POLA Releases Its 2018 Emissions Report and Crime Is Down
By Hunter Chase, Reporter
CeSP Neighborhood Council
At the Oct. 10 meeting of the Central San Pedro Neighborhood Council, Chris Cannon, director of environmental management for the Port of Los Angeles, gave a presentation on the port’s 2018 inventory of emissions. Every year the port looks at its own activity and how many emissions they create. They track how much progress has been made since 2005. And by 2018, they had an 87 percent reduction of diesel particulate matter, 60 percent reduction in nitrogen oxides, 98 percent reduction in sulfur oxides and a 10 percent reduction in greenhouse gasses. The port set a goal to have continued reductions in emissions by 2023, even though there was growth in how much cargo they are handling. From 2017 to 2018, the port went up between 3 to 7 percent in four emissions types; 1 percent in diesel particulate matter emissions, went down but it went up 1 percent in emissions of nitrogen oxides and went up 7 percent in carbon monoxide emissions.
The port is trying to limit emissions as it remains the single largest source of air pollution in the entire Southern California area. The two ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach move 40 percent of the cargo into America and jointly are the largest port in North America, moving cargo faster, using bigger ships incentivized by the use of cleaner fuel.
Still, the challenge facing the port is how they can reduce pollution to zero on dock by 2030.
On Waterfront Development
The board unanimously approved a letter asking the Harbor Commissioners to include neighborhood council members and members of the community as part of the team that will look over comments from the public about the Public Access Investment Plan for the port. Eugene Seroka, the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, assembled a team of experts to review comments, but locals should be involved as well, said Central boardmember Frank Anderson said. The letter also asks that town hall meetings on the plan and requested the port present the project at neighborhood councils nearby.
The board voted 6-2 to approve the payment of $1500 to Moore Business Results for work on redesigning the council’s website. The board was supposed to pay Moore Business Results $3,000, but since the work on the website was not complete, they decided to pay half, and pay the rest when it was finished. Moore Business Results was supposed to post committee meetings on the website, but they are not accessible, at least not on mobile, said board member Jeff McBurney.
NWSP Neighborhood Council
At the Oct. 14 meeting Northwest San Pedro Neighborhood Council, the board elected high school senior Sofia Scalon as their youth representative. She is interested in dealing with the issues of homelessness, automation and littering. She was recently selected to join Mayor Eric Garcetti’s youth council.
Crime in Northwest San Pedro is down overall, said Senior Lead Officer Dan Brown of the Los Angeles Police Department. The only outlier is the homicide rate. There were 16 homicides this year as of Oct. 14, which is the same amount as 2018.
September 2019 was a good month, with crime down by a third, Officer Brown said. Northwest San Pedro had 33 crimes, but most categories of crime were down. Robberies were down 50 percent, aggravated assault was down 20 percent, burglaries were down 37 percent, burglaries and thefts from vehicles were down 20 percent, there was only one grand theft auto and no rapes were reported.
The board unanimously approved a proposal asking that Garcetti present his proposed budget on Feb. 1. Melanie Labrecque, budget advocate and secretary for the board, said this would be a way for budget advocates to see the mayor’s proposed budget 80 days before the charter mandated date of April 30.
The board unanimously approved a letter asking the City of Los Angeles Recreation and Parks to add a new lockable swinging gate to the Gatun Street entrance of Harbor Highlands park, which would restrict the number of cars that can enter and asked for non-removable stanchions at the other entrances.