First in a series
[img]1849|right|Mr. Douglas Shields||no_popup[/img]Medium tall is the only measure of Douglas Shields that is average, as Culver City residents, especially the fracking fraternity, are learning this week.
Decades of study and commitment have empowered the 59-year-old two-term former Pittsburgh City Councilman to travel the country, Paul Revere-style.
Speaking with the force of a windmill in a hurricane and with the depth of a gifted professor who earned tenure after his first class, Mr. Shields visits unsuspecting and suspicious communities.
Accessibly, as opposed to emotionally or while walking in the densest weeds, he warns them about what he calls the calculatedly hidden perils – often blurred from view – in the disputed oil drilling method called fracking.
On this Western tour, Mr. Shields, a lawyer, is consulting for the first time with City Hall leaders who long have been engaged in – and struggled with – developing airtight regulations applying to the community’s 10 percent of the Baldwin Hills Oil Field and elsewhere.
Armed with data and research from here to western Pennsylvania, his deep voice and commanding presence enhance the notion that he is speaking with authority when he ventures into the alleged insidiousness of the oil and gas industry.
After Monday night’s City Council meeting, he huddled separately with three members, former Mayor Andy Weissman, Mehaul O’Leary and Jim Clarke.
His theme: Personal responsibility.
Based temporarily in the South Bay, he will be here until the weekend.
Widely recognized for his broad understanding of the slippery, liquid subject of fracking, Mr. Shields was featured at last Sunday’s Vets Auditorium Democracy School program on fracking, organized by Stephen Murray, director of the Baldwin Hills Oil Watch.
He advised the Council members “to recognize the landscape you are in. You have to understand that the United States’ Congress pretty much has been given over to corporate interests, on a host of issues, healthcare and other topics. The problem is undue influence. They are not doing anything for you.
“At the state level, we find that our legislatures have been purchased as well. In Pennsylvania, in six years, the oil industry spent $28 million on campaign donations and lobbying efforts. This is one state capital. That has happened in Ohio, and everywhere else they have been.
“So you are not getting help from the state.
“Know that going in.
“It is the voice of the local official who has become the voice of reason in this fight (against fracking) in this country, and in Ireland and other places.
“It’s up to the local government. You can say it’s not in your job description, but tough luck. There is no job description in politics,” said Mr. Shields, who teaches a novel political leadership class at Duquesne University.
(To be continued)
