City Council, Board of Ed to Discuss Oil Drilling Policy

The City Council and Board of Education will meet Tuesday afternoon in a rare joint session to discuss the council’s banning oil and gas drilling in the city beginning in 2017.

The meeting comes six weeks after the board asked the city to on passing the ordinance, which bans drilling after Dec. 31, 2016. That date coincides with the of the Venoco Inc. lease of wells on the Beverly Hills High School campus.

“In my nearly four years on the Board of Education, this is the first time we will be having a joint meeting between the entire Board of Education and entire City Council,” board Vice President Brian Goldberg said in an email to constituents.

“I oppose any industrial zones on any of our campuses, whether it is oil drilling or cell towers,” he wrote. “I support the board investigating alternative options for extracting oil deposits under district property, including slant drilling.”

Other board members, including President Lisa Korbatov, have said they may want to continue the Venoco lease. The Beverly Hills Unified School District earns as much as $1 million a year in royalties from the agreement, providing revenue for school programs.   

The city would lose an equal amount of revenue should drilling stop. But neither the city nor BHUSD would bear any costs associated with ending the lease.

“Venoco must deliver within one year of the lease expiration the drill site in its original condition,” Mayor Barry Brucker said.

Council members unanimously supported the interim ordinance in January, before current members Lili Bosse and Julian Gold joined the panel. It is unclear whether the new members support a permanent ordinance. Bosse said Monday that she was spending most of her day studying the issue.

Brucker, who supports a permanent ban, said that the money the lease brings in should not be a deciding factor in making a decision.

“Do we want this to be all about the dollars? Would the school district feel the same way if it only earned $50,000 from the Venoco lease?” he asked in a recent interview with Patch. “I don’t believe [drilling] is a compatible use with school sites.”

A permanent ordinance, he said, would still allow slant drilling at BHHS from outside city limits if the council adopts language to ban drilling within 500-1,000 feet of schools.

Slant drilling, however, would add significant costs to obtaining oil and gas from wells already in use. It is unclear whether Venoco would want to continue operations at BHHS under that circumstance. 

The public is welcome to attend and comment at the joint session, which takes place at 2 p.m. Tuesday at City Hall. Other topics may also be discussed as well. Goldberg said in his email message that he would like to raise subjects of mutual interest, such as the pending negotiations on a new .

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