Critics Ask If Port Gardeners Are About Plants or Politics
The Port of Los Angeles has put out an urgent call for 25 new employees, not to operate cranes or design new berths, but to tend to lawns and weeds at the nation’s largest seaport.
At a cost of $1.2 million, the new hires would bring to 45 the number of full-time gardeners at the massive industrial complex -- as many as care for the renowned Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino.
The new gardeners are needed in part because the city-owned San Pedro Bay port is taking on responsibility for an additional 44 acres of landscaped property this year, for a total of 89 acres, port public affairs director Arley M. Baker said.
But with two weeks until election day, an official of a union supporting Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa for mayor said Tuesday that politics, not plants, could be the reason behind the hirings.
The new gardeners would be represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 347, a key supporter of Mayor James K. Hahn in the May 17 election.
But the union and the Hahn campaign dismissed the idea of a connection.
So urgent is the current hiring that the port has taken the unusual step of e-mailing its staff in hopes of finding candidates, according to an April 15 internal e-mail sent to port departments obtained by The Times.
“Emergency appointment opportunity,” the e-mail reads. “Please tell your families and friends.... We really appreciate your help in spreading the word!”
About a year ago, the port staff began tending the Cabrillo Marina; among other new responsibilities are a small port-owned baseball field called Bloch Field and some parts of Terminal Island, Baker wrote in an e-mail to The Times.
“At our full staffing of 45, we will [have] roughly one staffer per two acres of mid- to high-care needs,” Baker wrote Monday.
The port, which had four staff gardeners four years ago, has approved the staffing increase even though city budget problems have left 100 gardening positions vacant at Los Angeles parks. Unlike the parks, however, the port is a city proprietary agency that is funded, not through the general fund, but from revenue from port operations.
A spokeswoman for Hahn said that port gardeners not only tend landscaped areas but clean lots and remove weeds -- by hand to avoid use of herbicides that could pollute the ocean.
“It’s not about planting flowers. It’s about cleaning up the neighborhood,” the spokeswoman, Shannon Murphy, said. “These positions are helping to clean up and beautify areas around the port, which is something the community says they want.”
The 4,200-acre port is largely asphalt, rail yard and vacant lots.
“Rent a helicopter and fly over the port and tell me if there’s enough green space to merit 25 gardeners,” said Noel Park, president of the San Pedro Peninsula Homeowners Coalition.
But Park, who has lobbied for more park areas around the port, said he would welcome more greenery. “They can hire 1,000 gardeners as far as I’m concerned.”
By comparison, 45 gardeners maintain the 150 acres of lush lawns and specialized gardens at the Huntington. Thirty-two gardeners tend Griffith Park, and 13 work at the 127-acre Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia.
At the nation’s second-busiest port, in Long Beach, six people maintain the landscaping around the administration building and maintenance yard. The port has a $135,000-a-year contract to care for other landscaping needs at the 3,000-acre facility. But it does not provide gardening services for its tenants, while Los Angeles does, Baker said.
The port in Houston spends $70,000 annually on lawn-mowing around its main office building and other gardening chores. And in Oakland, the port does not maintain its own gardening staff.
A union official questioned the motivation for the hirings.
“It’s highly suspect that Hahn, with his political difficulties, would be multiplying the gardener force by over 100% at the Port of Los Angeles as Hahn is needing more and more political support from people like Julie Butcher,” the general manager of Local 347, said Robert G. Aquino, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which supports Villaraigosa.
The website of Local 347, one of Hahn’s strongest allies, is urging its members to walk precincts to support the mayor, who lives in San Pedro.
But Butcher scoffed at Aquino’s comment.
“This is not a mayoral issue. This is a management issue,” Butcher said.
Aquino also questioned where the port is finding the money for the new gardeners. The funds are available in the 2005-06 budget, port spokeswoman Theresa Adams-Lopez wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the port had not responded to requests for the gardener budget figures.
In all, Los Angeles port gardeners are responsible for 277 acres of land, including 148 acres of vacant lots and 40 acres of fence lines that need occasional weeding. Under city civil service rules, the port hires from a list of applicants who have taken the required test and been placed on a candidates list.
The port’s interim executive director, Bruce Seaton, approved hiring 20 gardeners last fall, but the city hired the available applicants, port officials said. So the port has resorted to “emergency hiring” outside the civil-service framework, although the employees must later pass the required test. Job requirements include two years of full-time paid gardening experience or its equivalent.
