L.A., Long Beach Mayors Blast Plan to Tap Port Funds

A proposal to help balance the state’s budget by tapping revenues of major California ports would limit the growth of Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors and cost thousands of new jobs, mayors of the two cities said Monday.

Mayor Tom Bradley and Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell denounced the plan, which Gov. Pete Wilson and a joint Assembly-Senate budget conference committee supported this month.

“It would, in effect, take away our capability of expanding our job market here in Southern California,” Bradley said at a news conference on a Long Beach pier.

The proposal, and similar proposals since then, would take $90 million to $155 million from ports in Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco. Los Angeles would lose $44 million and Long Beach would lose $72 million, officials said. Long Beach’s portion is higher because that port has more uncommitted funds, they said.

Without that money, the officials said, major improvement projects may have to be scuttled. Among the projects that could be affected is a proposed $500-million transportation corridor between downtown Los Angeles and the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The officials said their cities may also lose jobs if the ports lose business to ports in Oregon and Washington.

By approving such a measure, Kell said, the governor and Legislature would be sending the wrong message. “Just three months ago the politicians in Sacramento called for more jobs as a positive response to the riots,” Kell said. “Now, they are trying to take jobs away.”