Category Archives: Valero Benicia Refinery

Bakken Crude, Crude By Rail, Rail Safety, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery

Vallejo Times-Herald: Valero’s controversial crude oil plans ranked 4th in top 10 stories of 2014

Repost from The Vallejo Times-Herald

Times-Herald’s Top 10 local stories of 2014

By Times-Herald staff report, 01/01/15

Two wake-up calls by Mother Nature, the passing of a father-figure icon, and a longtime symphony conductor’s surprising ouster were among this year’s news stories in Vallejo.

From a devastating earthquake to the drought, controversial one-year’s notice to Vallejo Symphony maestro David Ramadanoff, to a school board election that isn’t over to a new police chief, a horrific fire truck accident that avoided a fatality, and Valero’s crude oil plans, the 2014 Top 10 Stories list is presented below in its crowning, year-end glory by the Times-Herald staff.

10. The drought

Gov. Jerry Brown declared a statewide drought and the state announced cities would get only 5 percent of their allotment from the State Water Project.

In February, American Canyon council members declared a Stage 1 Drought Emergency and asked all customers to reduce water consumption by 20 percent.

The situation’s seriousness engendered unprecedented cooperation between Napa and Solano counties, with ways considered for Solano to share its reasonably stable Lake Berryessa water source with Napa County in what officials were by March calling a natural disaster. The problems especially impacted American Canyon because it relies most heavily on the State Water Project’s North Bay Aqueduct, which nearly had to be blocked by rocks to prevent falling water levels to allow salt water into the Delta. These plans were abandoned in May.

Stage one drought conditions persisted, however, and by July the state adopted emergency water regulations, and American Canyon officials declared a Drought Emergency Stage 2 mandatory compliance water alert. Authorities enforced a list of prohibited water uses including hosing down driveways, watering lawns, washing cars during the day and filling swimming pools.

Solano County water providers also took action in August to comply with the state’s first-ever emergency regulations mandating water conservation. Benicia mandated outdoor watering restrictions and Vallejo limited landscape watering to three days per week. By October, Benicia had reduced its water use by 18 percent.

9. North Mare Island plans

The future of North Mare Island became a hot-button issue as the city council began a “request for qualifications” process in July for proposals on how to develop more than 150 acres north of G Street.After dismissing three projects for “falling short if the city’s expectations,” the council In November heard information on eight proposals, which include three Indian casino projects, each along the lines of the $800 million Graton Casino & Resort that opened last year in Sonoma County. Other proposals involve industrial parks or mixed-use hotel and conference center projects on the city-owned land between Azuar Street and the Mare Island Strait.

The push to redevelop North Mare Island moved forward in early July when the city council approved the approval a $893,000 contract to demolish three former Navy buildings. The project is part of the city’s overall plan to accelerate the removal of up to 30 abandoned former Mare Island Naval Shipyard structures. Since the base closed in 1996, the buildings have been considered eyesores and an impediment to redevelopment activities.

8. Measure E and the school board election. 

The name “Richard Porter” became well know in the city of Vallejo during 2014, as the school teacher early on in the fall sought election to the Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education, only to change is mind and cancel his campaign.

Porter — who filed candidacy papers in August — suspended his campaign in early September to teach math and science at the Mare Island Health & Fitness Academy. Despite halting his campaign, more than 7,000 Vallejo voters decided to elect him, placing him second out of three available seats.

Due to state law, Porter can not serve on the board of education and teach in the district at the same time. Porter opted to stay as a teacher at the academy — refusing to be seated as a trustee — creating a vacancy on the board.

The board recently decided to seek a provisional appointment to fill the vacancy, while several community members have asked the board to appoint fourth place finisher Ruscal Cayangyang to fill the empty seat.

While receiving over 60 percent approval from the Vallejo electorate during the November election, Measure E — the school district’s $239 million general obligation bond, which would have helped to renovate various school district sites —failed to receive the required 66 percent approval to pass.

7. Vallejo Symphony gives notice to David Ramadanoff 

The Vallejo Symphony Orchestra board of directors, citing stagnant season ticket sales and attendance, proclaimed David Ramadanoff’s 31st year leading the VSO as his last, upsetting many musicians and classical music supporters.

The symphony’s Jan. 25 concert at Hogan Auditorium and April 12 at Touro University’s Lander Hall will end Ramadanoff’s tenure in Vallejo while the board seeks a replacement.

6. New police chief Andrew Bidou 

Benicia and Vallejo police departments swapped chiefs this year. Andrew Bidou took the Vallejo’s helm in October, replacing Joseph Kreins who led the department for more than two years.

Kreins, who retired from the position, then took over Benicia’s police department as an interim until a permanent chief is hired.

While in Vallejo, Kreins implemented many changes to the department, including community outreach, technology upgrades and policy overhaul.

Bidou, 45, was among 37 candidates for the job. His education and familiarity with the area were cited as reasons he was picked.

5. Fire truck rolls over 

The Vallejo Fire Department’s tiller truck was involved in a violent traffic collision in August with three other vehicles, which began in the intersection of Maine Street and Sonoma Boulevard.

“The fire truck was responding to a code 3 (emergency) when a collision occurred with the fire truck and at least another vehicle in the intersection,” said Michael Nichelini, a sergeant with Vallejo Police, hours after the collision. “The (VFD) truck rolled down the street, at least once, after the collision.”

The ladder truck, when rolling, took out various street signs along Sonoma Boulevard finally coming to a rest in the intersection of Pennsylvania Street and Sonoma Boulevard after striking a fire hydrant and crushing another vehicle.

The crushed vehicle was flipped on its roof and the driver in the crushed vehicle required extraction.

Much of Sonoma Boulevard looked like a war zone, as glass and pieces from at least three vehicles and the fire truck were scattered in a two-block radius, while the fire truck was twisted into two directions after the collision and rollover. Firefighters Walter Trujillo, Mitchell Stockli, Frederick Taylor and Daniel Saballos, along with those in the other vehicles, survived the collision.

4. Valero’s crude oil plans 

The Valero Benicia Refinery’s controversial proposed rail terminal project fueled debates in the community over crude-by-rail safety issues. If approved, the project would allow Valero to import up to 70,000 barrels of Bakken or Canadian tar sands oil daily by train. In June, the city released the project’s environmental impact report, leading to packed public hearings over the summer. People as far away as Roseville attended to voice opposition or support for the project, which would increase oil train traffic through the Sacramento Valley. 

The city also received letters from state and local officials — including State Attorney General Kamala Harris — criticizing the project safety analysis as inadequate.

3. Homeless fires

A series of wild and structure fires were attributed to the homeless population in Vallejo this year.

The blazes destroyed several abandoned buildings on Mare Island, the now-razed “Badge and Pass Office” on Tennessee Street, and acres of vegetation along State Route 29. One of the structure fires also claimed the life of a Benicia man in October at a garage next to 1117 Florida St., which is known to be used by squatters.

Vallejo Fire Chief Jack McArthur said the department is working with police and city to design a reaction to the issue concerning homeless-related fires, and the safety concerns of the homeless population in the city.

2. Philmore Graham dies

Vallejo lost a legend this year. Philmore Graham, founder of the Continental of Omega Boys and Girls Club, died in June. Graham was 75.

He founded the club in 1966 with just five boys in his garage, and later churned out high school and college graduates who brought pride to their hometown, including ballplayer CC Sabathia, former pro football player Bobby Brooks, scriptwriter Gregory Allan Howard, and most recently Denver Broncos running back C.J. Anderson.

“Everything that we are and everything that we do is because of him,” Superior Court Judge Robert Rigsby, who is also an Omega alumnus, said in a June interview.

Graham suffered from Alzheimer’s in his last years, and had moved to Southern California several years ago to be closer to his daughter, Diedre.

1. South Napa earthquake

The magnitude 6 temblor — the strongest to hit the Bay Area in 25 years — rattled walls and nerves at about 3:10 a.m. Aug. 24, causing damage mostly in Napa and Solano counties.

Centered four miles northwest of American Canyon and six miles south-southwest of Napa, the quake caused brick chimneys to crumble all over the area and did particular damage to many of the older, non-reinforced masonry buildings in downtown Napa and Vallejo, including some on Mare Island.

While few and only minor injuries were reported in Vallejo, nearly 200 were hurt in Napa, two seriously, including a child who was critically injured by a collapsing chimney.

The 400 block of Vallejo’s Georgia street was closed for weeks following the partial collapse of a brick building, the repairs to which remain unfinished at year’s end.

There were a few reports of looting in Vallejo, but in American Canyon officials told of residents replacing items that had fallen out of broken store windows.

The governor issued an emergency proclamation extending relief to Napa, Solano and Sonoma counties. In Napa, some 69 buildings were red tagged. In Vallejo, 155 buildings were yellow-tagged for partial use, and 11 were red-tagged as unsafe to occupy. On Mare Island, crews demolished quake-damaged chimneys on historic officers’ mansions on Walnut Avenue.

The Napa Valley wine industry alone suffering estimated losses of $80,300,000.

Air Quality, Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), Bay Area Refineries, Fence line monitoring, Greenhouse gas emissions, Valero Benicia Refinery

Bay Area Air Board emissions plan draws response from Valero

Repost from The Benicia Herald
[Editor: The Benicia Herald is one of very few news outlets to cover the Bay Area Air Quality Management District’s far-reaching  and highly significant December 17 initiative on refinery emissions.  The first Herald article just covered the facts, and oddly, is not posted on the Herald’s website.  As a follow-up to that story, our local newspaper either sought out comments from the Refinery or responded to Valero’s overture, not sure which.  Either way, we were treated on Christmas Eve to a front page Valero Benicia promotion of its wondrous efforts to control its emissions, and the supposedly small part Bay Area refineries play in contributing to greenhouse gases.  Note especially Valero’s resolve to “participate in any new rulemaking to ensure rules are reasonable and cost effective.”   Reasonable rules would surely protect community health and safety, no?  And according to whose costs should regulatory effectiveness be weighed?   For other reports on the Air District initiative, see The Contra Costa Times, and the Oil & Gas Journal. See also primary documents: BAAQMD 12/17 agenda, (p. 73), and  REPORT: Bay Area Refinery Emissions Reduction Strategy (PDF) .  – RS]

Emissions plan draws response from Valero

Refinery official: ‘Proud’ to contribute to better air quality
By Donna Beth Weilenman, December 24, 2014

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is hoping its new five-component strategy will reduce emissions from refineries in it geographic area.

The district’s Refinery Emissions Reduction Resolution, approved Oct. 15, sets a goal of 20-percent reduction in refinery emissions — or as much as is feasible — during the next five years.

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District is the regional agency responsible for protecting air quality in the nine-county Bay Area.

The announced strategy would show the Air District how to achieve that goal.

“Our new Refinery Emissions Reduction Strategy continues and reaffirms the air district’s commitment to significantly decrease harmful air pollution in our communities,” said Jack Broadbent, the district’s executive officer.

“This strategy will ensure that refineries are taking the strongest steps to cut emissions and minimize their health impacts on neighboring residents and the region as a whole.”

But refineries are just one industry that contributes to the San Francisco Bay Area’s air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, according to an official at Valero Benicia Refinery.

“By the district’s own data, Bay Area refineries make up only a small segment of overall emissions in the Bay Area air shed,” said Chris Howe, the refinery’s director of health, safety, environment and government affairs.

“These emissions have continued to decline over the last two decades,” Howe said, data which the Air District also acknowledged.

“We are proud of the significant contributions our refinery has made and will continue to make to improve air quality, especially with the installation of our flue gas scrubber in 2011,” Howe said, citing a major component of the Valero Improvement Project.

In addition, he said, “We will continue to participate in any new rulemaking to ensure rules are reasonable and cost effective when weighed against the many options the district has to regulate emissions in our air basin.”

Broadbent said the Air District’s announced strategy sets overall goals of a 20-percent reduction in both criteria pollutants from refineries and in health risks to area communities, both within the next five years. That is the strategy’s first component.

To do this, the Air District plans to investigate significant sources of those pollutants at the refineries themselves, and to examine a variety of additional pollution controls at those sources, he said. That’s the second component.

He said this would be done under the district’s focused Best Available Retrofit Control Technology program.

“Rulemaking is already under way to reduce sulfur dioxide from coke calciners and particulate matter from catalytic cracking units,” Broadbent said.

“Several other rules to reduce refinery emissions will be developed in 2015.”

The strategy’s third component would be the Air District’s approach to reduce health risks from toxic air pollution, Broadbent said.

He said it would begin with requirements to reduce toxic emissions from such refinery sources as cooling towers and coking units.

Site-wide health risks would be assessed, and sources for further emissions controls would be identified, with an eye toward health benefits, he said.

A fourth component would be evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions at the refineries and their reductions as a result of the cap-and-trade system put in place under Assembly Bill 32.

That bill, signed into law Sept. 27, 2006, requires the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to develop regulations and market mechanisms to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020.

CARB adopted a cap-and-trade program Dec. 17, 2010, allowing some emitters to buy credits at quarterly auctions for additional emissions.

Under the Air District’s strategy, refinery performance would be compared to third-party standards for best practices, with analysis of potential further opportunities for reductions, Broadbent said.

The fifth component concerns continuous improvement in emission reductions, for which refinery operators would be required on a periodic basis to evaluate the sources of most of their emissions to determine if more controls are needed.

Broadbent said the Air District would develop its package of rules in the coming year, and would be working with members of the public as well as refinery industry representatives to make any modifications in the proposed rules and to use the strategy to reach those stated goals.

In addition, the Air District will prepare its Petroleum Refining Emissions Tracking rule that requires updated health risk assessments, additional fence-line and neighborhood monitoring capacity and the compiling of an annual emissions inventory.

Simultaneously, the Air District will write a companion rule to set emissions thresholds and mitigate potential increases at refineries, Broadbent said.

Those rules are expected to be sent to the Air District’s board for adoption in 2015.

The San Francisco Bay Area’s five major oil refineries, including Valero Benicia Refinery, produce air pollution and greenhouse gases in the region, Broadbent said, and “these are already subject to more than 20 specific Air District regulations and programs, and their overall emissions have been steadily decreasing.”

The Air District’s website is www.baaqmd.gov.

Bakken Crude, Hazmat notification, Phillips 66, San Luis Obispo County, Santa Maria Refinery, Tar sands crude, Valero Benicia Refinery, Yolano Climate Action Group

What does a Central Coast oil refinery have to do with Davis?

Repost from The Davis Enterprise

What does a Central Coast oil refinery have to do with Davis?

By Dave Ryan, November 23, 2014

In communities up and down the West Coast, groups of environmentalists, neighbors and local governments are doing whatever they can to mitigate or outright stop railroad terminals being built at coastal refineries at the end of rail lines that cut through cities and sensitive environmental areas.

Davis residents joined the fight earlier this year against the Valero oil refinery in Benicia, and now are adding their voices to a chorus opposing a Phillips 66 facility in San Luis Obispo County.

A local collection of environmental watchdogs called the Yolano Climate Action Group was one of the first to realize the potential public safety threat of Bakken crude oil trains traveling from out of state, through Roseville, Davis and to Benicia.

The group successfully petitioned the city of Davis Natural Resources Commission in January to oppose the Valero project. The commission then was successful in persuading the City Council a few months later to begin monitoring the project and round up support from government agencies like Yolo County and the Sacramento Area Council of Governments to lobby Benicia for a more complete environmental impact report.

“It was Davis that alerted the entire region,” said Lynne Nittler, a coordinator for the Yolano Climate Action Group.

Meanwhile, Davis’ state and federal representatives have been doing what they can, within the limits of strong federal pre-emption laws for railroads.

Trains carrying the hazardous materials have derailed and exploded in recent years, most notably in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, where a July 6, 2013, derailment caused a fire and wiped out a portion of the town, killing 47 people and forcing 2,000 others to flee. A subsequent derailment and explosion just outside Casselton, N.D., in January also alarmed the public.

If the Valero refinery railroad terminal is built at Benicia, Davis would see trains estimated to be 100 cars long filled with volatile Bakken shale crude oil traveling straight through downtown along the same route the Amtrak Capital Corridor uses to carry commuters.

Phillips 66 terminal

But Davis faces another possible threat, as well.

Far to the south and west of Davis are the Central California coast communities of San Luis Obispo County, housing the Phillips 66 oil refinery near the Nipomo Mesa and — potentially — another rail terminal.

That terminal would attract more trains filled with Canadian tar sands crude oil, traveling through Roseville, Davis, Oakland, San Jose and Salinas to Phillips 66. While somewhat less volatile than Bakken shale crude, tar sands crude is mixed with chemical thinners that make it potentially explosive.

Laurence Shinderman leads an activist group in Nipomo opposing the Phillips 66 railroad terminal called the Mesa Refinery Watch Group. The group’s ranks swelled from a handful in recent months to 250 residents spearheading a letter-writing campaign targeting the San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors.

The county is leading the environmental review process for the railroad terminal. Yolano Climate Action Group, the city of Davis and SACOG have submitted their concerns, as well.

Shinderman said Nittler has been helping from the start, giving advice to the Mesa Refinery Watch Group.

The mission among the Davis group is to get people to go from NIMBY to NOPE, or from saying, “Not In My Back Yard” to “Not On Planet Earth,” Nittler said.

It represents a shift in thinking from opposing a particular project to a wider understanding of what environmentalists consider a dangerous trend of oil by rail along the West Coast.

In San Luis Obispo County, the rail line that would carry the oil runs through the Cal Poly SLO campus and over a bridge adjacent to a county drinking water treatment facility.

“The reality is there is human error, there are guys who are going to fall asleep at the switch,” Shinderman said. “You can’t mitigate for human error. The railroad is hiding behind the skirt of federal pre-emption and saying, “Ah, you can’t do anything.’ ”

Federal protection

Under federal code, any laws governing railroads must be uniform across the country, “to the extent practicable.”

That forbids the vast majority of local tinkering, but a small “savings clause” says a state may regulate some railroad activity provided the situation is geared at a local, but not statewide, safety hazard; is not in conflict with federal law; and does not “unreasonably” restrict railroad commerce.

The party claiming federal pre-emption has the burden of proof in any case.

In the matter of the railroad terminals, local cities and counties are ostensibly in charge of the approval — or disapproval — of the projects.

Even there, federal law may give the oil companies and the railroads a recourse in court if the terminals aren’t built.

According to the Association of  American Railroads, rail safety is a top priority. In accordance with a 2014 emergency order from the federal Department of Transportation, rail companies are required to notify state emergency response agencies about the routes of trains carrying large amounts of Bakken crude.

The association also notes that railroads train thousands of first responders, including using a $5 million specialized crude-by-rail training and a tuition assistance program, which is estimated to serve 1,500 first responders in 2014.

“If an incident occurs, railroads swiftly implement well-practiced emergency response plans and work closely with first responders to help minimize injuries or damage,” reads a position statement on the association’s website.

The association said the industry is also advocating for safer rail cars that are less prone to disaster. The association claims that in 2013, freight railroads “stepped up the call for even more rigorous standards for tank cars carrying flammable liquids” that included asking that existing tank cars be retrofitted to meet higher standards or be “phased out.”

Nittler said that was a smokescreen, and the federal government does not impose rules the industry doesn’t agree to first.

Even according to AAR, the federal Railroad Safety Advisory Committee that develops safety standards for rail transport uses a “consensus process” to impose new safety standards.

Legislative help

Davis’ Democratic congressman, Rep. John Garamendi, is a member of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. He said the committee is in the process of crafting new rules for railroads.

“I have and will continue to push them to write the strongest possible guidelines,” Garamendi said in an email.

At the state Capitol, state Sen. Lois Wolk, D-Davis, is part of efforts to pass laws that levy taxes on railroads to provide money for first responders.

“The volume of crude oil being imported into California has increased 100-fold in recent years, and Valero has plans to ship 100 train cars of crude oil per day through the heart of my district to its refinery in Benicia,” Wolk wrote in an email.

“… Currently, local governments along these transport corridors don’t have sufficient funding to protect their communities. When the Legislature reconvenes in January, I will push for funding for developing and maintaining adequate state and local emergency response to accidents and spills involving rail transports of crude oil and other hazardous materials.”

Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads filed suit against the state in October, claiming that California or any other state does not have the authority to impose safety requirements on them because federal law already does that.

That may put a damper on a new North Dakota law passed Thursday that requires companies to stabilize the volatility of Bakken crude before shipping it out of the state. Texas already requires such handling.

In the meantime, Nittler is busy trying to drum up support for a letter-writing campaign to the SLO Board of Supervisors before a 4:30 p.m. deadline Monday for comments on its draft environmental review.

“If they don’t build it, they won’t come,” Shinderman said.

Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin, Benicia City Council, Benicia Mayor Elizabeth Patterson, Crude By Rail, Valero Benicia Refinery

Sacramento Bee: Benicia mayor’s public skepticism puts vote on oil trains in jeopardy

Repost from The Sacramento Bee
[Editor: Don’t let the headline put you off – this is the most thorough analysis yet on the controversy in Benicia.  Tony Bizjak does a good job presenting Mayor Patterson’s defense as well as the perspective of those who would silence her.  – RS]

Benicia mayor’s public skepticism puts vote on oil trains in jeopardy

By Tony Bizjak, 11/23/2014
The Valero refinery in Benicia.
The Valero refinery in Benicia. Manny Crisostomo

The hot national debate over crude oil train safety has taken an unusual twist in the Bay Area city of Benicia, where a blunt-talking mayor’s right to free speech is being pitted against an oil company’s right to a fair public hearing.

This summer, amid tense public debate over a Valero Refining Co. proposal to bring crude oil on trains to its Benicia plant, Mayor Elizabeth Patterson revealed that the city attorney had privately advised her that her frequent public comments about oil transport safety could be seen as bias against the Valero project.

The mayor said the city attorney advised her to stop talking about the oil trains and sending out mass emails containing articles and other information, and to recuse herself from voting when it came before the council.

Patterson, a longtime community planner and environmental activist, is refusing to step aside, saying she has a duty to share information with constituents about the city’s pivotal role in the crude oil debate, one of the biggest environmental fights in the state.

The situation in Benicia provides an unfolding civics lesson on the sometimes-surprising legal tightropes cities and public officials must walk when dealing with high-stakes issues. The trains in question would pass twice daily through downtown Sacramento and other Northern California cities en route to the Benicia refinery.

Patterson points out she has never said she would vote against the Valero project and said she hasn’t yet made up her mind. “I am providing information. I am letting people know what is going on,” she said. “We ought to be talking about this.”

But a recent legal analysis, commissioned by Benicia City Attorney Heather McLaughlin and released publicly by the city last week, says Patterson appears to have stepped over a little-known and somewhat fuzzy legal line that could land the city in court.

Valero, the city’s largest employer and owner of a sprawling 45-year-old refinery on a hillside over Suisun Bay, wants to begin receiving two 50-car oil trains a day sometime next year. Valero officials say the shipments will help keep the refinery competitive in a fast-changing oil industry by providing rail access to cheaper oil, instead of marine shipments from Alaska and foreign countries.

The success of the Valero refinery is important to Benicia. The taxes it pays fund nearly a quarter of the city government’s annual operating budget.

But the fast-growing crude-by-rail phenomenon is controversial. Several oil train explosions, including one that killed 47 people in a Canadian town, have prompted federal officials to call for improved safety regulations. The California attorney general and other state safety officials recently challenged Benicia to do a better job of studying the environmental and safety risks of the Valero plan.

Patterson was among the early voices on oil train safety issues, writing an opinion piece in March in a Bay Area newspaper calling on Gov. Jerry Brown to take immediate steps to protect public safety as the trains begin to roll. She also has been sending mass emails to constituents for more than a year with updates on the project, copies of news stories about crude oil issues, and Valero-related matters.

This spring, two council members asked the city attorney to look into whether Patterson was playing too much of an advocacy role. Mark Hughes, a former PG&E executive, and Christina Strawbridge, a business owner, said several constituents had asked them if the mayor’s comments were appropriate. Both told The Sacramento Bee they were not approached by anyone from Valero.

Hughes said the matter is not personal. Speaking at a council meeting last week, he said, “for anyone to think that this was a witch hunt … for bringing it up against the mayor is just wrong. I think the mayor knows that. It clearly was not an attempt to intentionally try to get her to recuse herself; it was an attempt to get some clarification.”

Strawbridge, also speaking at the council meeting, said she put materials together to bring to the city attorney “to find out if the city is in legal harm here because of our mayor and making these kinds of statements … I have had questions about how the mayor could continue to be unbiased in this situation.”

At issue, experts say, are the different legal roles council members play and how they are permitted to act when playing those roles. In California, elected officials can express opinions and advocate for outcomes when they are writing new policies or laws, or deciding how to spend the city budget, municipal law experts say.

But courts have ruled that local elected officials cannot speak out too forcefully prior to holding a hearing and vote on “administrative” or “quasi-judicial” issues, such as voting on a homeowner’s request for a variance or a company’s request for a permit to expand its business.

In those cases, legal experts say, the applicant’s right to have its request heard by an impartial, unbiased board trumps a board member’s right to express their opinion before the formal public hearing.

JoAnne Speers is a former general counsel to the League of California Cities who now teaches leadership ethics at the School of Management at the University of San Francisco. She said case law on the matter can trip up cities and elected officials.

“I feel for the mayor and elected officials generally,” she said. “It seems paradoxical with issues of great importance to their community, if they want to participate in the decision, they are subject to certain constraints.”

The question now in Benicia is whether the mayor’s writings and emails have crossed the legal line.

The attorney hired by Benicia to review Patterson’s public comments, Michael Jenkins of Manhattan Beach, also serves as legal counsel for several California cities. He concluded that a court likely would consider Patterson to have stepped over the line. He noted in his analysis, though, that there are not many court cases to use for guidance, and acknowledged he is offering the city of Benicia conservative advice.

“This is a close case,” Jenkins wrote in his report. “In our opinion, a court likely would find that Mayor Patterson’s oft-expressed skepticism about transportation of crude oil by rail evidences an unacceptable probability of actual bias. The evidence is sufficient to warrant her preclusion from participation in the decision.”

His conclusion was based on 17 of Patterson’s emails and on Patterson’s opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle, headlined “Governor must ensure rail tanker safety.” In that piece, she wrote that “crude-by-rail shipments in unsafe tank cars pose imminent danger” to rural communities, and asked, “How would the Suisun Marsh survive a potential spill, explosion and fire?” She did not mention Valero by name, nor did she expressly say she opposes crude-by-rail shipments.

Patterson said she has been sending such e-blasts to constituents for years on city topics. She estimates she has about 500 subscribers. Most of the blasts involve Patterson disseminating published articles, press releases and other people’s comments. One included a story from The Sacramento Bee in which Sacramento leaders accused Benicia of failing to fully acknowledge the risk of spills and fires from the Valero project.

Another email passed along an article about speakers at a meeting organized by project opponents, Jenkins said. Patterson followed that with an email containing a Southern California newspaper editorial disagreeing with Patterson’s Chronicle opinion piece, and accusing her of rushing to judgment on the crude-by-rail issue. Another Patterson email contains a report lauding Valero for its plant safety measures.

In determining that Patterson should not vote on the Valero project, Jenkins cited a 2004 Los Angeles appellate court case as most comparable to the Benicia situation. There, he said, a city planning commissioner wrote an article for his homeowners association expressing concerns that a project would have negative environmental impacts. The commissioner then voted to deny the project. The court ruled that his comments “gave rise to an unacceptable probability of actual bias.”

Patterson’s attorney, Diane Fishburn of Olson Hagel & Fishburn in Sacramento, countered that a 1975 California Supreme Court ruling suggests Patterson is within her rights in speaking her opinion. In that case, involving the city of Fairfield, a developer tried to have the mayor and a councilman barred from voting on his shopping center proposal because the mayor told the developer he was opposed to the project, and the councilman spoke against the project at public meetings.

The court stated that the shopping center project had major ramifications for the city, and that a “councilman has not only a right but an obligation to … state his views on matters of public importance.”

The Fairfield case “is right on point with Elizabeth’s situation,” Fishburn said.

Jenkins cited that Fairfield case, as well, in his report for Benicia, acknowledging it provides support for Patterson’s position. But he pointed out that the court noted that most of the Fairfield council members’ comments came during a political campaign, where, Jenkins said, “candidates should have the freedom to express their views.”

Valero officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Under city rules, the Valero permit request will be voted on by the city Planning Commission, and would only come before the City Council on appeal. If it does, legal experts and city officials say it is up to Patterson to decide whether she should recuse herself.

Patterson said she does not plan to step aside and that she will be able to cast an unbiased vote. “I am going to (continue to) do what I have been doing,” she said. “The challenge here is I have to be scrupulous in weighing the facts before me.”