A proposal to hire a consultant to help the city of Seal Beach recover more revenue from the local oil industry will be back before City Council “sooner rather than later,” according to Finance Director Victoria Beatley.
Beatley was expected to present a contract with Municipal Petroleum Analysts for council members to consider at the Dec. 11 meeting, but the item was pulled from the agenda days before the meeting. Beatley said the item was pulled because the contract is still being negotiated. In the initial proposed contract, MPA states it has independently identified new sources of oil and gas money that it estimates “will produce millions of dollars in new City revenue.” The proposal calls for paying MPA and its sole employee, Greg Kirste, a 15 percent contingency fee on all new oil revenue collected. In addition, MPA would receive a fixed monthly fee of $975 while the work, estimated to be 1,500 hours, is completed.
Beatley was poised to ask council to approve spending $5,800 for the current contract to cover six months of work. Beatley would not release any information about the nature of the negotiations or if any changes had been made.
