A small rules change means the man who helped create the city’s deficit will remain port boss

PHOTO COURTESY of THE PORT OF LONG BEACH

Jim Hankla has just become president of the Harbor Commission again, which isn’t supposed to be a big deal, and which most certainly would not be, except for the fact that nothing that Jim Hankla does is no big deal. He’s spent the better part of the past half-century—especially the years from 1987 to 1998, when he served as city manager—creating the Long Beach that we’re all living in and paying for today.

Hankla’s the reason the Queen Mary wasn’t sold and towed to Japan. He’s the reason the Spruce Goose is in Oregon, the convention center was expanded, the aquarium was built, that so much of old downtown was razed and replaced with high-rise office buildings and condo complexes and retail projects like the late Long Beach Plaza mall and the disappointing CityPlace and Pike at Rainbow Harbor, along with whatever you think of Shoreline Village and whatever you call what’s happened to Pine Avenue.

Now, as the bills for many of Hankla’s projects factor into to the city’s projected $17 million budget deficit in 2009, it’s remarkable that he has suddenly emerged—again—atop the department that oversees Long Beach’s fattest cash cow, the Port of Long Beach. Hankla’s timely ascension becomes even more intriguing considering that the Harbor Commission’s by-laws had to be rewritten to permit his election, and that the five commissioners couldn’t agree on the changes, voting over and over on June 16, until a series of 2-2-1 ties was finally broken, giving him a 3-2 victory.

Hankla declined The District’s request to be interviewed about the rewritten by-laws, which changed the Harbor Commission’s practice of rotating offices so that everyone gets a turn. Under the new laws, Hankla will serve as president for the second time in three years, and eligible for another term next year.

“Hankla told me he thought it wouldn’t be appropriate for him to talk about the new by-laws now that they have resulted in his election as president,” said Art Wong, a spokesman for the Harbor Department. “He was trying to get another of the commissioners to talk to you. I don’t know if he was successful in getting anyone, but if no one has called you then I guess he hasn’t found anyone.”

It’s cool. We found a couple of commissioners on our own.

“It beats me why rotation of officers was changed,” says Doris Topsy-Elvord, who insists her recent resignation from the Harbor Commission had nothing to do with the new by-laws—although she voted against Hankla’s presidency (and in favor of last year’s vice president, Mike Walter, who normally would have rotated into the presidency) at one of her last meetings. “As far as I was concerned, it had worked that way all those years, and it was a good thing. But obviously some people wanted to be president more than once.”

Last year’s president, Mario Cordero, who was just elected vice president, denies that the by-laws were re-written so Hankla could become president again.

“Absolutely not,” he says. “That was just one change among many that were designed—with the guidance of a consultant—to bring our system up to the level of other ports of our size. An election is more transparent.”

More transparent than a democratic rotation? Technically, maybe. But that’s not the way it looks from the outside, especially with Hankla—and Walter, who instead of being president was elected secretary—refusing to talk about it. Even an insider like Topsy-Elvord can only speculate.

“I think it’s probably because we have a lot of issues coming up at the port that are going to create a lot of pressure, that are going to require a steady hand—and that Jim thought he could withstand all that more than somebody else,” she says.

The money-crunched city council has already asked for a review of the funds the Port of Long Beach contributes to the city through the Tidelands Trust—an amount presently set at 10 percent (last year, about $16 million) of port profits. As things get tighter, the port can only look more and more like a golden goose.

What will Hankla do? Depends on what he wants to do. That was his reputation when he was city manager.

“Jim Hankla gets what he wants,” said the late David Hauser—a prominent local property manager and harbor commissioner—in 1998. “He gets it by making it hot for people who won’t give it to him.” That’s why Hauser wouldn’t go on the record at the time, applying a not-in-my-lifetime condition on printing his criticisms of Hankla’s plan to build the Aquarium of the Pacific. “I still want to be able to make a living in Long Beach,” explained Hauser, who died in 2002.

Hankla doesn’t have anywhere near the power he had as city manager, and even then he always operated as an advocate in administrator’s clothing. “Being a good city manager, I always followed the direction of the city council,” he forever insists, repeating it to The District again last month.

But Hankla remains Long Beach’s most astute bureaucrat, a man who has learned the ropes while climbing them since the early 1960s—from budget analyst to legislative analyst to assistant city manager to community development director to Redevelopment Agency executive director (with a short time out to serve as chief financial officer for the city of Los Angeles) before he became city manager.

The thing is, according to the city charter, the president of the Harbor Commission officially doesn’t have any more power than the other commissioners.

“Not one single iota more power, no—all of us are equals,” says Topsy-Elvord. “But some don’t see it that way. To some, being president seems to mean you’re God.”

Tags: city manager, harbor commission, jim hankla, Port of Long Beach