Oil and Tiger Salamanders Coexist

I’d like to weigh in and say Measure P never should have been written!

Our elected officials can make intelligent decisions, and we trust them to be true to their constituents whom they serve. Let them do their job for goodness sake.

While we in the U.S.A. strive for utopia, other oil-rich countries reap the economic and social benefits from oil industries. We put them in place decades ago with our technology and ingenuity, and it’s time to bring it back home.

I am a retired firefighter and grew up in Huntington Beach. Back in the ’70s I lived on Goldenwest Street and Palm Avenue. The oil fields next door were pumping, and my parents bought their home for $37,000. I cruised by there not long ago and saw the same oil fields still operating. There were no large derricks, no foul smell, no pot holes in the road from trucks, and everyone seems to be getting along fine. Home values have soared regardless of the oil industry being next door. In fact, Huntington Beach was such a success because of oil, the local high school I attended was dubbed “Home of the Oilers” out of respect for their contribution to the city.

Vote “no” on P, and stop special interest groups! Don’t let them mire the Board of Supervisors and the county down with costly litigation. I know they are concerned because it took six years from inception to implementation for 19 wells on our Santa Maria land, which my family has owned since the late 1800s and which was the site of previous oil operations in the 1960s and ’70s. It’s a state-of-the-art operation that successfully coexists with endangered tiger salamanders.