Land of Iron Giants: Port is not a beverage

Sometimes it's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys - when you get involved in community activism, it doesn't take long before it becomes clear that everyone who is passionate about something is the enemy of someone else who is passionate about the opposite thing.

The late Senator Edward Kennedy knew a few things about compromise and he is best remembered for getting legislation passed by enrolling both sides of the aisle. In the shouting matches at recent Town Hall meetings on the very contentious issue of health care for all U.S. residents, it seems to those of us who know families without coverage (living in fear of losing their home, retirement savings, or a loved one from untreated illnesses or inadequate care), find the nay-sayers to be just shy of evil. And yet they come and shout we're all going to Communist hell if universal health care becomes a reality - what's up with that!

But that's not what I want to talk about. Today the Daily Breeze covered a story about angry Rolling Hills residents (that's the rich part of horsey Palos Verdes Estates) who are outraged that one of their neighbors, who owns a 94 acre parcel of natural landscaping, wants to rent it out for 'garden events'. Oh My God!

Down here on the flats, we can't even get our (albeit much larger) City Council to do something substantive about the industrial blight and pollution residents in the danger zone suffer from every day because of the Port. Loud partygoers aside, we're talking about deaths from emphysema and cancer. Lives shortened, kids with illnesses, dock workers and truckers alike breathing in toxic fumes every day and paying the price.

Thanks to those pesky environmental and community groups who've fought the Man tooth an nail over the last decade, the Port can tout many new innovative initiatives, including their Green Trucks Program, lower emission fuel for ships in harbor, and plug-in power during off-loading. And the Port deserves the recognition for their efforts. But new development is always in the offing, as in the proposed Terminal Island expansion, and despite the Port's promise for 'zero-emission' outcomes, common sense tells us that ya can't add stuff to the Port until ya clean up what ya got. Then you really have a zero-emission outcome.

Take their "Bridge To Breakwater" project, due to be presented in final EIR (that's Environmental Impact Report for you activist newbies) to the community in late September. San Pedro Today editor Joshua Stecker, wrote a scathing column in the new October issue, blaming what he called a "small minority community group, who, in the opinion of many, failed to think of the greater good of San Pedro and have only opposed this project based on their own selfish self-interests" (aren't there a lot of superlatives in this claim?)

Well, Joshua, I'm not sure what you are claiming the minority have done to stop this project form moving forward, but from my perspective I have only seen intelligent alternatives put forward by this minority, like, say, keeping development close to downtown so the Port doesn't end up shutting the business/retail community out by putting their shiny new toys far away in the Outer Harbor (and put the 24 story cruise liners smack in front of the town's only beach). How about considering the millions of cars coming into our town to board these ships - adding to an existing air quality problem that puts us among the worst in the nation? Clean shuttles coming to the Outer Harbor won't solve this problem.

I will admit to one bit of selfish self-interest in my involvement: gee, I don't really want the street below my house turned into a highway and our neighborhood closed to through traffic because of the new loads streaming down to the Outer Harbor Cruise Center. Bad person, bad person that I am.

This was never about 'all or nothing' as you claim. A consortium of environmental organizations, concerned engineers and 'green cities' architects came up with intelligent, viable alternatives to some of the proposals in the Bridge to Breakwater plan. Alternatives that support downtown development tied solidly into Port development of new shops, walkways, extended Red Car line. They really do care about bringing San Pedro up to the level of other sea-side tourist destinations. Just not at the cost of old-school thinking where we, the 60,000 people living here have to pay the price. We've been doing it too long.

Nay-sayers are useless, as are over generalized criticisms of people who really are trying to watch out for the health, welfare, and economic well-being of the 60,000 people who call San Pedro home, not to mention other towns of Wilmington, Lomita, etc, that are also under the dark cloud of pollution.

I love, frequent, and support downtown San Pedro and I'm as invested in seeing it do well as Mr. Stecker claims to be. On this we do agree. As he exhorts in his column, "REAL San Pedrans" need to get up and be heard. Does he really believe real San Pedrans want to let the Port do whatever it feels is in it's best interest no matter what happens to the rest of us? He may be surprised to discover the 'minority community group' he grouses about represents a lot more real San Pedrans than he imagined. Real San Pedrans did not build the Port from afar as the City of Los Angeles did, nor become railroad, retail, or shipping tycoons. Those people don't live in our neighborhoods - they simply use us like so much front-line cannon fodder for their global benefit.

Can we make a difference in the way development goes forward in the Port? We won't find out unless, like the folks in Rolling Hills, who with just 96 vocal residents at their City Council meeting were able to accomplish, we actually show up and speak up.

Show up, already! Tuesday, September 29th, 5:00 p.m. (location TBD)

Check the Port of Los Angeles website for final info on the meeting:

http:///www.portoflosangeles.org