Hahn, Council Woo Harbor Area With Visit

The Banning High School band trilled the national anthem. Fall colors tinged the trees under a crisp December sky. A cluster of beaming city officials crowded the wide porch of an elegant white house festooned with green garlands and red bows.

If it weren’t for the stocky palms flanking the Greek revival mansion, Wednesday’s gathering could have been mistaken for a Midwestern campaign stop.

This wasn’t Iowa, though. It was Wilmington--an industrial port neighborhood in Los Angeles better known for its oil refineries than its folksy charm.

The Los Angeles City Council and Mayor James K. Hahn brought City Hall to this often-overlooked area to celebrate the certification of the city’s first two neighborhood councils, and to hold the first of what officials said will be regular City Council meetings throughout the city.

But the event was also a campaign stop of sorts, driven by a more serious impulse than just nostalgia. Hahn is determined to blunt breakaway movements in the San Fernando Valley, Hollywood and the harbor area by proving that City Hall can be accessible and responsive.

“In a big city like Los Angeles, it is making sure that people feel like they’re in their own small town that really makes it work,” Hahn said Wednesday.

And so officials traded the power-brokering of the gilded City Council chamber for a dose of pure Americana. The sequin-spangled drill team shouted and leaped. Freshly planted poinsettias encircled the front of the Banning Residence Museum, the original home of Gen. Phineas Banning, who founded the Port of Los Angeles. More than 30 city department heads filled the house’s porch, a symbolic show of bureaucratic force.

“How often does somethin’ like this happen?” asked Hahn, underscoring the spirit of the day with a decided twang. The day was dominated by references to democracy and a promise that Wilmington Day--declared by official city resolution--marked a new era of city government.

But as some aggrieved locals demonstrated later in the afternoon when the City Council meeting opened in a wharf-side community center, it will be tough for Hahn to persuade everyone that the city will better reflect its residents.

“You guys are one of the biggest cities in the world, and yet we are neglected in our end of the city,” said Alex Muratalla, a 40-year resident of east Wilmington, who complained that his neighborhood lacks regular street sweeping and that a planned multipurpose center for youth was scuttled in favor of a low-income housing project.

“For most of the ones who want to break away from the city, it’s for one reason alone--we don’t get representation from you people.”

The mayor is hoping to combat that type of criticism with the development of neighborhood councils, approved by voters when they passed a new city charter in 1999.

On Wednesday morning, about 100 people outside the Banning house applauded as Hahn signed documents certifying the creation of the Wilmington and Coastal San Pedro neighborhood councils, the first to finish their applications.

“Today we are changing the culture at City Hall,” Hahn said. “We are bringing government closer to people in neighborhoods.”

The councils will get notices about local issues before they reach the City Council. And Hahn has promised that they will have a say in the city budget and the evaluation of the city’s general managers.

“In my opinion, it will forever change the way we have government here in Los Angeles, because truly now we will have government of the people, by the people and for the people,” said Councilwoman Janice Hahn, the mayor’s sister, whose district includes Wilmington and San Pedro.

An additional 24 groups have submitted applications to the city to be certified, and 75 neighborhoods are in the process of organizing councils.

‘Going to Be Chaotic at Times’

Greg Nelson, the head of the city’s Department of Neighborhood Empowerment, said the next step will be helping the new organizations wield power.

“This is participatory democracy, and this is something that really has not been nurtured too much in the whole history of the city,” Nelson said. “It’s going to be sloppy. It’s going to be chaotic at times. But that’s the nature of the process.”

Doug Epperhart, chairman of the Coastal San Pedro Council, said residents need to make an effort to be more connected to local government.

“It’s almost not so much up to the council offices or the mayor’s office,” he said. “It’s up to us. If we do our job, they’ll respond. They’ll have to respond.”

After the ceremony, a phalanx of city cars paraded down Avalon Street over the railroad tracks to the community center at Banning’s Landing, where the railroad magnate started what would become the Port of Los Angeles.

Two Fire Department trucks extended their ladders to form an arch outside the center, holding up a large American flag. On the sidewalk, about a dozen firefighters stood in a row, sharply at attention, welcoming visitors to the meeting.

Inside, the City Council filled the agenda with pork projects benefiting the harbor area, including a plan to preserve a San Pedro nature area. But council members still received an earful of grievances from residents.

Resident Skip Baldwin complained that the area has been excluded from the city’s share of federal funds for economic development, even though some parts of the community lack paved streets.

Judy Carns said the Port of Los Angeles police are short-staffed, while Bill Schwab asked the council to stop the port from buying up land in Wilmington.

“We don’t even have real estate to build another school,” he said.

Gertrude Schwab asked the council to do something about noisy truck traffic and illegally stored cargo containers that dot the community.

“If you tour the community and see the impact of the Port of Los Angeles, it is just horrendous,” she said.

Council members promised a new approach.

“We have had failures in the past,” Councilman Eric Garcetti said. “Things won’t be perfect in the future, but today we are here in the community to hear directly from you.”

But Councilman Dennis P. Zine did not help soothe feelings when he announced that he had to leave early for a meeting in his West Valley district.

“It’s been a pleasure visiting San Pedro,” Zine said.

“It’s Wilmington,” a chorus in the audience corrected him.

“Go back to the Valley, “ one woman shouted playfully.