In his bid for Los Angeles mayor, Eric Garcetti has promoted himself as the greenest of candidates.<\/p>\n
The city councilman from Silver Lake has pushed for an expansion of L.A.’s rooftop solar-panel program and the creation of thousands of clean-energy jobs, all to reduce the region’s dependence on oil. Those positions helped Garcetti win the Sierra Club’s endorsement.<\/p>\n
Missing from Garcetti’s environmental platform, however, is any hint that he has long stood to profit from a lease interest in a headline-making oil drilling operation: the wells run by Venoco Inc. at Beverly Hills High School.<\/p>\n
According to documents on file with the Los Angeles County registrar-recorder’s office, Garcetti and several family members signed a 20-year lease with Venoco in 1998. It gave the company the subsurface drilling rights to a nearby Beverly Hills retail property that the councilman co-owns through a personal trust.<\/p>\n
The lease enables Denver-based Venoco to tap oil and gas underneath the Wilshire Boulevard property by slant drilling from the high school about half a mile away.<\/p>\n
The high school wells have been the target of some alumni, residents and environmentalists who allege the drilling has emitted dangerous levels of benzene.<\/p>\n