By: Cory Bilicko
Managing Editor
[The following is the second part of a three-part story.]
The nine candidates who are seeking to fill three open seats on the Signal Hill City Council were in attendance at a Feb. 9 forum that the Signal Hill Chamber of Commerce hosted in the council chamber.
Those nine who are running for city council include Jason Aula, Tom Benson, Larry Blunden, Carol Churchill, Robert Copeland, Maria Harris, Keir Jones, Ed Wilson and Lori Woods.
Bart DeLio, a local insurance agent and former two-term chamber president, moderated the event, which included four segments. In the first segment, each candidate had two minutes for opening statements. [For more on those remarks, see the first part of this story in the Feb. 17 issue.] In the second part, each candidate had one minute to answer a question DeLio presented. In the third, each candidate was given one minute for closing remarks. Lastly, because time allowed, each was given the opportunity to ask any other candidate a question.
The first question DeLio posed to the candidates was, “The business community is largely responsible for the city’s revenue through the generation of sales tax. As a councilmember, how do you seek to reinvest into the business community?”
Churchill said she believes it is important to generate new sources of sales-tax revenue because Signal Hill is a “no- and low-property tax city.”
“My concept is that we need to expand the base of business within our community through creative developments that encourage people to come from— not just from within the city— but from Los Angeles, Orange County, with unique, inventive, high-tech, futuristic type of development, which will make us a ‘brand’ community.”
Wilson, who is currently serving on the city council, referred to himself as a businessman. He said that, when he first became a councilmember, the chamber of commerce and council had an “acrimonious” relationship but that situation has since changed.
He emphasized the importance of listening to the city’s business owners, as well as its residents.
“And we’re continuing to do things,” Wilson said. “We have development that’s coming. We’re going to look at a hotel. I would like us to do a premium outlet mall. I would like us to have a view-orientated restaurant.”
Aula said the City should look to Las Vegas as a model.
“They have all their city buildings powered on renewable resources,” he said. “And I think renewable resources is the way to go.”
He also said he is proposing a soda tax and a marijuana-use tax.
“To help the business climate in town, we need to have a city government that’s willing to work with businesses and not just cut taxes and reshuffle money,” Aula said. “I’m interested in creating revenue to […] fund renewable-resource-powered buildings in town, because that’s going to increase property value, and more people are going to want to do business in town.”
Jones stressed the importance of communicating throughout the region what the city has to offer, to attract more businesses, customers and new residents.
“That’s how our City can reinvest into the business community— by helping promote what we have going great here and making that enthusiasm spread viral and making it a place where everyone wants to come work, shop and play,” Jones said.
Blunden agreed that revenue diversification is important, and he said the idea of having a hotel is a good one.
He added that the City can continue to work with businesses on zoning and providing tax credits, as well as working with the chamber of commerce to attract new businesses.
Woods, who is currently finishing her first term as mayor on the council, said Signal Hill is already a very business-friendly city, considering how its business-license tax compares to surrounding cities.
“My goal on the council has been to set up the proper infrastructure that cities need to thrive, do our best to market the city to be a place to shop and come to spend their dollars,” Woods said, “but to kind of get out of the businesses’ way, to not get in their way with overregulation.”
She emphasized the need to continue balancing business and residential interests, to “make sure our city isn’t overcome with one thing or another.”
Woods also said there is still land that can be developed to attract more business.
Harris said she thinks the Signal Hill business community has expressed a very clear objective for development— to foster small- and medium-sized businesses.
“And I share this value,” she said. “And I see the City as having the ability to collaborate with the business community to develop a plan to do just that. One of the ideas… is to develop a promenade-like cluster of retail businesses that could attract not only our own consumers here in Signal Hill, but also be appealing to bring consumers in from outside. That would create a synergy, and they call it a force-multiplier in economic-development terms.”
She said City staff and the business community should sit together and talk about this matter.
Copeland, who currently serves as city clerk, said he thinks a robust business-development plan should include fostering small businesses so that they grow local employment and investment, and, in turn, local pride. He said the City and chamber should work together to ensure it is easy for small businesses to open.
“At the same time, we do also have to work to attract some larger businesses,” he said.
Benson, who is on the Signal Hill Planning Commission, said he has served on the Leadership Council of the National Federation of Independent Businesses for the last seven years. “It has immersed me in the state on small-business issues and legislative issues throughout California,” he said. “We have many things that are influencing us [in] how we develop business. The idea of an outlet mall— well, what is the influence of the Internet sales on that now? We don’t want to build ghost towns that we have to deal with in 10 years. We have to deal with it intelligently. There are changing dynamics in the retail market. There are changing dynamics in consumer habits.”
Benson stressed the importance of the City working in partnerships with developers and maintaining minimal regulation.
DeLio also asked the candidates about oil production, saying, “There has been a lot of media coverage nationally and in California over oil production. Because of the importance of the oil industry to our community, state and nation, what is your opinion on the existing state of local regulations?”
Copeland said oil revenues in Signal Hill total about $900,000 and that some of the bigger problems pertaining to oil removal don’t necessarily apply to the city, as they do on the federal level. He said however that the former redevelopment properties need to be cleaned up and the oil wells shut down so that the land can be developed.
Blunden said that, although he may not know much about oil regulation, he is aware that Signal Hill Petroleum is the biggest producer in the area and does a great job.
Woods said 5 to 7 percent of municipal funds come from oil-barrel tax and that the City is honored to have several oil companies operating in Signal Hill.
“Of course, Signal Hill Petroleum is the largest, but we have many other smaller oil producers as well that operate very, very responsibly,” she said. “We all know that, here in the city. There are many homes with an oil well right next door.”
Woods added that the City is “especially privileged” to have an “incredible partnership” with the local oil industry and that, as a result, she sees no need to create relationships with other developers.
Wilson pointed out that the City has no “weigh-in” on state and federal regulations of the oil industry but can still continue to be “good business partners” with Signal Hill Petroleum and others, as well as be responsive to the needs of the community.
“Signal Hill was founded by oil,” Wilson said. “So, we can’t forget that. Having said that, we’re also moving in a sustainable way, as well. We’re looking at alternative-energy use. We’re looking at changing things out to reduce our carbon footprint.”
Harris echoed Wilson’s statement about the City’s responsibility to comply with federal and state oil-production regulations, the latter of which she referred to as complex.
“There’s a whole state agency that’s developed to implement the state regulations,” she said. “It’s a high-level specialization, and Signal Hill basically tries to understand as best as they can what it needs to do to comply and are basically told what to do to comply. That’s the position that Signal Hill is in, and that’s not just us. That’s other cities that have oil production in their jurisdiction. The State really does have dominance in [those] regulations, and they’re complex.”
Benson agreed that those regulations are complex but said Signal Hill also has influence on those policies.
“In the last four years, we have audited all the oil wells,” he said. “We’ve seen that they’re abandoned properly. The ones that are abandoned, we’ve identified and shared with the public what type of oil field it is— whether it’s pressurized or not pressurized. We’ve got partnerships going with many of the oil producers. Signal Hill Petroleum actually is a statewide leader; they exceed many of the regulations that exist.”
He stressed the importance of continued co-existence with oil companies so that problems do not arise.
“It is complex, but it is very well managed in Signal Hill,” he said. “And we have a new oil code that was implemented two years ago.”
Jones characterized the city as special in that it serves as a model of a municipality working with oil production in an urban environment.
“In fact, people come from all over the country to see what we’re doing here because we do lead the way in having safe production […] in having oil wells and reuse of land. We really, truly are a place that’s very special, and we can lead from that example and help shape future regulations and educate state and federal regulators about what our successes are here in Signal Hill to help support our petroleum production here as well as keeping it safe for our residents.”
Aula said that, although it is beneficial for the city to have oil producers, he believes oil is taxed too low in California.
“When you compare it to Texas, for example, they use an oil severance tax to fund all public colleges,” he said. “And I think that’s a great thing we should be doing here in California.”
When it was her turn to answer, Churchill chuckled— and drew some laughs from the audience— as she said, “There are some people that really don’t want to hear what I have to say.”
She said her “benefit” is that she had worked with Signal Hill Petroleum when she previously served on the city council.
“What I learned is that our field has approximately another hundred years’ worth of production,” she said. “There is a lot of oil in that ground that’s going to be coming up. The most important thing we can do is to continue to maintain our relationship with these oil-production companies because it allows us to develop economically by working around their businesses, so that we can develop businesses that produce income and they can maintain their income quota through the operation of their business.
We’ve had a lot of successful development partnerships with the oil industry— we should keep that up.
The City does not have to worry about fracking. We don’t do fracking in our city. Our staff assures that we have a safe operation of the wells and the pipelines that run through the city and has made arrangements for clean-ups in case there’s any breaks. It’s a wonderful partnership we have with them.”
This story will conclude in next week’s issue.
