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‘THIS IS OLD LONG BEACH’

Dave WielengaWed. September 03
 

Rumors of a backroom deal on the breakwater turn out to be true. No word yet on whether the room was smoke-filled, badly lit or included a kid named ‘Spider’ bringing in drinks


PHOTO COURTESY of PORT OF LONG BEACH

Rumor had it that Harbor Commission President Jim Hankla—acting on a tip from Third District Councilman Gary DeLong—might be angling to undermine the Long Beach City Council by quietly advancing an independent study of the Long Beach Breakwater that protects their political interests.

Shocking? Well, this kind of thing isn’t exactly unheard of in Long Beach. The city has a long history of government run by invisible strings, misdirection stunts, knowing winks and in-secret handshakes. But, yes, shocking—if it were true. However, even Patrick O’Donnell, a homegrown-boy-become-city-councilman, couldn’t bring himself to believe the Hankla-DeLong scenario. Not these days.

“In the old Long Beach, that would have been the strategy,” O’Donnell conceded. “But in the new Long Beach, we don’t operate that way.”

Hankla and DeLong would have made prime suspects for that kind of end run. Both opposed last summer’s 7-1 council vote—suggested by O’Donnell and Rae Gabelich—to spend $100,000 to study the possibilities of reconfiguring the breakwater, the wall of rock which has smothered Long Beach’s waves for more than 50 years and lately has made the local shoreline one of California’s dirtiest.

Each man would have had a motive. DeLong, who cast the only dissenting council vote, was concerned about his powerful constituents on the Alamitos Peninsula; they fear any change to the breakwater would expose them to flooding. Hankla, who cast the decisive ballot in a 3-2 harbor commission vote against helping the city fund the study, was worried that a full scientific exploration might reach conclusions that would cramp his expansion plans for the Port of Long Beach.

“But it’s not the old boy’s network, always, anymore,” O’Donnell continued to insist. “This is a rumor, as far as I understand—unless Mr. Hankla has his own plan.”

But the rumor is true. Hankla, the former city manager, the newly reelected Harbor Commission President—and Long Beach’s most skillful political machinist in generations—does have his own plan. And DeLong brought it to him. It’s an already-completed study by a retired 72-year-old engineer named Bud Johnson.

Johnson theorizes that lowering a 1,800-foot expanse of the breakwater to sea level just east of the Queen’s Gate entry to the harbor would permit enough tidal circulation to pull much of the surface water pollution out to the open ocean without affecting the Port of Long Beach or the Alamitos Peninsula. Johnson estimates the job can be done in 18 months, at a cost of $10 million.

Hankla likes his initial look at Johnson’s plan, and he isn’t apologizing for moving it to the front of the line.

“Bud Johnson’s study seems to be a rational approach worth taking another look at,” says Hankla, who agreed to a telephone interview although he was on vacation. “It’s not so Draconian as taking down the breakwater. I’ve asked one of our consultants to take a look at it. If that bears fruit, we can take it to the Army Corps of Engineers. If the city is of a mind, it can partner with us.”

Hankla acknowledges that he opposed the city council’s decision last summer—and its request for a 50-50 funding partnership with the port—because he couldn’t be sure where the research might go.

“I thought it was kind of open-ended, yes,” he says.

And Hankla is blunt when asked if he is concerned about interfering with the considered vote of Long Beach’s elected officials.

“No,” he says, and doesn’t say more.

Informed of Hankla’s move and his statement, Gabelich is just as straightforward.

“I think Mr. Hankla is directly contradicting the city council,” she says. “I think there is a level of arrogance there.”

The duplication of effort and expense while Long Beach is facing a $17 million budget deficit doesn’t appeal to Gabelich, either.

For more than a year the city has been paying a senior staffer to oversee its breakwater study, an unprecedented venture that is complicated by myriad government rules and procedures, as well as delicate political considerations. It also recently laid out $100,000 to hire the esteemed marine engineering firm of Moffat & Nichol, which has a long history on the Long Beach waterfront, to conduct the study. And Moffat & Nichol’s study was already going to consider Johnson’s work, which he hurriedly completed in five months so that it could be included.

“When the harbor department brings its budget to us, I’m going to look for what it is paying those consultants that are evaluating Johnson’s study,” says Gabelich. “People seem to forget that the harbor department is a city department.”

The conclusions in Johnson’s study received wide attention in local media last spring. Apparently, that’s when DeLong saw them.

“I talked to DeLong, and he had an interest,” Johnson recounts, “especially when I assured him my study would have no effect on the [Alamitos] peninsula people.”

DeLong acknowledges he helped bring Johnson’s study to the forefront.

“Yes, I do support taking a close look at Mr. Johnson’s analysis, and have met with Moffat & Nichol and made this request,” DeLong wrote in reply to questions he asked we submit via e-mail. “I have also discussed his recommendations with Port of Long Beach officials, as well as included a Port of LB official in a meeting I had with Mr. Johnson.”

Alex Cherin, chief aide to the Harbor Commission, was the first port official to meet with DeLong and Johnson.

“Cherin wanted to talk to me specifically about how this study would affect his area, and he seemed enthused by what I told him,” Johnson says. “He took it back to port, and later set up a meeting with Hankla, him and I. Obviously, I was jumping for joy because obviously you cannot get anything done without the port on your side.”

Hankla doesn’t say he’s on Johnson’s side, but makes it clear he’d like to be.

“Our consultants are running tests on the hydrology—how waves act—to be sure they’ll do what Bud says they’ll do if the breakwater is reconfigured as he says it should be. If Bud is right, his approach is much less expensive—and frankly, a lot more likely to happen.”

It’s unclear how the analysis of Johnson’s study by a port consultant was authorized. A port spokesman said no such proposal has come before the harbor commission and none is on the agenda for the commission’s next meeting Sept. 8. However, if that happens the timing would be perfect—a Sept. 10 fundraiser for the Surfrider Foundation and Friends of the L.A. River at Smooth’s Grille downtown is scheduled to include an announcement that Johnson’s study is being promoted by the Port of Long Beach.

Now that the rumor appears to be true, O’Donnell appears to be simultaneously stunned and outraged.

“I just talked with two port commissioners who knew nothing of this. I just talked to the port’s director, Dick Steinke, who knew nothing of this,” O’Donnell says. “It’s an insult to the process and the policy directives of the city council.”

Anything else?

“As long as Mr. Hankla is being blunt, I will be, too,” says O’Donnell. “This is old Long Beach.”

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Viewing 15 Comments

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    Oh, and thank you Will, Dave, Theo, Jenny and all the rest. This article shows EXACTLY why the DW is needed. I'd win the lottery before the press-telerag would ever print something important like this (and I don't buy lottery tickets).
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    Make no mistake about it, Old Long Beach is alive and well, as long as powerhungry hacks like Jim Hankla are still able to wield any influence at all. The only way to exterminate it would have been to bring in a city manager from way, way, way outside to do a total purge of every manager from the Hankla/Taboada/Miller era. Now we have the same agenda, but with a seductive veil of "transparency", (paradox intended), which the current budget process has revealed as just another buzzword. Now, instead of an effective city manager, we have this puppet Pat West, who was the choice of least resistance for a part-time, and therefore easy to obfuscate, city council.

    You gotta admire Hankla's chutzpah . . . he is willing to ramrod a solution and cut through all the bullshit it takes to get anything done in this town. What we need, though, is a ramrod willing to work for the interests of all of Long Beach, not just its inner circle.
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    When will they get it!! This City is in the death grip of by Elks Lodge douche bags. Take the Breakwater down and the money will flow and they can roll in it.
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    I wish I could say I found any of this surprising, but I don't really. It kind of confirms my worst fears about the breakwater problem - by pushing the Johnson report as the "best" report, the Port and the fatcats on the Peninsula get to have the mildest possible "solution" to the pollution/waves issue, namely a partial lowering of a small part of the breakwater.

    If they get this accomplished, they will be able to silence, or at least muffle, the Surfrider foundation and the vast majority of Long Beach's population who would like a more radical reconfiguration of the breakwater, i.e. closer to what God/Mother Nature created in the first place. They'll be able to say "see, we improved the water and not much happened, so no reason to do any more."

    And yes, this is exactly the way not to run a government: rumor, innuendo, usurpation of the process, grandiosity, backroom deals, etc.
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    Why on earth should we be mystified that a Councilperson is operating beyond the bounds of his office. This is not the first time this person has made a determination that his acts do not need to be transparent, that he can use City funds to promote those things of interest to himself--I have and still do ask where the funding came from to support his "secret" SEADIP committee, asking for records of overtime, comp time and the dollars spent to staff this committee. I attributed the non-response to the fact that I am just a citizen, but this looks like, smells like and appears to be a "modus operantdi".
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    Dave: Please permit me to play devil's advocate for a moment. Your report brings a few questions and comments to mind:

    Isn’t Harbor Commission President Hankla well within his purview to seek out and research possible solutions to challenges, like these, that directly affect the Harbor District?

    A quick review of the City Charter reveals some clues: “The exclusive control and management of the Harbor Department is hereby vested in the Board of Harbor Commissioners, which shall be composed of five (5) members.” (Sec. 1202)

    “The Commission shall have the exclusive power and duty for and on behalf of the City...to provide for the needs of commerce, navigation, recreation and fishery in the Harbor District” (Sec. 1203{b})

    “To…employ and appoint an Executive Director who shall be Chief Executive of the Harbor Department and who shall exercise the management of all affairs and activities placed under the jurisdiction of the Commission, and an Assistant Executive Director, each of whom shall hold such position during the pleasure of the Commission.”(Sec. 1203{q})

    While the Harbor Department is, indeed, “a City Department” as Councilmember Gabelich so aptly reminds us; it seems to me that, once appointed by the Council and until they're removed or otherwise depart, the Harbor Commission is almost fully autonomous. Also the Executive Director (their equivalent of a Department Manager) works for the Harbor Commission and not the Council.

    Thus can it not be argued that Hankla (who represents the Harbor Commission) was under no obligation to either support Council wishes concerning the breakwater or to advise them of his activities in researching Bud Johnson’s report?

    While he should certainly be communicating with his Commission colleagues; can it not easily be argued that his efforts, to date, were entirely preliminary and that he would have brought them up to speed when appropriate?

    Mr. DeLong could very easily claim to have voted his conscience in not supporting the allocation of $100k for a study that, in light of the Johnson study, could have proved entirely unnecessary. If this proves true, shouldn’t Mr. DeLong be applauded for saving us a lot of money, rather than pilloried for thinking out of the box?

    I understand that the way this is being handled doesn’t seem, to you, to pass the smell test, but based on the information currently at hand I’m not seeing anything either unethical or unlawful in the actions of either DeLong or Hankla here.

    And if Bud Johnson’s study and approach proves practical, where’s the complaint? The end result could prove the same and the study’s already done…so we save $100k very badly needed budget dollars.

    I’m just asking…
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    My story did not report legal wrongdoing. Neither did it say that Bud Johnson's study is not valuable, nor possibly even the best option---that's why it is being included in the Moffat & Nichol study (and why it was before either Hankla or DeLong heard about it). My report was about governmental process and transparency, and if the minimums for those were reached, and if you consider that to be the epitome of what your local government should be, then by all means celebrate.
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    Dave, you seem a little defensive.

    I neither alleged nor intimated that your story reported legal wrong-doing. I simply opined that neither ethical nor legal wrong-doing appears to have occurred here. Nor did I say that your study said that the Johnson study was not valuable. I simply asked whether it could be argued that Hankla was under no obligation to advise the Council of his activities, preliminary or otherwise, in researching the Johnson report.

    I very clearly understood what your report was about, Dave. This is why I said: “I understand that the way this is being handled doesn’t seem, to you, to pass the smell test…”

    I’m not prepared, yet, to judge whether, as you put it, “the minimums” of “governmental…transparency” were reached in this situation. I don’t feel I have enough information, yet, to make that call. As to “governmental process” however, I am more than comfortable with any Councilmember directly contacting any other elected or appointed city official and saying something like: “Hey, there’s a very interesting study in existence, authored by this guy named Johnson, which might meet our needs here. Take a look at it and let me know what you think!

    That type of informal communication between our elected and appointed officials happens day by day and hour by hour. A lot less of our business would get done if it didn’t!

    Nor am I saying that this situation represents the “epitome” of anything, let alone what our local government “should be”. Nor do I have any desire to celebrate anything about this topic other than the fact that people (like us) continue to discuss and debate it.
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    Hey John, I wasn't feeling defensive when I responded,but you were admittedly playing the DEVIL'S advocate. I kind of think you WERE making a case for the innocence of Hankla and DeLong, which seems unnecessary unless you thought the story was suggesting otherwise. I was simply pointing out how Long Beach government was working in this situation--and that, contrary to the sense that it's different than the way it used to work, maybe it's often exactly the same. I don't think there is anything wrong with council members and harbor commissioners and whomever talking among one another. Of course, Hankla did more than that....but, as my update reports, he's not doing it any more.
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    Hey Dave: The operative term was to ‘play’ devil’s advocate. I was simpy trying to assume that role in furtherence of the discussion.

    I apologize if I misinterpreted the tone of your response. I sometimes lapse into that error when others attribute comments to me that I never made (as you did) and when others encourage me to ‘celebrate’ a situation that I never indicated I was happy about (as you also did).

    I wasn’t ‘making a case’ for anything, least of all anyone’s innocence, because I hadn’t (and still haven’t) developed an opinion that anyone was guilty of anything...other than doing their job, that is. As I mentioned, in my 2nd posting: “…I don’t feel I have enough information, yet, to make that call.” All I was attempting to do was offer an alternative interpretation and then provide information that might tend to support that interpretation, were one inclined to adopt it.

    That your story was, “suggesting otherwise” seems quite clear, however.

    If our stories are paintings, Dave, then our words are the paints we use and the manner in which we apply our words are the brushes. I have found you to be a very adept ‘painter’ of stories. The paints and brushes you selected for THIS story created a painting (at least for me) that strongly suggested that both Hankla and DeLong were guilty of some sort of misfeasance. When you employ phrases like: “…might be angling to undermine…”, and “…government run by invisible strings, misdirection stunts, knowing winks and in-secret handshakes” the sort of picture you’re painting seems obvious even to an admittedly novice art appreciator like myself.

    As for your comment that “Hankla did more than that”: What precisely did he do that was not within his purview to do? As demonstrated, the Charter gives him and his colleagues the authority to do what you’ve reported that he did. They do, in fact, do such things (and far more) all the time in the course and scope of their positions. When the Charter employs phrases like: “…exclusive control and management…” and “…exclusive control and duty…” that seems to me to be pretty clear. Hankla and his colleagues have the authority, the staff and the budget to manage the Harbor District as they deem to be in the best interests of not only the City but the State and nation.

    No doubt that’s why Hankla has now “dropped his pursuit of a separate breakwater study”…because he decided it was in the best interests of all concerned to do so. We can only guess at this point, however, because no one has asked Hankla, himself, the question.

    Seems simple enough to me and not nearly as sinister a situation as you seem to intimate that it is.

    Dave, you and everyone else at DW are very good at encouraging dialog...at stimulating discussion. I was just trying to play along.
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    What we should be grateful for is the fact that the DW is now part of the 'new' Long Beach and shining a light on these issues. Our politicians and public servants should realize that folks like Dave Wielenga, Jenny Stockdale and others at the DW are paying attention and following this story (and others) in a way that didn't happen in the 'old' Long Beach. This town has changed BECAUSE of the DW's coverage of these stories. Keep up the good work.
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    You know what, John? All of this would have a lot less stink to it if Hankla would have offered a robust defense of his stance after Dave published this story. Instead, Hankla, "outed", decides to take his toys and go play elsewhere. I've seen him do this before.

    Look at the bigger picture . . . this is just one deal where a long-time Long Beach power player got caught with his hand in the influence jar. All Dave did was put a light on it. Can you imagine how many other such deals happen here all the time that DON'T get caught?
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    Sam: Again, If Hankla's done nothing wrong, why would he need to offer a 'defense', robust or otherwise? And exactly how was he 'outed'?

    Is it 'outing' someone to report that they are doing their job? Because none of the facts in this story indicate that Hankla did otherwise.

    As asked before: What if Hankla was simply carrying our the requirement of his appointed position as mandated by our own City Charter?

    If so, how is that 'getting his hand caught' in anything?

    The entire premise of this story and comments like yours is that somebody did something wrong. Maybe they did and maybe they didn't.

    Why must we assume, as this story does, some sinister motivation?

    Would DeLong or Hankla have personally benefited somehow from having the Johnson Study researched separately? If so I don't see any evidence of that reported here.

    Had the approaches recommended in the Johnson Study proven desirable, would either DeLong or Hankla have personally benefited from seeing them carried out? If so, nothing in this story says so.

    Phrases such as "...conclusions that would cramp (Hankla's) expansion plans for the Port of Long Beach" tend to intimate that Hankla's not supposed to entertain plans for the Port's expansion.

    But the Port is *mandated* to expand and it's part of Hankla's job, and that of his colleagues, to *facilitate* that expansion.

    So DeLong learns of a study that could help him better serve some of his constituents (i.e do his job) and calls Hankla to tell him about it because the same Study could help him (Hankla) carry out his mandate to expand the Port (i.e. HIS job).

    That's pretty much the gist of it yes? And, if so, isn't that what we pay them both to do?

    Some of DeLong's colleagues became annoyed because they interpreted this as somehow undermining their own efforts in the same direction.

    Fine...toes were trounced upon. But does that fact make what either Hankla or DeLong did ‘wrong’? Or simply unpalatable in the eyes of one or two others?

    It just seems to me that a little more balance is needed in a story that is posted under 'news' rather than, say 'features' or 'columns' or ‘staff blogs’.

    That's all I'm saying...
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    I think Hankla's actions speak for themselves. There's more than one definition of "wrong", and if his actions were outside of any of those definitions, then why the withdrawal?

    Look at the big picture . . . The Pike, the aquarium bond debt, the art museum bond debt, the Sea Fest deficit, etc . . . . how many albatrosses and fleecings have been put upon us from this style of backroom negotiation?
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    Hankla shouldn't be too worried about the breakwater, he's old, could easily retire, and last I knew just rented his house on the peninsula.
    What a douche-bag.
    Mike Ruehle is spot-on about Delong-the other douche-bag.
 
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