L.A. Port Chief to End Tenure After Leading Growth

As Ezunial “Eze” Burts prepares to end his 12-year tenure running the Port of Los Angeles, city and steamship company officials say that in spite of his well-publicized differences with City Hall, he will ultimately be remembered for overseeing the harbor’s swift expansion.

Burts, 50, announced last week that he would leave his post as executive director of the harbor, where his role recently had been more statesman than manager, to take over the L.A. Chamber of Commerce, where he has been a board member for several years.

With Burts’ departure, Mayor Richard Riordan is afforded the opportunity to tap his first port executive director. Harbor commissioners have said they will work with Riordan’s staff to conduct an international search for a replacement, but early speculation has focused on two local prospects: Larry Keller, the port’s chief operating officer, who said he would be “flattered” to be considered, and Steven R. Dillenbeck, Burts’ counterpart at the Long Beach Harbor, who said he had no interest in the Los Angeles job.

“This is really going to be opening a new chapter for the department,” Harbor Commission President Leland Wong said of the chance to select a new director. “I can assure you our projections look good and Long Beach is going to have a run for its money.”

Burts said he began considering the Chamber of Commerce job about a year ago when the retiring president, Ray Remy, suggested it.

“This is a good time in the history of the port,” he said. “If you want to leave at a good time, this is it.”

Steamship company officials balked in 1984 when Mayor Tom Bradley appointed Burts, a mayoral aide with no shipping experience. But this week they called him a “quick learner” and noted that he had the good fortune to take over the bustling port just as Pacific Rim trade was starting to grow.

Burts traveled extensively to market the harbor to potential customers, and city auditors eventually criticized what they called lavish spending practices.

In 1994, Burts was forced to help cover the $5,000 tab from a harbor commissioner’s farewell lunch two years earlier. Last May, a city report said Burts drove the most expensive car of any city general manager: a $30,817 Buick Park Avenue.

Burts, one of the city’s highest paid general managers with a salary of $159,000, said he has maintained a good working relationship with the mayor’s office since Riordan was elected.

Some city officials said Burts was viewed as a holdover from the Bradley era. “When you have a new administration coming in . . . things are going to be looked at,” said one harbor commissioner. “There was a carry-over issue.”

The Harbor Department itself was singled out last year for being bloated with excess staff. A private audit initiated by Riordan’s appointees to the Harbor Commission suggested that the port should reduce its staff by 35% and increase its employees productivity to compete with the leaner Port of Long Beach. (It has trimmed down to 670 employees from 751, mostly through attrition.)

In 1994, Long Beach surged past Los Angeles to become the nation’s busiest port, a lead it still holds.

Among other recommendations, the audit called for the creation of a chief of operations to run the harbor day to day. In April, the harbor commission hired Keller, a seasoned executive, to fill the post and make the department more businesslike and customer-friendly.

Since 1985, the number of cargo containers handled annually at the port has more than doubled.