City Council Honors Journalist Norma Zager

The Beverly Hills City Council issued a proclamation Tuesday honoring local journalist Norma Zager. 

"Norma Zager has dedicated herself to serving the Beverly Hills community and for years providing fair and balanced coverage of countless city issues and events," Mayor Barry Brucker read from the proclamation. "We ... congratulate and commend Norma Zager on her distinguished career in journalism and further recognize her years of excellent service to our city."

The mayor introduced Zager, former editor of the Beverly Hills Courier, as "truly one of our community's heroes."

She is best known for her award-winning coverage of the controversy surrounding possible health risks posed by an oil well under the campus. Her 2010 book Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills Greenscam chronicles the that alleged toxins from the oil facility caused cancer in former students and residents.

The suit was dismissed in 2007 on the basis of flawed scientific claims and the Brockovich legal team had to reimburse the Beverly Hills Unified School District $450,000 for four years of legal expenses.

"It's a fantastically honest, hard-hitting, accurate and revealing book about the lawsuit," Brucker said.

"These kudos are really wonderful, but the bottom line is that everybody in the city worked really hard to get to the truth and stood firm against all pressures that were out there," Zager said. "Honestly ... all I was doing was what I was taught to do: Print the truth."

The Brockovich reportage was her "job as the advocate for this community and for these children," Zager added.

"We were very fortunate to prevail in that very high-profile litigation," City Attorney Lawrence Wiener said. "One of the reasons that we could was there was someone out there who was trying to tell the truth, succeeding in telling the truth. The strategy of the plaintiffs ... was to try and force a settlement by bringing enough public pressure on the defendants, whether or not there was any merit to the claims."

Wiener said Zager "deserves as much credit as anyone for helping this community move through ... what could have been an even worse period in the city's history."

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