Summit Explores Ways to Reignite a Cool Harbor Economy

The challenge: How to create jobs and make the harbor area’s economy rebound.

Market San Pedro as a vacation package with Catalina Island? Launch joint ventures between the Port of Los Angeles and local businesses? Build a world-class aquarium? Create waterfront shops and attractions? Sell San Pedro’s fishing village history and charm?

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These and other ideas for rejuvenating the economy of the harbor communities took center stage Thursday at an economic summit convened by City Councilman Rudy Svorinich of San Pedro and attended by labor, business, port and community leaders.

The proposals at the conference, held at the Sheraton Hotel, varied from the simple (installing lockers for tourists to leave their belongings for the day) to the grand (building the aquarium in hopes it would become the catalyst for tourist visits and service jobs).

But labor leaders at the conference stressed that if any such efforts are to succeed, the projects must generate jobs that pay well--not minimum- wage positions that fail to improve the living standards of the harbor area’s diverse population.

“San Pedro has a long, proud history of fighting for working people,” said Angela Keefe, president of the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union Local 681, during a workshop on tourism. “Do you really want employers who are going to bottom-line your friends and neighbors to come into your community?”

In a workshop on employment, Jono Shaffer, chief organizer of the “Justice for Janitors” labor group, told listeners a story about Los Angeles janitor David Martinez, who in 1989 earned about $7.32 an hour and had benefits, but whose salary plunged to $3.35 an hour--the minimum wage then--when the company he cleans subcontracted work to non-union labor. Today, Martinez makes about $5 an hour, works two jobs and has no health insurance, Shaffer said.

“I think corporate America has to be called on to change its ways,” Shaffer said. “Our cities are being ripped off, and it’s not the immigrants who are doing it, it’s not the welfare cheats who are doing it or the poor people.

In a speech at the summit’s outset, an assistant professor at Cal State Los Angeles said any effort to restructure the harbor area’s economy must take into account the characteristics and needs of the area’s work force.

Ali Modarres, an assistant professor of geography and urban analysis, said only 8% of harbor area residents have college degrees and 19% have less than a ninth-grade education. Modarres said 22% have less than a 12th-grade education and the remaining 51% have high school diplomas. About 15% of the population receives some public assistance and about 22% is at the federal poverty level, he said.

“What this means, I would say, is that you have people who need to be retrained,” Modarres said. “The age of the industrial job which required little education but was labor-intensive is gone.

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The need for well-paying jobs emerged as a common theme during the day, as the 180 summit participants attended workshops on business, the Port of Los Angeles, employment and tourism.

Topics included advice for businesses seeking permits, how the port’s Foreign Trade Zone can save local businesses money, and a proposal for a light manufacturing business that would train and employ San Pedro gang members.

Some suggested tourism could solve the region’s ills.

Michael C. R. Collins, senior vice president of the Los Angeles Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, was impassioned on the topic. It is incomprehensible, he said, that San Pedro, a waterfront community located in a major tourist capital, is not a prime tourist destination in its own right.

Collins said the 15th City Council District, which stretches from Watts to San Pedro, ranks among the lowest in Los Angeles in tourism employment.

“On the face of it that doesn’t make any sense,” Collins said. “When you see the beach and the port and the sea and compare, well, something is conspicuously out of line. And it’s in the middle of one of the most celebrated tourist districts of the world!”

Keefe, often an adversary of the hotel industry come contract-bargaining time, stressed that while tourism can be a boon to a community, hotels mainly offer a slew of minimum-wage jobs unless pressured by residents to improve pay levels.

“The biggest number of jobs created by a hotel is that of room attendant,” Keefe said “And in Southern California that’s a Latina making $4.25 and $5 an hour. That means the place is producing jobs that at best, if someone has a working spouse, have people hovering around the federal poverty level. These are the kind of jobs that if left unfettered, this industry creates.”

While tourism was seen as a panacea by some, others touted the Port of Los Angeles as the brightest spot in the region’s economic forecast.

“The Port of Los Angeles is now, and will be for many years down the road, the economic anchor for the entire harbor region,” said Svorinich before the conference.

At the summit’s beginning, Tay Yoshitani, deputy executive director of Maritime Affairs at the port, pledged that the port will become a partner with local businesses.

“The Port of Los Angeles considers the creation of jobs as its No. 1 priority,” Yoshitani said. Without elaborating, he said the port will help by offering its facilities and services to attract businesses.

One project that the port could take part in is the creation of a world-class aquarium. Svorinich, who mentioned the project during a lunchtime speech, has long thought an aquarium could serve as a catalyst for the area’s economic rejuvenation.

Already, he has begun talking to port officials about a site for the aquarium, hoping to persuade the port to act as its landlord, he said. The site under consideration is a former Unocal Station location at 22nd Street in San Pedro.

“Our office has been in contact with half a dozen or so major theme and attraction park companies and aquaria developers who are very interested in the project. We’re not talking small change here,” Svorinich said. “We’re talking some serious major investors that are willing to invest the $50 (million) to $80 million it would take to establish an aquarium.”

Whipping from room to room throughout the day, corralling people and making sure the event ran smoothly, was Diane Middleton, a San Pedro attorney and the summit’s organizer.

Middleton, who ran against Svorinich in the April primary but later endorsed his election bid against former Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, said she approached Svorinich about the idea for an economic summit and the two immediately went to work.

“After everything that I and my supporters invested in the City Council race, I wasn’t about to abandon the city,” Middleton said.

The next step, Svorinich said, will be the creation of an economic advisory council to pursue suggestions made at the summit and capitalize on the enthusiasm that charged the day’s events.

“I think this is the best thing that’s happened in the Harbor in 15 years,” said Tenni Avington-Sewell, grant coordinator for the Normont Terrace Coordinating Council. “It’s like a light has gone on.”

Svorinich said he already has asked council members Rita Walters, Nate Holden and Mark Ridley-Thomas to join with him to plan a South-Central economic summit, which would include the Watts area of his district, he said.

“People have to understand that the 15th Council District is a mini-Los Angeles,” Svorinich said. “It is the most ethnically diverse of all the districts, and the issues we can solve in the 15th District are important because, on the larger scale, as goes the 15th District, so goes the city of Los Angeles.”