National City Surrenders To Port of San Diego Intimidation, Unseats Port Commissioner Sandy Naranjo
By Paul Rosenberg, Senior Editor
“We are taking the wrong approach. We are giving in to the bullies,” National City Councilmember Luz Molina said in the discussion before the council voted to unseat Sandy Naranjo as their representative on the board of the Port of San Diego. “We are giving in to the bullies, and to the narrative that our voices and well being of our residents on the west side of National City doesn’t matter when it’s up against the status quo and the special interests.”
Molina spoke following public comments from 14 people, none of whom spoke against Naranjo.
“Hearing from the public, it has me shaking. I think it is so important to hear from members of this community,” she said as she began to speak.
The other port commissioners censured Naranjo based on a secret report on October 10 last year, after which National City’s council backed her unanimously, with a letter Molina quoted from, stating that “It was the belief of this council that the port ‘perpetuated long-standing patterns of disenfranchising national city and its people.’”
But, Molina continued, “Since that time, she has been targeted both publicly and in private. with microaggressions and macroaggressions that range from the petty to the not-so-petty. The attacks have been persistent and perpetrated in an organized manner by commissioners from other cities, port leadership and others who have expressed their desire to get rid of Commissioner Naranjo.”
Neither Mayor Ron Morrison nor the other two council members who voted to remove Naranjo disputed Molina’s account. Rather, they simply accepted the power imbalance as inevitable and determinative.
“Everything that’s been happening the last 6 months, we’re playing defense, constantly playing defense. And I think that’s a disservice to us,” Councilmember Jose Rodriguez said.
“It’s not personal … it’s business,” Councilmember Ditas Yamane said. “When we are not at the table because they have no confidence in the representative that we put there, we are on the menu.”
But a conciliatory approach had never served National City’s interest, argued Councilmember Marcus Bush, who supported Naranjo.
“It’s not about Sandy. It’s not about one port commissioner, because Sandy’s predecessor was Dukie Valderama,” Bush recalled. “Let’s be real. He was nice to the port. He was very friendly at the port. He served 16 years. And the port still—he still wasn’t able to get accomplished” what National City needed. “He shared stories of handshakes he’s done, a good faith bargaining, and he was lied to. He was stabbed in the back. This is how the port operates. It’s very clear Sandy is being retaliated against.”
Public comments were particularly pointed, especially from activists with Mothers Outfront, a national climate justice organization, and from Josephine Palamantes, a member of the AB 617 Portside Committee, which advises the San Diego Air Quality Management District.
“I support Sandy Naranjo,” Palamantes began emphatically. “I’ve seen her in action with the board that has no regulations and oversight and she consistently asked the proper questions in defense of our communities. And the bullying that’s going on in the back street alleys and conversations, you all are an effect of it, and unfortunately, she’s taking the brunt,” Palamantes said. “Your constituents really rely on her because she tells the truth. And I would urge you to support her.”
“The port operates with a $300 million budget on public lands, yet functions like a private entity unaccountable to the people while making decisions that affect our communities,” said Alicia Gonzalez, California State Manager of Mothers Outfront. This isn’t just an opinion shared by community members and activists. As Random Lengths reported last October, the port commission’s lack of democratic accountability has been the subject of three civil grand jury investigations, from the late 1980s through last year. “National City,” Gonzalez said, “has been poisoned by pollution due to the port’s activities for decades, demonstrating a clear environmental injustice. The city should fight for its constituents and resist the port’s pressure and threats,” she said. “We urge the city to represent your constituents and not the port’s desires and retain Commissioner Narano to fight for our communities.”
But it’s not just a question of fighting to represent the most marginalized communities, as Naranjo herself made clear in her own testimony.
“I’m not just a representative of National City’s interest at the port, my primary role is to be a regulator,” she said. “My job is to engage in regulatory oversight of a $300 million agency. The port commissioner’s job is to be quasi-judicial. to ethically and reliable vote to address all concerns. We cannot let the port devolve into petty interests or self-regulate.”
As Naranjo reviewed in her testimony, the attacks began as a result of her questioning Port Attorney Tom Russell about undisclosed legal conflicts surrounding a deal to purchase a ship emissions capture system. That system came from a company owned by former Port of LA Harbor Commission President Nick Tonsich, whose presidency overlapped with Russell’s tenure as POLA’s port attorney. Naranjo’s questions were asked in a private board session during consideration of Russell’s salary increase, which Naranjo ultimately voted for.
Hence the significance she placed on her regulatory respectability. “ I just want to point out that at all times, port commissioners must be empowered to ask questions. There’s a reason why referees should not be outright attacked and why they wear black and white striped shirts,” Naranjo said. “It’s an ancient tradition meant to prevent the judge from being victimized. When the judge is victimized, when referees are not treated respectfully, the system breaks. They have to be protected from the attack. Make no mistake, what is happening here today is that an impartial referee is being attacked and removed for political gain and to void regulatory oversight.”
The primacy of regulatory responsibility makes sense, since its lack plays a central role in blocking effective representation, not just for National City, but for all impacted port communities. This is why Naranjo and her supporters on the council have supported AB 2783, Assemblymember David Alvarez’s
“Port of San Diego Reform and Accountability Act,” which among other things would introduce term limits and an ethics panel with new ethical guidelines. They’ve also engaged with San Diego LAFCO to deal with the port’s failure to properly adjust port boundaries over the decades.
But rather than recognize how a broken system needs to be fixed for community needs to be reliably met, Rodriguez criticized these efforts as a distraction. “Instead of putting together a team so we can better create advocacy for ourselves at an agency that we have a seat on, what do we do?” he asked. “We will try to bring another agency to oversee that agency. We try to focus on a state bill that won’t get us these issues.”
In short, he argued to ignore Palamantes when she said, “We need a commissioner who regulates the port, not not a rubber stamp.”
The city council voted 3-2 in the end to remove Naranjo. The bullies won this battle. But the war rages on.