Goodbye Tonsich!
Love him or hate him, he is gone. We now have a new mayor, a new style of leadership, and an ambitious "no net increase" plan in place which needs to be addressed. The more I read of this plan, the more important I believe it is for not only the residents living in the port areas, but for all of the Southern CA region. A new plan and new leader needs a new commission free of the controversy and twisted relationships of the current members. I applaud Nick for reading the writing on the wall and bowing out in such a way as to give the new Mayor a chance to hit the ground rolling without a controversial fight.
However, that all being said, the ball is now squarely in Villaraigosa's court. Who he appoints and how active a role he plays are going to be key to many developments in the port. This is Villaraigosa's shot to "leave a legacy he is proud of", and one that I believe Hahn came up short of.
Posted by Anonymous @ 7/03/2005 07:45:00 PM
3 Comments:
Unfortunately, many Angelinos don't realize how the Los Angeles Harbor impacts their daily lives in negative ways. They appreciate the jobs that trade brings, but the costs are not well documented. The Harbor is not only the single biggest source of air pollution, but also of traffic congestion. The crowded freeways and smog that afflict the region, from Pasadena to Cerritos, and Torrance to San Bernardino, are unfortunately a costly byproduct of being a Port city.
Fortunately, there are a number of progressive activists (many who post here, such as Noel Park) who are shedding light on these underlying problems. For decades the Port (with a wink & a nod from the Mayor) has subsidized their unconstrained growth by shifting all the costs of growth to other public agencies and the general public. Those days are over. Now, Mayor Villaraigosa has the opportunity to be the first Mayor to address these past wrongs, and tie future Port growth to cleaning up the air and reducing truck congestion. His upcoming appointments to the Board of Harbor Commissioners can be the first step in a new period of constructive engagement between the community and Harbor Department.
Let's hope you are right, Mayor Frank, and that the new Mayor is genuinely interested in reigning in this rogue department and correcting decades of bad policy decisions.
Sorry to be so slow to respond, but I spent yesteday morning at the City Council hearing on the Amerigas pipeline lease. As a result, I had to spend the afternoon trying to catch up on my business.
Thanks to Mr. Tonsich and Mr. Acevedo for having the good graces to resign, and get out of AV's way.
While Mr. Acevedo always tried to remain civil, and understand our concern over public policy issues, the arrogance of Mr. Tonsich at those Harbor Commission meetings had to be experienced to be believed.
It is just a pity that Mr. Tonsich had to go out with a few more blasts at Controller Chick. The truth hurts, and he took it pretty badly.
It's also a pity that, to the last, the spinning press releases continued. For example, he took credit for the "cold-ironing" of some of the ships at China Shipping. In fact, the port was forced to do this by the Natural Resources Defense Council and the 2nd District Court of Appeal.
He stated that he was proud of his efforts at cleaning up pollution. Diesel particulate pollution, which causes cancer and dozens of other health impacts, increased 64% on his watch.
He claimed that Port/community relations had improved. Read this blog.
Anyway, we look forward to the new Harbor Commission with cautious optimism. AV has presented himself as proud environmentalist, and a person who understands the concept of Environmental Justice. We can only hope that his Harbor Commission will take seriously its responsibilities to the health, safety, and quality of life of the citizens of Los Angeles, particularly those of us in the front line communities of San Pedro and Wilmington.
It seems that the resource pool of real leaders across our Nation is extraordinarily limited at best. Those who consider themselves to be such, so many times, are deficient in the area most critical....integrity. It is my fervent hope that Antonio Villaraigosa will be wise enough to capitalize on the value of "integrity" and that the new Harbor Commission will begin to rule it's Port with a new "Integrity over Arrogance" attitude. As mentioned in the previous comments, the truth of port industry impacts on the area (and for that matter the State) need to be evaluated against the benefits it may be providing. That has never been done. With the rapidly climbing health costs associated with port pollution (lung cancer, asthma, cardio pulmonary etc.)....infrastructure costs(major traffic clogs and needs for road construction for new arteries and constant repair from road damage from trucks)along with costs from the ever increasing threat from terrorism (due to the continued centralization of all US commerce)...needs to be intelligently analyzed. Someone ought to begin to understand that placing all of one's eggs in a single basket....may not be the best idea. But, finer minds than mine should be solicited to approach the issue.
Meanwhile, it feels nice at the moment to have rid ourselves of a Commission President who took credit for things forced upon him by a Court of Appeals, made false claims to have reduced air pollution, and someone who exhibited his beligerence to the general public repeatedly (even threatening publicly to sue me over the fact that I brought up his legal services contracts with the Alameda Corridor Agency...an agency that solely exists to serve the ports. Hopefully, the issue of conflict of interest will be a dead issue under Villaraigosa. Good riddens to Tonsich's departure. I'm sure he feels qualified to run for some political office in the future. I can only hope that the legacy of his term as Harbor Commissioner will obliterate any potential chance of that for him. In my humble opinion, he has personified that which is worst in politics today.
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