If you ever have watched a normally ground-bound bird take flight — first, gradually, then wing-flapping furiously — this has been precisely the trajectory of severely vexed residents of Culver Crest and surrounding Culver City neighbors in reaction to last Saturday’s fizzled West L.A. College showdown over oil drilling in Baldwin Hills.
The greater the distance between the much-heralded audience with the County Regional Planning Commission and the present time, the more their downright anger has soared.
At first, ordinary residents and their leaders responded cautiously, conservatively, muting their voices in the name of strict civility.
But conditions have changed.
They are feeling more empowered now. Steadily, practically by the hour in the last 2 days, their confidence has blossomed into what is feeling like a full-blown revolt leading into the next meeting, Thursday, Aug. 14.
Confidence Is Swelling
More than at the weekend, residents are convinced of the righteousness of their cause and the more they are infuriated over the way they say County officials treated the 400 of them last Saturday
Will their protests fall on blind eyes and deaf ears?
Sorely distressed at County officials in general, they are specifically directing their criticism at soon-to-retire County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke.
They blame her for seeming to take a passive, non-participatory stance on the health and safety issues that are driving them. They worry that in the usually slow-moving County’s sudden rush to meet apparently artificial deadlines, that relatively toothless regulations will be adopted when accelerated oil drilling begins in a few weeks — just in time to coincide with the Supervisor’s retirement.
Seizing the Initiative
One of the main voices of protest has been Mike Bauer, President of the Culver Crest Neighborhood Assn. He e-blasted more than 200 persons, plus a chorus of elected officials, this week with a suggested letter to Supervisor Brathwaite Burke, vehemently criticizing the conduct of the West L.A. College meeting and pleading, in a reasoned manner, for an extension of the public comment period. (See Tuesday’s story, “In Protest, Crest President Launches Email Campaign to Burke’s Office, Pleading for Extension.” Keywords: Bauer, Regional Planning Commission.)
Mr. Bauer called the flow of Saturday’s meeting a “travesty.” What makes the observation noteworthy is that for the first day and a half following the meeting and the ad hoc way that the County was perceived to have run the 3-hour program, no resident was willing to use such strong language.
“The lack of orderliness in operating the meeting was outrageous,” Mr. Bauer said. “The disorderly way that speakers were chosen from the audience. And then the County decided to use alternating ‘pro’ and ‘con’ speakers so that the oil drilling company’s side would be heard when this was advertised as the day that the community would have the floor.
“They had chairs arranged, and whoever could get to the chair would be allowed to speak.”
Snubbed Again?
At a point, said Mr. Bauer, Ron Ostrin approached the County person who appeared to be in charge of selecting audience members. Mr. Ostrin told the gentleman that he and the two main architects of the community’s response to the County, Ken Kutcher and John Kuechle, would like to speak.
However, Mr. Bauer added, “the person never acknowledged that any of them existed. That was the way it went all afternoon. If it wasn’t the County and PXP people taking up the first half of what was supposed to be our time, then it was alternating speakers, with an employee or leaseholder of PXP having an opportunity to speak about how wonderful PXP was after each member of the audience spoke.”
Speaker cards, a common practice in many venues, was not used for this highly emotional, heavily attended meeting.
The evidently helter-skelter selection of speakers was used throughout the afternoon.
The meeting ended at 3 o’clock, hours before many in the audience thought it should conclude, 3 hours after it began, and about 75 minutes after so-called evenly split “pro” and “con” testimony came from the audience. “What was so magical about 3 o’clock?” Mr. Bauer wondered. “The meeting almost could still be going on.”
The explanation was that the County Regional Planning Commission would not have had a quorum, meaning a minimum of 3 members present. They started with 4 present. An obviously ailing member left around 2 o’clock, and another member announced that she had to leave by 3.
Returning to Supervisor Burke, the key player in the much anticipated October vote where regulations will be adopted, Mr. Bauer took aim at the vainest vulnerability of many elected officials, their legacy.
“I wonder if the Supervisor is just hurrying out the door (to retirement, later in the autumn) or whether she really cares enough to have as her legacy a set of regulations that will be meaningful and enforceable. I don’t know if she cares. I hope so.”
