended.
It was a night of major disappointments for the progressive Council freshman Meghan Sahli-Wells. She had authored both Council agenda items. The second was a discussion of the numerous Nov. 6 ballot measures, a subject that seemed clean and straight-forward. It was not. The discussion never became airborne.
The citizens committee turndown sprang from several reasons that overrode the powerful importuning of Ms. Sahli-Wells:
• Since a formally designed citizens committee would be subject to complex Brown Act rules, it would be more efficient to have individual community members continue to report, comment on/advise in a timelier manner on the hottest political subject in the country.
The Argument Against
Councilman Jim Clarke addressed the inefficiencies of committee life:
“Here are two different scenarios. We form a citizens committee. The committee then has to agendize (a subject). They have a meeting on it. They vote whether they want to do it or not. They assign a subcommittee to go out and find the information, bring it back to the next committee meeting and do something with it.”
Turning to anti-fracking enthusiasts in the audience who had offered to serve on a citizens committee, Mr. Clarke illustrated the perceived advantages of retaining the status quo with a combination of City Hall’s environmental consultants, environmental lawyers, staffers and community activists who are well known around City Hall.
By contrast, he said, “I could say Paul (Ferrazzi) or Stephen (Murray) or Suzanne (Dr. DeBenedittis) or any of you, ‘Find out what that is. Report to us at the next meeting because we really would like to know.’
“That’s the difference,” said Mr. Clarke. “Now you have the flexibility to just go out and do that. I believe there is a definite advantage to doing it. They can talk among themselves, get the information and bring it to us…instead of having it take forever.”
• If still another community committee were formed, the extensive paper/administrative work necessarily would consume the attention of a slimmed-down City Hall staff that already is fully booked.
Matter of Favoritism
• Concern also was expressed that since all 13 of the committee volunteers were of the identical anti-fracking conviction, findings potentially would be skewed. Like her philosophical predecessor Gary Silbiger, Ms. Sahli-Wells long has believed that elected officials not only are obligated, but demonstrate wisdom, when they invite members of the community to sit beside them, as virtual equals, to assess evidence and strongly influence the outcome.
Further, Ms. Sahli-Wells held that the Brown Act not only was not an impediment, the California law encourages “fairness, transparency and openness” in the legislative process.
She declared her concurrence with advocates who urged broadening a citizens committee mission far beyond “the narrow scope” of merely studying fracking, to include the entire universe of oil and gas
Acknowledging that the City Council and staff presently are developing an updated oil drilling ordinance, Ms. Sahli-Wells said: “Until that ordinance has been vetted through the community, we will need help from the community.”
Mayor Andy Weissman offered a counter view, emphasizing that the public has an ample number of vocal paths into City Hall. “It is important to keep in mind,” he said, “that the ultimate test of transparency and openness will be when our oil drilling ordinance comes forward, is circulated and people have an opportunity to see what it says. Rest assured, they will have more than one opportunity to tell us it is too strong, modify it here or modify it there. At that stage, it may be appropriate to have individuals assist in wordsmithing. But I don’t think the time has come.”
Simply Not Simple
A discussion of the carload of sometimes vaguely worded propositions on Election Day sounded harmless, but Council members did not get that far.
It seems that no selection standards had been established. How do we judge? Council members asked.
Perhaps the most damaging reason was this:
What if the Council takes a controversial stand on Gov. Brown’s school-funding Prop. 30?
Could the Council’s stance have a deleterious effect on the heavily backed hometown proposition, Measure Y, the half-cent sales tax increase?
Fearing the consequences, that chilled any prospective desire to examine the props.
The Council asked staff to develop a set of standards for such a discussion in the future, way in the future, post-Nov. 6.
