It’s Somebody Else’s Money

The Port of Los Angeles now leads the nation in volume of cargo handled, having passed New York last year. Bill Chandler, a spokesman for Mayor Tom Bradley, attributes this ranking to “a very aggressive campaign to market and promote the harbor’s facilities.” But there’s a difference between appropriately aggressive marketing and extravagance, especially when it involves the public sector.

Last year the port’s travel expenses were $615,000, big bucks--only Portland among major West Coast ports spent more--but mercifully down from the staggering $1,125,000 that Los Angeles spent on foreign and domestic travel in 1988-89.

A lot of public officials, their staffs and their spouses helped to run up those bills, including the mayor, members of the City Council and Bradley-appointed commissioners. All the while, we can believe, whether at golf tournaments or conferences, whether in Barcelona, Brazil or Bermuda, in fair weather or foul, these travelers were aggressively marketing the virtues of our harbor. We suppose it’s even possible that without their efforts places like Tacoma, San Diego and Seattle would be moving to hijack half the cargo ships headed for Los Angeles.

It’s hard work, all that travel, and we should be grateful that there is no shortage of volunteers to take it on. Of course, it eases the pain considerably when transportation, hotel rooms, meals, limousines and entertainment are all paid for with someone else’s money. That allows such things as dinners costing as much as $74 a head, close to double what the city standard otherwise permits.

We’re not knocking the value of vigorous harbor promotion, or the legitimacy of much port-related travel. But the volume of travel and the number of officials among whom it is spread point pretty unmistakably not to necessity but to excess. In an era of unavoidable austerity in both the governmental and private sectors, why should the Port of Los Angeles be an exception?