Defying the Job God

We don’t usually look to Long Beach for cultural revolutions, large or small. But this old Navy town, the poster-boy city for job loss in the 90s, may be producing just that. An incipient movement here has rebelled at the notion of paying any cost to see a few jobs trickle back into town.

The coalition of rebellion has grown suddenly, as if by spontaneous combustion, in the wake of the city council’s decision to flatten the soon-to-be-closed Long Beach Naval Station and convert it to a parking lot for shipping containers. The city council, in the memorable words of James Baker, saw the decision in terms of jobs, jobs, jobs.

Many of Long Beach’s residents, it is now clear, see it differently. As long as anyone can remember, Long Beach has been defined as a Navy town, and the Naval Station stands as the last--and best--reminder of that tradition. The station sits on 170 park-like acres next to the Harbor, offering many obvious possibilities for reuse, and the hundreds of people who flooded a night-time hearing last week came to ask the obvious question: Must this place, too, be lost to the cause of jobs?

As of right now, the answer to that question is a tentative yes. Not only has the city council voted to pave it over, it has agreed to give the property to the Port of Long Beach so it can store containers for the China Ocean Shipping Co., a steamship line owned and operated by the government of China.

In other words, it’s a deal that touches all the hot buttons of economic recovery: international trade, high-wage jobs at the port, spin-off benefits nationwide. The deal seems so perfect economically that President Clinton made a campaign stop at the Naval Station in August to congratulate Long Beach on the “vigor and vision” of the parking lot plan.

The only thing lost, of course, was a piece of Long Beach’s soul. Today, fifty years after being built, the Naval Station retains the feel of World War II and the heady days when Long Beach served as point of embarkation for much of the Pacific fleet. The main buildings were designed by Los Angeles architect Paul Williams and have been designated as eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Much of the Station resembles an airy campus, with huge trees leading down to the water’s edge. It contains a huge gym, an Olympic-sized pool, eating halls, dorms, and all the rest. During the 1980s alone, the Defense Department spent upward of $80 million to refurbish the base and build new facilities. Now the whole thing stands ready for the bulldozer and the garbage heap.

This submissive posture to the god of jobs has grown to a pandemic in the country. In Los Angeles, we roll back smog controls in the name of jobs. We give multimillion-dollar tax breaks to billionaire movie moguls like Steven Spielberg and David Geffen in the name of jobs.

In Pennsylvania, the governor just announced a plan to sell the state-run liquor stores for $1 billion so he can give the money to the Pirates and Steelers for new stadiums, all in the name of jobs. The power of the job god is such that few dare question the sacrifices it demands.

And all the more remarkable, then, that the people of Long Beach are raising just such questions. Between the whammies of corporate abandonment and military shut-downs, Long Beach has lost more than 50,000 jobs and has an unemployment rate in excess of 8 percent. Of all places, Long Beach would be expected to go meekly to its sacrifice.

But no. As Nancy Latimer of the group Long Beach Heritage says, “People are overwhelmed when they see the Naval Station for the first time. It’s a deep emotional reaction. They see the old trees, the open space, the waterfront. They picture paving it over, and it seems like too high a price.”

Thus, more than 4,000 showed up during a recent open house at the Station to soak up its glories. And, spurred on by the coalition, about 1,700 came to the recent hearing to plead the Station’s cause and boo Mayor Beverly O’Neill for defending its flattening.

The outcry would have come sooner, Latimer says, but few residents knew the glories of the place until this spring. Up to that point, the Station operated as a secure military base and prohibited public entry. With the phasing out of military operations, the base was opened and discovered.

Has the outcry come too late? We don’t know. The coalition, in classic Southern California fashion, has gathered together an ungainly mix of people who have little experience working with each other: inner-city types who want to use the Station’s gym and playing grounds for needy kids; Navy retirees; taxpayer groups who abhor the waste of the bulldozing; architecture and history buffs. To complete the incongruity, they are all cheered on by Huell Howser, KCET’s apostle of good vibes, who visited the Naval Station for one of his programs and became its relentless promoter.

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Standing against them is the Port of Long Beach, a powerful local presence that will invoke the job god at every opportunity. Thus far, the promise is 650 jobs. The tussle will play out over the next several months as the Navy makes its final decision.

For what it’s worth, would the jobs be lost if the Naval Station survives? Most likely not. They would simply move about one mile west to the adjoining Port of Los Angeles, which would be only too happy to accommodate the China trade.

In which case, the Port of Long Beach would learn a hard lesson about the job god. It’s very fickle. You have to be careful where you pray.

’ People are overwhelmed when they see the Naval Station for the first time. It’s a deep emotional reaction. They see the old trees, the open space, the waterfront. They picture paving it over, and it seems like too high a price.’