Wilmington’s Kind of Guy Climbs Aboard Harbor Panel

He grew up in a union family, played football at Banning High, for years toiled as a construction worker sinking pier pilings in the harbor, and prefers driving a Pontiac to a fancy foreign import.

Any way you look at it, Michael Schwab is a Wilmington kind of guy.

“I am just somebody who grew up in this town who wants to help solve its problems,” Schwab said last week. “I can build a dock, I know the area, and I can tell people what the problems are.”

Schwab, a union leader with lots of savvy about this working-class community, made Wilmington history last Wednesday when he attended his first Los Angeles Harbor Commission meeting--as a commissioner.

Dwight D. Eisenhower was President, the Korean War had just ended, and Schwab was in the third grade when then-Los Angeles Mayor Norris Poulson appointed the last Wilmington resident to the powerful commission. Lloyd Menveg, a prominent property owner in Wilmington, served from 1953 to 1961 on the commission, which governs the 7,000-acre Port of Los Angeles spreading across Wilmington, San Pedro and parts of Terminal Island.

Area Not Represented

For 25 years, the harbor-front community has gone unrepresented, while residents from distant corners of Los Angeles have descended on the port to serve on the five-member commission.

“I doubt that somebody born and raised in Burbank or even San Pedro is going to give a damn about Wilmington,” said Peter Mendoza, president of Wilmington Home Owners and one of many residents who has repeatedly called for local representation on the influential commission. “Our best hope for change has always been getting somebody from Wilmington on the commission. Now we at least have a chance.”

Schwab was appointed to the commission early this month by Mayor Tom Bradley, but the move was eclipsed by a political brouhaha that surrounded the mayor’s decision to first fire Commissioner Frederic A. Heim. Heim, a wealthy San Fernando Valley entrepreneur, had served on the board for 13 years and was a longtime supporter of Bradley. Schwab willcomplete the final two years of Heim’s term.

A fiery relationship between Heim and Ezunial Burts--executive director of the harbor and a close Bradley assistant before that--preceded Heim’s dismissal. While public attention focused on that relationship, Wilmington residents and union officials quietly celebrated the appointment of one of their own.

Schwab is business manager of Wilmington-based Pile Drivers Local 2375, which has about 1,000 members in Southern California and Nevada. The union represents pile drivers; bridge, wharf and dock carpenters; welders; rig-builders, marine divers and tenders.

Apprentice Program

Schwab joined the union in 1969 in an apprentice program after working as a marine machinist for a year at Todd Pacific Shipyards in San Pedro and serving with the U.S. Army for three years in West Germany. In 1981, he was elected vice president of the union, and he left the docks and offshore platforms to become a union organizer. One year later, he rose to business manager and recording secretary--the highest positions in the local.

Not surprisingly, Schwab is also an avid Bradley supporter, an allegiance made clear on the glass front door to the union hall. Vistors to Schwab’s office can’t miss two stickers conspicuously plastered on the door. One proclaims, “Buy American.” The other, “Bradley for California,” promotes Bradley’s bid for governor.

John Stodder, press secretary to Bradley, said the mayor selected Schwab for the post because of his labor affiliation and his strong ties to the community.

“He is familiar with the harbor area, its strengths and weaknesses, the people there, and their problems and needs,” Stodder said. “It is not just that he is with labor. He is very familiar with some of the industries in the harbor owing to his work experience.”

Bradley’s decision to appoint Schwab came after several years of lobbying by members of labor groups who haven’t had a representative on the commission since 1981. Bill Robertson, who heads the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, which represents 700,000 union members, said he submitted Schwab’s name for consideration.

“Labor has not had enough appointments to the Harbor Commission for a number of years,” Robertson said. “I thought it was extremely important that we get somebody with a harbor background. Mike Schwab is well respected in the labor movement.”

Bernie Evans, chief deputy to Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, who represents the harbor district, said Flores also had urged Bradley to name a labor representative to the commission. Los Angeles harbor provides about 20,000 jobs, most of which are union-related.

“Michael Schwab presented a real good situation for the councilwoman, because he had grown up in the area, knew Wilmington, went to school there--and had a labor position,” Evans said. “It was a natural. The appointment accomplished two things--we got a labor commissioner and a Wilmington commissioner.”

Self-Described Workaholic

Schwab, who describes himself as a workaholic, has few interests outside the union. When he has free time he likes to work in his yard, watch TV and “go to a ballgame now and then.” He said he takes his union role seriously, pointing out that one of the major objectives of the Harbor Commission should be to ensure that jobs are kept locally. Last month, Schwab had one of his few formal contacts with the harbor department, when he protested a decision by a port contractor to use a Canadian firm to supply the 827 concrete pilings needed for expansion of a Terminal Island container terminal.

Schwab said the job could have employed about 30 people locally if the contractor had selected a local subcontractor for the work.

“With me sitting on the commission, I’ll be able to see who gets what contracts and who are the subcontractors,” Schwab said. “I won’t be able vote when there is a problem of conflict of interest, but I will be able to see generally that we keep local people employed.”

Long Beach Native

Schwab, 40, was born in Long Beach, but as his father puts it, “only because there wasn’t a hospital in Wilmington.” His parents, Bill and Gertrude Schwab, live in Wilmington and are active members of the Wilmington Home Owners, a group that formed to tackle a growing inventory of community problems.

Bill Schwab worked as a merchant seaman for 43 years and belonged to the Marine Engineers Beneficial Assn. before retiring in 1984. Michael Schwab said his father’s union ties helped get him interested in unions, too.

“The whole community is proud to have someone from Wilmington on the commission,” Bill Schwab said. “He knows the area and he knows the people.”

In 1974, the younger Schwab left Wilmington for Huntington Beach to be near his son, now 18, who has been institutionalized in Costa Mesa for cerebral palsy. Schwab said he regretted leaving Wilmington, but felt compelled to be near his son.

“My boy is handicapped, and I had to do something for him,” Schwab said. “I had to do what was best for him, and that meant moving. If it had been my way, I would have stayed here.”

Schwab, who is separated from his wife, moved back to Wilmington in January, and now rents a duplex several blocks from the Pile Drivers union hall on north Lagoon Avenue. He said his return to Los Angeles had nothing to do with his appointment to the Harbor Commission, which he said he heard about only last month.

“As an organizer, I was going all over the place so it didn’t matter as much,” Schwab said. “But as business manager, you need to be closer to the hall.”

Community Issues

Even while he lived in Orange County, Schwab said he kept abreast of community issues in Wilmington through work and his parents. He said he considers himself a Wilmingtonian, and said he sees his appointment to the Harbor Commission as a chance to improve relations between the harbor department and local residents.

Schwab’s complaints--problems in Wilmington are commonly blamed on the harbor department--are familiar ones that have been voiced by residents for years. At the top of the list is the perceived inequity between the two port communities--Wilmington and San Pedro--and what they derive from the multimillion-dollar harbor.

Since 1953, when the last Wilmington resident was appointed to the Harbor Commission, nine San Pedro residents have been chosen as commissioners. Along with Schwab’s appointment this month, Bradley also appointed a 10th San Pedro man to the commission--Robert G. Rados, who replaces Dominick Rubalcava, who resigned in June.

With those appointments has come clout, Wilmington residents say. In San Pedro, the port has paid for $3.2 million in improvements to the Ports o’ Call Village restaurant and shopping complex, and it plans a $60-million World Cruise Center and a $100-million West Channel/Cabrillo Beach recreational complex.

State law requires that harbor income be used only for improvements to the port itself, but the improvements may include recreational and commercial developments like those in San Pedro. Schwab said Wilmington should be able to get some of that development, too.

Industrial Complex

“Wilmington has been used for container yards and storage,” Schwab said. “It has been more of an industrial park complex than a community. There has been no conception of community planning. There are containers stacked up next to some people’s back yards.”

Schwab also blames the port for truck traffic and overnight truck parking on residential and commercial streets. One of his top priorities as a commissioner, he said, will be to determine what authority the harbor department has to regulate trucks that use the port.

“I want to see how much the harbor department can do to solve some of these problems,” Schwab said. “The condition of this town didn’t happen over night, so I know it is going to take time. I know Mr. Burts wants to get involved in community issues. I am ready to get my feet wet.”

The harbor department’s Burts described Schwab as “extremely knowledgeable” and “very professional.” He said the union leader’s experience in the harbor has given him a “running start” as a commissioner.

Burts said the port is well aware of community complaints about problems in Wilmington, and said the harbor department is preparing a report in conjunction with the city’s redevelopment agency, the planning department and Councilwoman Flores’ office that will address many of the grievances. He said his office has held off presenting the report until Schwab settles into his post on the board.

Burts said the widely held perception that many of Wilmington’s problems lie at the port’s doorstep has led to a review of the department’s involvement in Wilmington.

Aid in Problems

“The fact that this perception exists is certainly something that has caused this port to look more closely at its development program and how it is involved in the various communities,” Burts said. “The fact that (Schwab) is a local resident of Wilmington gives us another place to go for help. His appointment will go a long way toward rectifying this problem we have.”

But Menveg, the commissioner from Wilmington appointed in 1953, said last week that Schwab’s knowledge of the harbor--not his community loyalties--will make or break him as a commissioner.

“When I was on the commission, I looked out for the harbor as a whole,” said Menveg, who now lives in Palos Verdes but still owns property in Wilmington. “The first day those commissioners go in there, they are voting on multimillion-dollar contracts. There wasn’t all this rivalry then. The key is not who runs the harbor, but how they run it.”