Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass will not reappoint Diane Middleton to the Los Angeles harbor commission, a move that drew surprise and strong criticism from the community and labor leaders on Thursday, Aug. 15.
“I’m deeply disappointed,” said Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker who said he’d registered his complain personally with the mayor.
Instead, Bass has appointed John Pérez, a former speaker of the California State Assembly where he served from 2008-14.
According to an online biography, Pérez, 54, was the 68th speaker of the Assembly (from 2010-14), succeeding Bass in that role. Pérez is a cousin of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and spent seven years handling political issues for the United Food and Commercial Workers, a union representing supermarket workers. He has also served as political director of the California Labor Federation.
In a brief letter dated Aug. 14, Bass said that Pérez “is especially qualified by reason of training and experience” for the position, adding that the appointment was made “solely in the interest of the city.”
John Perez, former speaker of the California State Assembly, was appointed to the Los Angeles harbor commission by LA Mayor Karen Bass. Perez is shown here in 2014 right before he stepped down as speaker. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)
But the move brought strong objections from McOsker of the 15th District, which includes the Port of L.A., who said he will sponsor a measure for the Nov. 5 ballot to require two local residents be appointed to the five-member panel. The loss of Middleton, a San Pedro resident, leaves the current panel with only one local member, Lee Williams of San Pedro.
The city is in charge of appointments to the various panels with the harbor department not having a role in the selection process.
The city charter currently requires at least one member of the five-member harbor commission be a local resident, but in recent years it has often had two or three local commissioners.
Local representation has been a leading priority as the port has impacted neighboring communities with its rapid growth.
Middleton, who is an attorney, also held what has become traditionally a seat that represents labor, and specifically the dockworkers of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union.
“Diane Middleton is smart, experienced and she’s local,” McOsker said in a telephone interview late Thursday.
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The news came just before midnight Wednesday, McOsker said, when Middleton’s appointment was due to be renewed.
Middleton, who was made an honorary member of the ILWU recently, thanked Bass for the opportunity to serve in a phone conversation Thursday but said the change leaves questions and concerns about local voices on the commission. She said the panel should have three local representatives — from San Pedro, Wilmington, and one representing labor.
“When somebody lives here, they have a different view,” she said, noting how she can see the port from her San Pedro home and has lived in the community for some 50 years. “(Residents) know about the trucks in Wilmington and the West Harbor development in San Pedro, they live here and have a take on this.”
She also is concerned about the ongoing move toward port automation and how that may affect union jobs, issues that local residents and those with dockworker ties would have more understanding about.
Gary Herrera, president of the ILWU’s Local 13, expressed strong disappointment.
“The impacts on the men and women of the ILWU — without sounding overly dramatic — are somewhat catastrophic,” Herrera said in a telephone interview Thursday. “We don’t have a voice now.”
A labor representative has been included on the panel for some 30 years, Herrera said, adding it was crucial to have a commissioner who “understood the work and the workings of the port.”
Community leaders in both San Pedro and Wilmington also have stressed the importance of local residency for at least some panel members.
“It is a very troubling trend,” McOsker said of the whittling down of local commissioners. Middleton said with the appointment of Pérez, three of the commissioners will now come from the Boyle Heights area of L.A.
Bass replaced two other local commissioners shortly after she took office — one from Wilmington and another from San Pedro — and “replaced them with commissioners from over 20 miles away from the port and port operations,” McOsker said.
“There was a lot of unfinished work I’d planned to do,” she said. “This was very disrespectful to harbor labor and to the ILWU.”
“It’s deeply, deeply important we have people from this area” on the commission, McOsker said. One member as it will stand now, he said, “is the absolute bare minimum.”
The appointment could be assigned to a committee as soon as Friday, McOsker said, adding he intended to “put up a fight for my community.”
“(Middleton) is such a pillar in our community and to have her voice (on the commission) stricken, I’m hurt,” Herrera said, adding, “The ILWU is not going to lay down on this one.”
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