GELFAND’S WORLD-This week, the mayor's office sent out a press release (see below) about its new plan to discuss waterfront development. Funny, that is exactly what the harbor community has been doing since the millennial year.
Too bad the mayor's new advisory panel doesn't include the people who live down here. Instead, the announcement describes a group consisting of a Deputy Mayor named Kelli Bernard, and then adds representatives from a bunch of city departments and bureaus.
I guess I have to wonder how the Department of Water and Power is going to contribute to the big picture on making the LA harbor a tourist attraction. We can also wonder about Rec and Parks, or even Cultural Affairs. They get seats on this committee, but the people of San Pedro and Wilmington are being left out, as usual.
The whole thing seems to have been thrown together in some ritual of bureaucratic formulizing. The haphazard nature of the process is best signified by a single phrase from the press release, the one that describes the LA waterfront as "A 20-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles . . . "
Obviously the writer of this verse doesn't know a lot about traveling in Los Angeles. Maybe the writer uses a Harrier jump jet, or perhaps uses the toll lanes (excuse me, the Express lanes). But for us regular people, 20 minutes might be half the journey on a good day, not counting the 7 AM to 7 PM rush hour.
Perhaps we should forgive the publicity folks. They just have to write this stuff. The rest of us have to watch the sausage being made.
Let's consider who is missing from the mayor's advisory group.
For one thing, there are the people who live around the bay. They should be allowed to select their own representatives through their neighborhood councils, resident associations, and chambers of commerce. They have been dutifully attending meetings on waterfront development going back at least as far as the early 2000s. They contributed to a waterfront development plan that came out of the Port Community Advisory Committee. Thousands of hours of volunteer time went into that plan, as did hundreds of hours of paid Port staff time.
Speaking of that plan, how about putting June Smith on the new panel? How about some of the people involved in the plans for refurbishing the Ports O'Call Village? How about the people who run sport fishing boats and scuba charters?
And where are the longshoremen in this panel? They move the cargo, to the tune of something like a billion dollars a day through the twin ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. They have a lot to say about the functioning of the port, as the current labor negotiations demonstrate. Somebody forgot to include them.
I could go on, but I think you get the point. At best, this seems to be a group of city agencies which are there just to check the work of the Port of Los Angeles, sort of like the junior editors on a high school yearbook. What else would the Department of Sanitation do in a group like this?
In theory, there might be a little something for the Department of Cultural Affairs, if only Los Angeles functioned more like Chicago. Grant Park along the shore of Lake Michigan is famous for its summer orchestral concerts and festivals. And then there is Boston, which has revamped its historical waterfront in a way that draws tourists by the tens of thousands. The LA harbor not so much. Not nearly so much.
That old Port Community Advisory Committee, much beloved of local activists, had its faults, but the subcommittee work, particularly that of the group who nurtured the comprehensive waterfront plan, should be pulled off the shelf and revisited.
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After a decade and millions of dollars, the waterfront promenade is a big improvement over what used to be, but there are still a few things missing. My neighborhood council used to remind the Port to install restroom facilities. They built some structures to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and they still don't seem to be functional. Somehow, the waterfront alongside the Battleship Iowa now has a working restroom, so apparently it's not an impossibility. I hope that it doesn't require the presence of another battleship further down the channel just to get another head installed.
If we want our waterfront to bring in the tourists, it would also help to add some restaurant facilities along the promenade. Make it more European, with outdoor cafe seating, so people can walk and then dine.
What's missing from the mayor's press release is what the planning is all about. It's not at all clear. Those of us who live in the harbor area have been hearing about a new plan pretty much every two years for the past dozen. Some progress has been made, but what has been missing is connecting the various elements from the Vincent Thomas Bridge down to the breakwater. There have been promises and there have been blueprints, but we seem to have been in a condition of stasis for the past several years.
What is also missing is any promise to open this process to public scrutiny. The Port and the mayor's office know that there is public demand to recover the beachfront land now controlled by the Boy Scouts. That would be a start. Let's see if they go in that direction.
One last thought. A lot of people have questions about the proper function of the city's neighborhood councils. This is a perfect example of a negotiation that the San Pedro neighborhood councils ought to be involved in. The fact that they are not named in the press release shows that the city tends to forget about their existence when it is convenient. Neighborhood councils need to reinvent themselves as the folks who fight City Hall when it is important to do so. Even if neighborhood councils have officially been invented, they need to be reinvigorated.
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Addendum: And a Shameless Plug -- a family member has created a food blog wrapped around New Orleans style cuisine, not to mention cheap food for the college set. You can find it here. Where else can you find 7 such fascinating things to do with peanut butter, or desserts for breakfast, or my favorite, a microwave version of tuna casserole. Never imagined that you could do that.
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MAYOR ERIC GARCETTI
CITY OF LOS ANGELES
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 17, 2015
CONTACT: Communications Office, 213-978-0741
MAYOR GARCETTI APPOINTS CITYWIDE PANEL TO GUIDE LA WATERFRONT DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
SAN PEDRO, Calif. – Mayor Garcetti today announced the formation of a high-level city task force that will be responsible for advising him on an integrated community development strategy for the LA Waterfront, an emerging visitor destination located in the Port of Los Angeles-adjacent areas of San Pedro and Wilmington.
The new panel will be tasked with reviewing various city assets that could benefit or impact LA Waterfront development; identifying possible funding sources from other government agencies, such as grants or bonds; and determining strategies for attracting private investment capital. The Panel will meet regularly to facilitate each department reporting back to the Mayor’s office with its initial findings within 90 days.
“In the past decade, the Port has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in public access infrastructure, and now we need a focused effort on developing a commercial base of businesses to improve the quality of life for residents and attract visitors from around the world,” said Mayor Garcetti. “Further enhancement of the LA Waterfront is an important part of my economic plan. The area has great potential for generating new jobs, businesses and more tourism.
“The LA Waterfront is a citywide asset that can benefit greatly from the thinking and cooperation of all relevant city departments represented on this new panel,” added Garcetti. “While the Port’s proposed Public Access Investment Plan is an important first step in developing an integrated LA Waterfront strategy, we must also strategically leverage our citywide assets to take the LA Waterfront to the next level of commercial success.”
“This action illustrates Mayor Garcetti's responsiveness to the Harbor communities’ desire to see a revitalized LA Waterfront. This taskforce brings accountability to the process of everyone working together to build a successful destination,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Joe Buscaino, whose district includes the San Pedro and Wilmington areas. “While the Port has accomplished a great deal in driving LA Waterfront revitalization, we’ll need all city departments working together to realize its full potential and public access benefits.”
The LA Waterfront Panel will be chaired by Kelli Bernard, the city’s Deputy Mayor of Economic Development, and will include representatives from the following city departments and bureaus:
• Recreation and Parks
• Water & Power
• Street Services Bureau, Public Works
• Transportation
• Housing Authority
• City Planning
• Economic and Workforce Development
• Engineering Bureau, Public Works
• Sanitation Bureau, Public Works
• Cultural Affairs
• Port of Los Angeles
• Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board
• Housing and Community Investment Department
“We look forward to collaborating with the various city departments on the next phase of LA Waterfront development,” said Executive Director Gene Seroka. “We’re grateful for Mayor Garcetti’s leadership in forming this citywide panel to guide future initiatives.”
A 20-minute drive from downtown Los Angeles, the LA Waterfront features the USS IOWA battleship, museums, restaurants, the World Cruise Center, a walking promenade, recreational boating, shopping and more, all against the backdrop of the nation’s busiest cargo port and the iconic Vincent Thomas Bridge.
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(Bob Gelfand writes on culture and politics for City Watch. He can be reached at [email protected])
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 15
Pub: Feb 20, 2015
