1950 DEC 20 CC MIN - 563
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DAVID ETTLESON, OFFICIAL COURT REPORT[R - MUTUAL 7789
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rights are owned by another company.
I would like to -- I don't quite approve
of this kind of thing -- what I am going to say, but it
does disturb me, and that is why is an individual-here, who
does not live in the community, who has no interest here,
whose only interest is oil, why is he here?
Another thing I think significant is this:
that all communications presented tonight were dated, I
believe, after the 1st of December. What I mean by that
is that petitions in favor of the applicant, notices from
property owners, landowners and so forth, in spite of the
fact that they have had the lease for a number of years and
in spite of the fact that they have, they did start working
on this six months ago. It indicates to me that it is just
a lot of pap to throw at us, that there has not been adequat
planning here to take care of all these things that now
are going to happen.
There is another fact that was brought up
and it seems to me it is important for our consideration.
The $5000 bond is pretty small when many thousands of
dollars are involved. If there is a problem of enforcement
here, how can that problem be handled? The only way I can
see is great expense to the City through the courts. I may
be wrong. I don't know legal procedure. But it seems to
me that it is an important thing.
The point was made that if we get a Freeway.
171 T wni,l.rl I ilrr, fir) rAit,nrx1tP n -,IIn fist this I
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nAVIn ETTLESON. OIPICIAL COURT REPORTER - MUTUAL 7789
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out here, we get an additional dumping ground. I question
whether anybody would stop at a high speed freeway, get
out of his car and throw stuff over a six -foot fence. The
Freeway will be fenced.
Ihave already made the point that if they
drill north of Imperial that would be controlled and also
the citizens of El Segundo would benefit. Because anybody
who goes under your land is going to pay. Am I not right
on that?
A great deal has been made tonight of our
oil reserves. This is again going back to the point of
our national economy. It seems to me that the only reserves
talked about were those above ground. Now, where is the
answer, then? It is either in better and bigger refineries,
more storage above ground, but is it in more wells? I
doubt it when you can only pump so many barrels a day, any-
way. My understanding is that that is regulated by the
State law. My point is that that doesn't apply in this
case at all.
We have also had
in places like Boyle Heights don't
wells next door. I would question
owners. I rather think that it is
most of the property is rented. I
that.
the argument that people
object to having oil
whether they are proper
an absentee deal where
can't, however, verify
I would like to reiterate again that this
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DAVID ETTLESON, 0MCIAL COURT REPORTER - MUTUAL 7769
102
kind of variance is a precedent and we are in a pretty poor
position to deny it to the next man who comes along. We
may jest about the slaughter -house that someone mentioned,
but it is pretty hard to deny once you have allowed this
kind of variance.
I have yet to see any way that granting
this variance would help E1 Segundo or Its citizens. It
won't bring more business here, it won't increase the resale
value of your property -- I can't yet see any argument
where it is going to help us, and I can't see why anyone
would knowingly build a nice home in that kind of an area.
I would like to request the City Council
to check very carefully this 2000 -foot radius and the names
that are submitted on both petitions. I think that probabl
Is one of the outstanding pieces of evidence in this whole
argument.
I think another significant factor in this
whole thing tonight is that we have had -- I didn't count
them -- but it is obvious that the bulk of the people here
tonight are not in favor of granting this variance, and
that the bulk of the people not in favor are property owners
in El Segundo. The bulk of the people who are here tonight
representing the applicants in one way or another are not
property holders in E1 Segundo. I may be wrong. That may
be a 50 -50 deal, but not too many of them are.
There is another point that has not yet
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DAVID ETTLESON, OFFICIAL COURT RKPORT[R - MUTUAL 7789
103
1 been brought up tonight and again it oeems to me very
2 important. The Pauley Company has made only one -- what do
3 I want to call it -- addition to Resolution No. 87, and
4 that is the blanketing of the derricks to reduce noise.
5 That's fine! I think we should all recognize that every
6 other safeguard the Pauley interests will set up is not
7 of their making, but follows word for word what your City
8 Council set up in Ordinance 312, I believe it is. You can
9 follow Resolution No. 87 and the ordinance and they will
10 match up. The conditions that the Pauley Company sets up
11 is met in Ordinance No. 312.
12 Incidentally, to many of those conditions
13 there is an exception. For instance, the only one I
14 remember offhand is that all trucking shall take place
15 between, I believe, the hours of 8 :00 a. m. and 6:00 p. m.
16 And then each condition, or several of the conditions, say
17 "Except in case of an emergency." But nowhere do I find
18 a definition of that word "emergency." And it doesn't seem
19 to me that there is adequate protection for the citizens
20 in this town if each and every emergency is not very
21 carefully defined. I believe that is all.
22 Thank you. (Applause.)
23 MAYOR SELBY: Is there anybody else?
24 MR. URQUHA.RT: There are a couple of things I
25 would like to mention. One is the pretty pictures that
26 were brought up again and we all know that it is impossible
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petition
I think gave the figure
of something like 500
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-------- _ uu.uAL 7789
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104
to keep a pretty picture like that while you are going to
work. It is supposed to be taken down afterwards, anyway.
The other thing is the residential area,
people being driven away from building homes when they see
this going on. I feel sure that our City Planning Commissil
and our Council, if there is a Freeway going in, know how
to help the citizens. And the citizens of this community
know how to help take care of this piece of property over
there on the other side so thatit isn't an annoyance. But
I am speaking of the residential land still for sale for
the people to build homes on east of that proposed highway,
which they are not going to do when they see what is going
on.
Mr. Jones previously mentioned something
about the fact that you can drill for miles on a slant -dri7
and he mentioned that they can't go over on the Hyperion
side and drill this well because Hyperion is in the way.
s Well, it certainly doesn't cover the distance which he
> first said could be slant - drilled.
Thank you. (Applause.)
1 MAYOR SELBY: Is there anybody else who cares
2 to speak in rebuttal on the proposition against the grant -
s ing of the variance?
4 MR. SWAN: I have one important point which I
5 want to bring out. Mr. Jones, when he presented his
6 petition I think gave the figure of something like 500
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DAVID ETTLESON..OFFICIAL COURT R[PORT[R - UUTUAL 77RO
11 signers..
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2 MR. JONES: Three hundred.
3 MR. SWAN: Three hundred will suffice. He gave
a figure of 300 signers. I didn't call out how many signers
we had in our petitions because I didn't count them accurate
1Y. A rough count, however, would probably be about 150.
The significant point that I want to make
is that out of the 150 signers that we had in our petition,
a very substantial proportion comparatively have had enough
interest in the issue at stake to be present here and to
state their views to the Council. Of the 300 petitioners
on Mr. Jones' petition, probably one was present.
That is all. (Applause.)
MAYOR SELBY: Is there anybody else who cares
to speak in rebuttal on behalf of the opponents?
MR. LEAVERS: Much has been said continuously
about one oil well. I would like to refer the City Council
to Exhibit 2, I believe it is, of the opposition, a copy of
Resolution No. 87, which is the proposed ordinance.
On page 4, No. 5, it reads this way:
"That all oil - drilling and production operations...."
That is in the plural.
(Reading) "(9) That within 60 days after
the drilling of each well has been completed...."
I believe the other points that I had in
mind have been brought out by previous speakers, except that
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DAVID ETTLESON. OFFICIAL COURT R[rORTKR - MUTUAL 7789
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I would like to say this: that I resent a certain inference
that I feel Mr. Hutchins has cast in the hearing tonight by
continually referring to the cleaning up of the dump. It
appears to me that he may be trying to blackmail the City
Council into giving them a permit or "by golly, we are going
to make the City pay to clean that dump up." And I con-
gratulate the Council for not falling for anything like
that! (Enthusiastic applause.)
MAYOR SELBY: Does anybody else care to speak in
rebuttal against the granting of the variance?
MR. HAROLD E. BOWMAN: I reside at 713 Hillcrest.
I have been sworn.
About everything I want to say has been
said, but I just wanted to bring it to mind that if they
did get this variance which they claim they want to get
right now, they have a national emergency on and with a
national emergency they can apply without doing many of the
things which they would normally have to do under normal
conditions.
Also I have made quite a bit of research
on the available oil reserves in the United States, and if
necessary, I can get adequate information written and
notarized to verify this, and discover that there is plenty
of oil. We don't have a worry about a shortage, there are
plenty of reserves to last us for fifty years, and they cla
they are only allowed to pump oil a certain amount of time
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DAVID ETTLESON. OFFICIAL COURT RRPORT[R • MUTUAL 7789
107
each day, as one of the members has stated previously.
Also they say that nobody knows how much
oil is down there. They don't want to run full blast
for fear they will run dry. Well, they could run for
fifty years and they could run for five days. That is a
chance that they take when they drill an oil well.
About everything else, I believe, has
been covered. (Applause.)
MAYOR SELBY: Is there anybody else who cares
to speak in rebuttal against the granting of this variance?
MR. EDWARD L. HORA: I reside at 824 Hillcrest
and I have been sworn.
I would like very much to clarify one
point in this matter of the wells and everything to be
fenced. It has just come to my attention here about a
week ago -- I have been taking a course at E1 Camino Junior
College on Juvenile Control -- and we run across a clause
that is commonly referred to as the "Attractive Nuisance
Clause." I became interested in the clause for the--simple
reason that about a week before that I had occasion to
answer a call where a small kid was injured, very slightly
though, on a pulley affair that a man has in this town
where he hauls sand. This boy lived approximately five
blocks away from this location. He wandered away from home
over to this place where this man has his pulley and it
attracted him because it was something he had never seen
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DAVID ETTLESON. OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER MUTUAL 7789
108
before. He went around it, played with it, scratched his
hand, and the boy's parents became very indignant about it.
I, naturally, didn't know too much about the law concerning
that, but when I ran across it in this class, I thought it
would be a good idea to read some case history on it and
learn something about it, asit mi -ht come up in the future
again.
So I did .read some case history and many
of the cases I read on it refer to oil wells, motors, oil
sumps and such. And I started to read one case and I just
went on and on and on, and I don't know, I must have read
about thirty cases. If I had a case here, I could read it
to you, where they had all these oil sumps and motors and
so forth fenced.
If you could only hear about the ingenious
methods that five- and six - year -old kids devise of getting
inside those fences! They went so far as to dig holes
under the fences, lay up stepladders to crawl up over the
fences, lay up boards, go up piggy -back, to get .inside,
for the sample reason that those motors were attractive to
those little kids. They don't see them every day, they
like to play with them. They don't think about the fact
that they can get hurt, they just like to play with them.
In many of these cases some of these kids were killed. So
that even if those motors will be fenced, it :Ls not going
to keep those kids out. Let those five- and six - year -old
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DAVID ETTLESON, OP /ICIAL COURT REPORTER • MUTUAL 7799
log
boys stay away from such a place for a month, and pretty
soon the matter will slip the minds of their parents, the
I mother will be busy at home working on something, and pretty
soon the child will go back and look at these motors, and
the next thing you know they are inside the fence, digging
holes or putting up stepladders, climbing over these fences
in some way and they get hurt, and when they get hurt, it
is too late.
So I think that even though fences are
put up, those kids are not going to stay out. If anyone
has the idea that it is going to keep them out, they have
no idea of the capability of these little kids. They
can do anything. I know, I have a four- year -old girl, and
she astounds me sometimes with the stuff she can pull. So
I still don't think fences are going to keep them out!
(Enthusiastic applause.)
MAYOR SELBY: Is there anybody else who cares to
talk in opposition to the variance at this time?
Again I repeat: Is there anybody else
who cares to speak at this time in opposition to the
granting of the variance?
Is there anyone else present who desires
to speak in support of the granting of the variance?
Once again I ask: Is there anyone present
who desires to address the Council further, either in suppor
of the application and in favor of the granting of the
24 1 - - - -- . -- — - - - - - - - - -- -� - - -- -- -- - I
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variance applied for, or in opposition to the application
and in opposition to the granting of the variance applied
for?
(Short pause.)
Since no one desires to address the
Council further, I hereby declare this public hearing
closed.
Ladies and gentlemen, before you go, I
want to thank you all very much for the fine way you people
have conducted yourselves here this evening. It has been a
controversial issue. One of the boys came up and said,
"You fellows are doing a pretty good job here." Well, we
have just been sitting here, and I told him, "Well, we have
pretty nice people here in E1 Segundo, "and I still think
we have.
I want to thank you very, very much for
the way you have conducted yourselves, and it has been a
pleasure to have had you here and to have had you sit with
us and tell us what you want and how you feel about things.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
I wish to announce now 'that the Council
will reconvene within a few minutes in the Council Chamber,
pursuant to the previous order of adjournment.
... A brief recess was taken while the
Council reconvened in the Council Chamber of the City Hall
MAYOR SELBY; The meeting will come to order!
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DAVID ETTLESON_ �Illf_I�L Ceuwr R��owrre Yliru♦t 77R4 - - -1 -
111 I
The Clerk will call the roll.
... Roll call by the City Clerk
CITY CLERK McCARTHY: I have the following
resolution to read at this time: "Resolve, that the matter
of the Appeal of Edwin H. Gibb and others from the findings
and decisions of the City Planning Commission of the City
of E1 Segundo, as set forth in Resolution No. 87 of said
Commission, public hearing upon which was held before the
City Council of the City of El Segundo on December 20, 1950,
be -taken under advisement for decision by said Council until
.the regular meeting of said Council, to be held on Wednesday
the 10th day of January, 1951, beginning at the hour of
7:00 o'clock p. m. of said day, in the Council Chamber of
the City Hall of said City."
MAYOR SELBY: What is your pleasure, gentlemen?
COUNCILMAN PETERSON: I so move, Mr. Mayor.
COUNCILMAN GORDON: I second the motion.
... The motion was put to a vote and duly
carried ...
MAYOR SELBY: We will now take up the subject
of the award of the bids. -on the trenching machine that was
submitted to the Engineer for study.
The reporter may be excused at this time.
... Whereupon the reporter was excused at the
hour of 11 :30 o'clock p. m. ...
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DAVID ETTLESON, OFFICIAL COURT REPORTER - MUTUAL 77e9 'yp.
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4 STATE OF CALIFORNIA,
5 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES. ss:
s
7 I, DAVID ETTLESON, a Notary Public in and for
8 the County of Los Angeles, State of California, do hereby
9 certify that I reported in stenotypy the foregoing City
10 Council Meeting of the City of E1 Segundo, California,
11 on the within mentioned date and time, and that the fore -
12 going pages 1 to 111, inclusive, are a true, full and
13 correct transcript of said proceedings made during the
14 progress of said City Council Meeting.
15 DATED this 26th day of December, 1950.
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18 No ary u c n an or a gun y
of Los Angeles, State of California.
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,' v (7rinm'c.io❑ E) :pires Oct. 14, 1953
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