The Long Beach Board of Harbor Commissioners played a game of musical chairs this past week, and Mario Cordero came out the winner.
Cordero, who has sat on the board since 2003, was elected president and began serving his one-year term July 2, while the rest of the five-member board shifted titles. The local attorney with Safeco Corp., a Seattle-based insurance company, will assume the role as the board, along with its Los Angeles counterpart, prepares to vote on a controversial program aimed at reducing emissions from the diesel trucks serving the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports.
“We need to get that program finalized and we need to do that ASAP,” he said. “The trucks are a major contributor to the environmental problems.”
Commissioner Mike Walter became the board’s new vice president and Commissioner Doris Topsy-Elvord was elected to the position of secretary. The board’s outgoing president, James Hankla, will assume the role of assistant secretary. John Hancock, who was originally appointed to the board in 1995 and is the longest-serving member, is getting set to leave the board later this summer.
Board members are typically appointed to six-year terms.
Cordero will now preside over the board’s weekly meetings and make committee appointments.
At last week’s meeting, he said he will push to improve the ports’ infrastructure as the enormous growth expected in coming years could choke the port complex and hamper its productivity.
“We could be maxed out here in another five years,” he said in an interview after the meeting. “We need to become more efficient.”
But the issue likely to consume much of his time and attention during his tenure will be the Clean Trucks Program portion of the ports’ jointly-sponsored Clean Air Action Plan.
“It is the main issue,” he said.
Cordero will get a bit longer to prepare for the vote than originally expected, after the ports last month extended by 60 days the evaluation period before the plan will be put to a vote.
The program will require that all trucks be retrofitted or replaced with cleaner-burning models. It has been championed by environmentalists but criticized by industry groups who say the increased costs associated with it will upend the port trucking industry and force perhaps 1,000 trucking companies out of business.
Indeed, with hints of possible lawsuits from both the California Trucking Association and the American Trucking Association, it seems likely the issue will not be settled for some time.
Despite the difficulty of this particular piece, the overall clean air plan has been groundbreaking. The ports are the first in the nation to adopt such a wide-ranging and exacting program aimed at reducing its environmental impact.
Terminal Overhaul
Over at the Port of Los Angeles, officials last week released a draft proposal of a huge project that will expand and modernize a significant portion of the harbor.
The multi-phase project, which will stretch out for almost two decades, will overhaul almost 200 acres at Berths 136 to 147 a terminal currently operated by Wilmington-based Trans Pacific Container Service Corp.
As part of the project, the terminal, located in the west basin of the harbor, will increase by 67 acres.
When the project is completed in 2025, the terminal is expected to handle 2.4 million cargo containers per year about three times the amount handled in 2003.
The project also includes the construction of an on-dock rail facility that will connect to the Alameda Corridor.
The port will hold a public meeting July 31 to hear concerns and gather public input on the project.
Bus Contract Awarded
The Foothill Transit Board of Directors last week awarded a three-year management contract for the agency’s Irwindale facility to Fairfield-based MV Transportation Inc.
According to the $133.8 million contract, which was approved unanimously by the board, MV will operate 139 buses and employ 385 people.
“As one of the most successful competitive transportation contracting firms in the country, MV is very excited to be a partner with Foothill Transit, which is one of the largest and most successful transit competitive contracting efforts ever undertaken in the United States,” MV Chief Executive Jon Monson said in a release.
MV has about 850 employees in Southern California.
Foothill Transit, a joint powers authority, began bus service in 1988 after the Southern California Rapid Transit District raised rates and cut service. Foothill Transit operates 36 local bus routes in the San Gabriel and Pomona Valleys. According to the agency, it serves 15 million passengers each year.
Foothill Transit operates two facilities one in Irwindale and the other in Pomona.
Staff reporter Richard Clough can be reached at (323) 549-5225, ext. 251, or at
[email protected]
.
