As the debate over drilling for oil in the Whittier hills continues, the newest issue has to do with e-mail addresses. Apparently Matrix Oil Co. e-mailed Whittier residents — some of whom signed a petition to the city opposing the use of Penn Street. There was a question as to where Matrix obtained the signatures. Here are some dueling e-mails from Valerie Shatynski, a resident on Penn who is opposed to the project and Jeff Collier, assistant city manager. In the end result it appears that the city didn’t hand over e-mail addresses Here are the e-mails from Shatynski and Collier that also were sent to this newspaper. Judge for yourself:
Dated 8:34 p.m. Dec. 9
valued Councilmembers:
I am writing to
inform you that the City of Whittier has violated personal information of the
over 100 people who signed the Penn Street petition regarding the Whittier Oil
Main project, submitted in response to the DEIR.
Penn Street residents was submitted to the Community Development Department on
Monday, December 6th. The petition included resident’s names, addresses,
telephone numbers, and in most cases, email address, along with their
signature.
and dismay, someone on the City’s staff has harvested the emails from our
petition and provided them to Matrix Oil. We started recieving emails from
Matrix Oil yesterday and today. This is a violation of our
personal information, and totally unacceptable.
respond to me by close of business Friday, December 10th regarding the
violation of our personal information
serious issue, and the people responsible for this breach of privacy of the
City’s residents should be fired.
immediate attention to this matter, I look forward to hearing from you, my
elected officials and representatives.
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Here’s a response from 11:31 a.m. Dec. 10
Mrs. Shatynski,
Your allegation of impropriety by the City staff is of great concern to me and I have spent the morning addressing your email. I have found that no comments nor private information submitted by residents was provided to Matrix or any other party by the City nor our environmental consultants. Rather, I have contacted Matrix Oil and have learned that they (actually their PR firm) purchased email lists from Political Data, Inc. (PDI). PDI’s website states that they are California’s largest provider of voter information to political campaigns, consultants, and pollsters. They provide a variety of voter information include telephone numbers, email addresses, etc.
That said, the information submitted by any person commenting on the Draft EIR is part of the public record and is, therefore, not confidential. Even so, the City has not provided nor offered this information to Matrix Oil nor any other party.
I fully appreciate and share your concern about preserving your personal information. However, much of this information is acquired from a variety of sources and is publically available for purchase from firms such as PDI. Again, the City was not the source of the personal contact information used to send the emails you and your residents received.
In the future, feel free to contact me directly if you have any questions or concerns.
Jeffrey W. Collier
Assistant City Manager
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Next: 2:27 p.m. Dec. 10
Jeff, thank you for looking into this. Of course, we understand that the information submitted in relationship to the DEIR is public record. It is good to hear that the City staff has not shared this information.
Regards, Valorie Shatynski
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Next: 3:34 p.m. Dec. 10
Valorie,
Just wanted to let you know a slight correction to the information I sent you earlier. Matrix called me later today and clarified that the firm they obtained the information from wasn’t PDI but was another firm offering similar information. Not a big deal but I felt it important to give you accurate information.
Have a good weekend.
Jeffrey W. Collier
Assistant City Manager
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Next: 11:46 a.m. Dec. 12
thank you Jeff, we are interested in knowing the name of the firm, if you would please provide it. Some of us would like to contact them and have our names removed.
Regards, Valorie
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Next: 12:45 p.m. Dec. 12
I’ll pass on your request tomorrow morning to Matrix. I clearly can’t require Matrix to have their consultant divulge the name of the firm but I’m happy to pass on the request. I’ll let you know what I hear back.
Hope you are enjoying this beautiful day!
Jeff
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This was the final e-mail sent to this newspaper at 8:27 a.m. Dec. 17
Jeff
Jeff, please also extend to City Staff that I will let our petitioners know you have thoroughly looked into this, in our behalf. I regret causing a stir, but the coincidence of the onset of the Matrix PR efforts following so closely to the submittal of their information was the reason for the connection in our minds.
I will say that the misfortune of identifying Penn Street in the DEIR (or any residential street in Whittier) for this industrial purpose has certainly galvanized our household, along with many, many of our neighbors to gather their voice both formally and informally, so that City Staff and our City Council understands we DO care! We have been very saddened that one of our leaders is speaking for Penn Street, stating that because we have not complained about issues in the past, we don’t care if more burden is added. This has even been a recent quote in the newspaper. This is a very untrue statement, and is not based on any interactions with any of us on Penn. Rest assured, we take this to heart, and will make every effort to reach out to City Hall from now forward.
In this spirit, we hope to retrench and establish a genuinely cooperative relationship with all of you. If you have suggestions on how best to formally establish this line of communication to work out issues, we welcome them! Many of our neighbors express interest in a neighborhood association of some type. Please let me know if this needs to be a body with bylaws, etc., or if we may begin dialogue as an ad-hoc group while we form something of this nature.
With regards and respect,
Thank you, Valorie Shatynski
