Conflict Issue May Derail Plan to Kill Palisades Drilling

A conflict-of-interest issue involving Daniel P. Garcia, head of the Los Angeles City Planning Commission, threatens to derail a proposed ordinance to take away Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s oil-drilling rights in the Pacific Palisades.

If the city attorney’s office rules Garcia to be in conflict by virtue of his law firm doing legal work for Occidental, it will be much harder for Councilman Marvin Braude to win passage of a repeal ordinance.

The expected ruling that Garcia does have a conflict would render the Planning Commission, which has opposed Occidental’s plan, ineligible to take a stand on the Braude ordinance. This would trigger rules that refer the matter to a special panel of five City Council members known as the Board of Referred Powers, a group that previously has supported the Occidental plan.

Could Need 10 Votes

City officials said Wednesday this could force Braude to secure 10 City Council votes to pass the repeal measure, instead of the eight now needed.

Even if Braude succeeds and the measure is passed by the council, Occidental opponents would also need 12 votes to override a veto by Mayor Tom Bradley, who switched his long-standing position and sided with Occidental in 1985 to approve drilling. Usually, only 10 votes are needed to override a veto.

After a 15-year battle, Occidental last November moved closer than ever to getting final approval to drill at the site beneath cliffs along Pacific Coast Highway. The state Court of Appeals rejected a last-ditch legal challenge by No Oil Inc., a group of Palisades residents who oppose the plan to produce 60 million barrels of oil across from busy beaches.

The state Coastal Commission voted 7 to 5 last July to grant Occidental the crucial permit needed. Braude’s repeal proposal is the latest effort to stop the project within City Hall.

Serious Jeopardy

An unhappy Braude said Wednesday that the turn of events has thrown the repeal fight into serious jeopardy.

He called it unlikely that he can get 12 votes in the council for an override. He said he retains some hope that Bradley--who campaigned in 1973 as an opponent of Palisades drilling--will shift his position on the Occidental plan for a second time and sign the repeal ordinance if it gets to him.

Braude also expressed suspicion that Occidental Petroleum had arranged the Garcia conflict, which would work to the firm’s advantage by triggering city rules that provide for special handling of certain ordinances.

Braude noted that an earlier, unexpected conflict of interest had stymied efforts to stop the drilling plans in 1986. In that episode, the Board of Zoning Appeals was declared ineligible to rule on an appeal filed by Occidental because of an inadvertent violation of the state’s open meeting law.

As a result, the appeal was decided by a panel of City Council members who were already on record as backing the drilling project--the same panel that would act if Garcia is found in conflict.

“We’re dealing here with a powerful, multibillion-dollar corporation whose influence is all over, and they have hired many law firms, directly and indirectly, and I cannot help but feel concerned this has been a deliberate policy on their part to disqualify city officials from acting on this matter,” Braude said.

Robert Sulnick, president of No Oil, used stronger words. “It’s a typical Occidental tactic to buy what they cannot get legitimately.”

Occidental and Garcia issued strong denials Wednesday that any intentional arrangement led to the newest reported conflict.

Gerald Stern, general counsel for Occidental, said the company had acted to retain the services of Garcia’s law firm, Munger, Tolles & Olson, in 1986 only after it appeared that the drilling matter would never come before the Planning Commission again.

“We were through with the Planning Commission two years earlier,” Stern said. “It was over, that’s all.” He characterized Braude’s suspicions as “absurd.”

Garcia said he found it “a little impossible” to think that Occidental hired his firm simply to create a conflict of interest that would get him and the Planning Commission off the case.

“No one could have envisioned a situation where the council could vote to repeal an ordinance it had approved earlier,” said Garcia, who has been an opponent of the drilling.

It was Garcia who formally raised the possible conflict of interest when, on Monday, he wrote a letter asking City Atty. James K. Hahn to rule whether a conflict of interest exists.

In the letter, Garcia told Hahn that while he has not personally worked on Occidental business in his law firm, “lawyers in my firm’s corporate or labor departments” had done so for fees between $20,000 and $100,000.

“It is equally clear that my firm anticipates doing some continued legal work for Occidental in the future,” Garcia added.

Hahn was out of the city Wednesday, but Assistant City Atty. Anthony Alperin said that the city attorney’s office will rule on whether there is a conflict of interest “as expeditiously as possible.”

Both Garcia and Braude said, however, that they fully expect--given the terms of the city’s conflict-of-interest law--that Hahn will rule there is a conflict.

The notion of a conflict was questioned by Robert Hattoy, director of the Sierra Club’s Southern California office and a member of the city’s Environmental Quality Board. Hattoy noted that Garcia and the Planning Commission have opposed Occidental’s plan before.

“Garcia has always opposed Occidental,” Hattoy said. “If his position is still to oppose Oxy, then where’s the conflict in his firm taking the money and his voting against them? It would only be a conflict if he voted for them.”

If the Occidental issue is sent to the Board of Referred Powers, the board would hold hearings on the repeal ordinance, then make a recommendation to the City Council. If the board recommended against the repeal, it would take 10 council votes to pass the measure and 12 to override a Bradley veto.

The board is dominated by Occidental supporters. Three of the board members--Hal Bernson, Robert Farrell and Joan Milke Flores--have sided with Occidental when the issue has come before the council. These three have also accepted $19,000 in campaign contributions from Occidental and its executives since 1984.

Another Board of Referred Powers member, Richard Alatorre, was not on the City Council when the Occidental issue last arose. He also was not on the Board of Referred Powers when the board voted in July, 1986, to overrule a zoning administrator’s scathing report and give Occidental a permit to drill. But Braude said he considers Alatorre, who has also received $2,500 in contributions from Occidental and its executives, as a solid vote for the drilling project. A spokesman described Alatorre as “neutral.”

The fifth member of the board, Zev Yaroslavsky, has opposed Occidental’s drilling project.