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First West Nile Virus Death Reported in LA County Plus Information and Resources

Reporters Desk
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First West Nile Virus Death Reported in LA County Plus Information and Resources

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health or Public Health has confirmed the first death due to West Nile virus or WNV for the 2021 season in Los Angeles County. The patient, a resident of the eastern region of Los Angeles County, was hospitalized and died from WNV-associated neuro-invasive disease.

Humans get WNV through the bite of an infected mosquito. Most mosquitoes do not carry the virus; therefore, most people bitten by a mosquito are not exposed to WNV. Those who do get WNV may experience mild symptoms including fever, muscle aches, and tiredness. In some cases, especially in persons over 50 years of age and those with chronic medical conditions such as cancer and diabetes, severe WNV infection can occur and affect the brain and spinal cord causing meningitis, encephalitis, and paralysis. There is no specific treatment for WNV disease and no vaccine to prevent infection.

A total of 10 cases have been documented in Los Angeles County this year. WNV-infected mosquitoes, dead birds, and sentinel chickens have been identified across Los Angeles County. Public Health monitors cases of WNV infection and collaborates with local vector control agencies to reduce the risk of WNV to humans by promoting prevention and mosquito reduction.

Decrease your risk of exposure:

  1. Protect yourself: Mosquito repellents can keep mosquitoes from biting you. EPA-registered repellents containing DEET, picaridin, IR3535, 2-undecanone, and oil of lemon eucalyptus are the longest lasting and most effective. They are available as sprays, wipes, and lotions. Find the repellent that’s right for you here. Consider wearing long-sleeved clothes and pants when outside.
  2. Mosquito proof your home: Make sure that your doors and windows have tight-fitting screens to keep out mosquitoes. Repair or replace screens with tears or holes.
  3. Reduce mosquitoes: Mosquitoes lay their eggs on standing water.
  • Check for items that hold water inside and outside your home once a week
  • Cover water storage containers such as buckets and rain barrels. If there’s no lid, use wire mesh with holes smaller than an adult mosquito
  • Clear standing water in flower pots, saucers, birdbaths and other containers
  • Clean and maintain swimming pools, spas and drain water from pool covers
  • Throw away old items in your patio or yard that can hold water, e.g., old car tires and children’s toys
  • Call 2-1-1 or visit www.socalmosquito.org to report persistent problems to your mosquito control district.

More information and resources:

Where to call with questions about mosquitoes:

  • Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District: 562-944-9656
  • Los Angeles County West Vector Control District: 310-915-7370
  • City of Long Beach Vector Control Program: 562-570- 4132

Stagnant swimming pools or “green pools” should be reported to the Public Health Environmental Health Bureau at 626-430-5200, or to a local vector control agency. Dead birds may be reported by calling 877-968-2473 or online: https://westnile.ca.gov/report.php

The Whole Enchilada: Celebrating Mexican Independence

Terelle Jerricks
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The Whole Enchilada: Celebrating Mexican Independence

How Mexican Cuisine Conquered the USA

Ask an Angeleno, Latino or not, about their favorite taco truck or tamale guy and they will give you an answer.

Just looking at my pantry, I am able to identify at least three different food items connected to Mexican cuisine. And when I type “Mexican restaurants” into Google Maps for any Los Angeles zip code, more than 20 restaurants pop up. Here we get cuisine without knowing the history between Cinco de Mayo and Mexican Independence, we just adopt the food.

Those of us who have been of drinking age for more than just a few years can probably recall more than just a few nights of drinking involving Mexican food and liquor. Yet, all of these experiences are as American as a pizza or hamburgers.

With Los Angeles being Los Angeles, we don’t just want the most authentically Mexican cuisine. We want the most authentic Mexican food combined with the most authentically Korean, Thai, Indian or any other of the many communities represented in Los Angeles.

This complete assimilation of Mexican cuisine into the American culinary palate is what’s been on my mind as we close in on Mexico’s 200th Independence Day.

I called Gustavo Arellano to make sense of it all. Especially considering that he wrote the book on the subject: Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America.

“All Americans love Mexican food,” Arellanos said. “All of them. Mexican food is so ingrained into our diet that you can hate a Mexican but still eat at a taqueria.”

Living in a giant media market with the diversity of Los Angeles, it feels as if we are at the center of the world.

Arellano called Los Angeles a crossroad of the world, before explaining how he once made a list of the 10 most important cities in the history of Mexican food in the United States. San Antonio was No. 1 because of the many innovations made there. Los Angeles came in second.

“But in the last 30 years, Los Angeles just whipped the ass of San Antonio,” Arellano said. “Not only do you have more media attention here, because it’s a bigger city, but you have more immigrants coming to Los Angeles, and those immigrants start getting copied by other folks, Korean BBQ tacos by Roy Choi of Kogi, and Oaxacan food and Mexicali has gotten really big … they first get popular in Los Angeles and get a lot of attention so things start to get spread around.”

The most well known example is Juanita Foods of Wilmington, the local Latino food producer. It was founded by George De La Torre Sr. and his nephew, Albert Guerrero, in 1946 — first as a fish canning business, then a menudo canning factory. Juanita Foods products lines have grown significantly. The company was also mentioned in Arellano’s book.

“Juanita Mexican Foods first made their case with menudo,” Arellano explained. “But you can only sell so much menudo, you want to branch out and diversifying into other food stuff.”

Mexican food has also become a part of American comfort food as companies like Maywood-based Tapatio hot sauce, which struck a partnership with FritoLay to make Tapatio flavored Fritos and Tapatio flavored Doritos.

“To me that’s not just capitalism — capitalism meaning you try to make more money for your business,” Arellano explained. “It’s about knowing that you have a populace that is open to other foods than what they have been buying from you for so long.

“Juanita Foods may not be as big as Frito Lay, but there’s a great [local]story about a Japanese-Latino during a time when anti-miscegenation laws were in existence. Juanita Foods is Wilmington’s contribution to Mexican food in the United States [and one of the largest employers in the Harbor Area]. The thing for me is people in Wilmington know the story, but the rest of California, let alone the rest of the United States, don’t know the [Juanita Foods] story.”

Arellano quoted Chicano scholar Americo Paredes to define Mexican cuisine and culture as it travels far from its geographic and temporal origins:

The influence of Mexico doesn’t cease at the Rio Grande. Wherever there is something even minutely Mexican, whether it’s people, food, language, or rituals even centuries removed from the original mestizo source, it remains Mexican.

I am reminded that even in these polarized times over immigration as newer immigrants bring their customs and foods, and become a part of the patchwork quilt of this nation, we still remain one America, with an ever expanding definition of hyphenated immigrants and their cuisines.

Random Letters: 9-16-21

RLn
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Random Letters: 9-16-21

Chasing the Dream … Leo Rossi (RLn, Sept. 2-15, 2021)

Enlightening article about SP’s “music man” Leo Rossi. Your readers can hear and see Rossi’s personal account of his “life stories” as one of the original participants of Stories of Los Angeles Harbor Area: For Yesterday, Today, & Tomorrow (Vol. I). He’s articulate and entertaining. All stories are at the website www.storieslaharborarea.com under history/videos. Volume III filmed in July to debut October 2021.

Tune in and enjoy Leo Rossi and all the stories, made possible through Los Angeles County grant funding by Supervisor Janice Hahn, and additional sponsorship.

Stephanie Mardesich, San Pedro

Abolish ICE

Moe McLeod, age 57 of Washington state.

Was arrested for being racist and so dumb.

Moe harassed and physically assaulted

Alyssa Cuellar at Safeway in Astoria, Oregon.

Just before the assault, Moe’s husband

Vince yelled “F you!” at young Miss Cuellar &

Called Alyssa the C-word for owning a car

That says “Abolish ICE” — this means war!

Moe and her hateful husband who is inbred

Need to go to the psych ward’s padded cell.

You don’t like Alyssa’s “Abolish ICE” sticker?

So this couple assaults her? They’re nuts!

Conservative “cancel culture” runs amok!

Right-wingers are the whiniest crybabies,

Because they can’t handle the truth at all.

Like Donald Trump’s desperate downfall.

Trump & his Kool-Aid crew are big losers!

Just like the McLeod couple are boozers.

Republicans are like the American Taliban,

Except y’know D.C. ain’t Kabul, my friends.

Anyway, rednecks are way too drunk to pray

On their knees to Allah five-times-a-day.

Don’t you know what would happen to you,

White supremacist alcoholic hillbilly hicks?

If you got in your pickup trucks with AR-15s

Headed for the US Capitol like Jan. 6 again?

The CIA’s drones would blow y’all away, and

Rest assured, the Trumps would die that day!

Just like he said about the COVID-19 plague,

Trump will disappear miraculously one day.

So bring it on & come get some, if you dare!

Do you want to die for Donald Trump’s hair?

Jake Pickering, Arcata, Calif.

Cash Instead of Trash

Lyn Jensen
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Cash Instead of Trash

My mother watched in horror what happened after the elderly couple that lived next door to her died within months of each other. Their daughter filled up a truck-sized dumpster with what looked like the entire contents of the house and hauled it all away as trash. My mother was so traumatized by the sight, I promised her I’d never empty the contents of her house into a giant dumpster and haul it all away as trash.

I’ve seen examples of homes so trashy that trashing the entire contents may be the best solution, but neither the neighbors’ nor my mother’s house fit that description. Estate sales turn possessions into cash instead of trash.

Professionals who handle the sale in return for a percentage of what’s sold can be invaluable. Some estate salespersons only handle sales that clear out everything—even what’s fastened down—to the bare walls. Others are willing to downsize. That’s what I need, since I live in the house and need to be able to continue to live comfortably.

When I hired a woman to manage my estate sale last year, I told her I wanted to sell about half of what was in the living room, kitchen, and garage, and about a quarter of the other rooms. At first she appeared to be concerned about having enough to sell, but by the time the living room, kitchen, and backyard were set up for the sale, all available space was used. Other rooms remained stuffed with things not for sale, or not appraised yet. The saleswoman finally said, “Just stop!” even as I kept bringing out more things.

Having dozens of strangers in my house while COVID raged was a major concern. I told the saleswoman I wanted customers to wear facemasks and gloves, but the notice she sent out mentioned masks but not gloves. I handed out all the disposable gloves I had, still had bare-handed people handling multiple surfaces, while some people waltzed in bare-faced and had to be admonished about masks, too. It was up to me to sanitize surfaces afterward.

I had a heart for what I was selling, but the public was another matter. One genius ripped paving stones out of the ground, and I think those paving stones marked some cat graves—and I’ve never been able to get the stones back in the exact places they were. People broke up sets, or tried to talk me into unbolting a chandelier from the ceiling. One couple wanted to buy an empty pot—the pot that was supposed to contain a mysteriously vanished cactus, a gift from a friend. The three of us searched in vain for the cactus, and I finally decided to just let them buy the pot. Weeks later I found the cactus, dead, chucked deep in some bushes.

Enough of the downside, what I sold freed up much-needed space and moved some things I was glad to see go. Enough money was made to pay for an urgently needed exterior paint job. I’m currently in the middle of another estate sale, excavating another layer of what I’ve inherited.

King Tut’s Tomb

Lyn Jensen
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King Tut’s Tomb

My mother and father were both still alive when I started packing the contents of their homes, so my plans initially focused on storing their property. Managing their former possessions as my own came later. My mother had a three-bedroom home and I was the one moving in during summer 2019, so the plan was different from when I packed my father’s apartment in 2015.

As my father faced his life’s end, I persuaded him to enter a care facility while I moved the contents of his apartment into storage, telling him and myself it was just temporary, just until I could find him a suitable apartment where he could stay “home” with a live-in caregiver.

I hired a moving company, and spent a week packing up the three-room apartment, with assistance from four true friends who earned my undying gratitude. I located a 10-by-20 storage unit for my father’s belongings. I thought I might need a second one but the movers managed to cram everything in, up to the ceiling, barely room to close the door.
Even then the task wasn’t done, because I only contracted with the movers for my father’s apartment, and neighbors informed me — when the movers were almost finished — how my father had taken over all available apartment space not occupied by other renters. Several pieces of patio furniture, all his, sprawled along the walkway, and the neighbors acted like they couldn’t wait to be rid of it. The man had also taken over the apartment’s four-car garage, all of it, for his cars and whatever else he wanted to park in all available garage space. Apparently the manager and other tenants let him do it.

Since I’d already given notice to vacate, my solution was to rent a van and spend more days transporting the remaining furniture — and hardware, tools, equipment, sporting goods, greasy old mechanical parts, whatever else a man can stash in a garage — to the storage unit, and shove things into whatever cubby holes could still be found. At the same time I had to wield my financial power of attorney and sell my father’s cars to an auction house, to pay for his care and the moving expenses.

Days have turned into years as I’ve cleared the storage unit, which I’ve nicknamed King Tut’s Tomb. An untold amount of the contents have been sold, auctioned, given away, recycled, trashed, or put to new use. I’ve reduced the remainder enough to move to a smaller cheaper 8-by-14 unit. At the same time, though, things from my former home and my mother’s home have been added.

Many decisions I still have to make. The early American dining set could be moved to my mother’s house but I lack the ability to move it myself. The antique sideboard will either find space in my mother’s house or get sold, but that decision can wait. I have three stereos — mine, my father’s, my mother’s — but I like having so many entertainment options throughout the house. One whole drawer’s full of perfectly good drafting supplies, but who does manual drafting anymore? My plan is to eventually close up King Tut’s Tomb, but that day is a long way off.

Myla Rahman Seeks to Fill Carson’s City Clerk Position

Fabiola Esqueda
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Myla Rahman Seeks to Fill Carson’s City Clerk Position

By Fabiola Esqueda, GNI Fellow and Carson Reporter

This coming November, Carson residents will be electing only their fourth ever city clerk since the founding of the city. Former City Clerk Donesia Gause-Aldana vacated the seat this past April. Five challengers, including Myla Rahman, district chief of staff for the California state legislature, are looking to fill Gause-Aldana’s vacant seat.

Rahman’s challengers to the city clerk’s post includes Vera Robles DeWitt, most visible supporter of Mayor Pro Tem Jim Dear’s recall as city clerk, Monette Gavino, a former city hall employee who is sympathetic to Dear’s cause, former mayoral candidate Falea’ana “Ana” Meni and political upstart Jeffrey Caballero.

The city clerk seat should be the least political post in city government. A city clerk typically serves as the liaison between constituents and city government to promote transparency in city government.

Arguably that changed when then Mayor Jim Dear ran against Gause-Aldana in 2014 and won. At the time he expressed dissatisfaction with her performance and said he could do a better job, despite having no relevant experience in the role. Dear won the seat but was recalled two years later, accused by city hall staff and political rivals of racism and abusive behavior. After Dear’s recall, Gause-Aldana promptly ran for her old job unopposed and won.

Though Rahman was reared and educated in Carson and has since moved back to her hometown, she recently opened up over Zoom about how she is mostly oblivious to the various political machinations that have occurred in Carson over the years.

Prior to her move back, Rahman spent the past eight years living and working in Inglewood as the district chief of staff for the California state legislature. Before this post, she served as district director to state Sen. Steven Bradford. Until now, Rahman said she had never given the city clerk position much consideration.

“It’s such an important position and I love the City of Carson,” she explained. “I’m so heavily invested in Carson, so when it became open, it became an opportunity for me to be able to give back in a way that I have never done before.”

Rahman’s time in public service dates back to working for the late Rep. Juanita Millender-Mcdonald. She was also senior public relations representative for the U.S. Department of Commerce. Most recently, she served on Carson’s planning commission board. On her days off, she volunteers her time to speak on issues facing communities. She recently was a panelist for Independent Professionals Association, an organization fighting for the rights of an independent workforce. On the panel she shared resources to help small businesses survive the pandemic through COVID-19 relied packages and the Paycheck Protection Program.

Rahman believes her extensive relationship in government, working with different city clerk offices and her integrity make her right for the job.

“I’m familiar with the way the different city clerk’s run,” she said. “One of the strong suits about working in a senators office and having so many different cities that you work with is getting to see how different cities operate. ‘So this works here’ then you use that, but ‘if this is not working here’ you disregard that.”

If elected to office, she hopes to increase voter registration, voter engagement, and increase outreach.

“In over my two decades of being here it’s the same people getting involved, getting educated and I’d really like to change that and make it new and exciting for people to let them know they have a voice and your voice counts,” she said.

Rahman attended middle school and high school in Carson. After graduation she attended Cal State Dominguez Hills where she majored in interdisciplinary studies and minored in business management. She has since committed to a public service career. Rahman has the endorsement of councilmember Jawene Hilton.

“I’ve worked through my job with many different cities and worked in coordination with the city clerk office, whether it be getting records, asking for historical records for the City of Carson,” she said. “Above that, I’ve worked as the secretary of state office, so I know how the office works. I’ve seen the changes.”

Rahman said she doesn’t see the position of city clerk as politicized. Rather, she sees herself working with all sides.

“I intend to follow how it’s been intended to be set out by the city charter and follow all the compliant laws and local statutes that it’s intended to be,” she said. “When someone new comes in, there is the opportunity for a new vision, new outreach … and sometimes I don’t believe I bring any baggage with the city. I have great relationships within the city and with the city council. So, I plan on focusing on doing the job. That’s the most important thing to me, is to focus on doing the job and being accountable to the residents and providing the highest service possible that I can.”

POLA Pledges to Restore Air Pollution Monitoring

Paul Rosenberg
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POLA Pledges to Restore Air Pollution Monitoring

In a stunning reversal, Port of Los Angeles staff has pledged to restore air pollution monitoring at all four stations, and to seek board approval to buy all new equipment — a dramatic turnaround from the cost-cutting mindset that led to the unannounced shutdown of the Source-Dominated Air Pollution Monitoring Site on Pier 300 in May.

“We’re going to buy all new equipment for all four stations,” POLA’s director of environmental management, Chris Cannon, said on a Sept. 2 conference call.

“Sounds great!” said Andrea Hricko, USC professor emerita of public health, who first brought the shutdown to public attention.

Just two days earlier, Hricko and a dozen other signatories representing community and environmental justice organizations had sent Cannon a letter sharply objecting to his most recent testimony to POLA’s board, when he told them that his division was reviewing “whether we really need to spend the money to operate all these stations – and if they are all necessary scientifically.”

In the call, in contrast, there was nothing but talk about investing in new equipment, with higher maintenance and replacement standards to ensure against degraded performance and reliability in the future.

In a followup letter the next day, Hricko and USC professor Ed Avol expressed appreciation for the change in direction. “We appreciate your commitment to ensure that all four stations will continue to operate into the future,” they wrote. “This will provide objective data to document air quality in the San Pedro Bay and allow community, port, and policy makers to observe local and longer-term trends in air quality at the nation’s busiest port.”

The letter also raised several issues to ensure they were not forgotten. These included:

1) Maintenance: “There should be appropriate maintenance procedures in place to assure credible instrumentation performance, protect capital investment, and provide a high level of quality performance for each station in the network, regardless of location.”

2) Continuity: “We urge the port to keep the San Pedro and Wilmington stations fully operational during this transitional phase to new instrumentation.”

3) New instruments to measure black carbon: “We are encouraged to hear that you are deploying a new aethalometer to monitor ambient carbon. We urge you deploy a new aethalometer as soon as possible to the Terminal Island monitoring station and begin collecting timely data.”

4) Continuity: “Continuous operation of the monitoring instrumentation provides documentation of trends in air quality. Units should NOT be turned off in anticipation of construction or other local activities. This defeats the purpose of providing the monitoring capability in the first place.”

No date has yet been given for board action to approve new spending.

Broken Ground, Broken Promises: West Harbor Is Not for San Pedrans

RLn
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Broken Ground, Broken Promises: West Harbor Is Not for San Pedrans

By Nadia Nizetich

Growing up I went to Ports O’ Call Village in San Pedro ritually to wave goodbye to Dad as he headed out to sea on the massive container ships destined for China. Sitting right on the main channel that his ships took on their way out of the harbor. This was the perfect place to say farewell. Mom would park my brother and I on the salt-kissed picnic benches of the pier with a hot lunch from the San Pedro Fish Market, and we’d wait until we saw Dad’s ship creep into view with him on the starboard side. He’d wave and yell, and we’d holler enthusiastically back.

This should be a familiar story to many of the residents of San Pedro — for years, Ports O’ Call was a place for goodbyes and homecomings, for celebrations and vigils. But Ports O’ Call is no longer there, having been torn down in 2017 by the Port of Los Angeles to be replaced by something called West Harbor, a massive entertainment complex developers see as a natural update to its outdated predecessor. West Harbor is sleek and tastefully designed, with a color scheme intended to evoke the nautical flags used by seafarers for generations. The warehouse-like buildings feature industrial blue metal exteriors, and shipping containers will house food stalls, aesthetic features that are nods to San Pedro’s portside heritage. Indeed, San Pedro really does seem to be at the forefront of their planning — West Harbor’s website promises that it “improves the quality of life for the San Pedro community” and “will stimulate the local economy of San Pedro, creating jobs, public spaces, entertainment and possibilities.” Michael Galvin, director of waterfront and commercial real estate at the Port of Los Angeles and one of the many overseers to the project, stated in an interview with the Los Angeles Times that West Harbor is “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to really change these communities.” But now in 2021, with the project set to be completed in just under two years and more information about the businesses that will operate there emerging, I am doubtful of their promises. Who is this change really for?

I spent two years researching tourism in a Croatian town facing development similar to West Harbor. Tourism can be lucrative for locals — if local products are being sold and residents own businesses, profits are funneled back into the community and the local economy. The developers of West Harbor have begun to contract businesses for its 42-acre dining and entertainment complex, and the Los Angeles Times recently reported that seven have signed on in the last two weeks (none of which are based in San Pedro and one of which is owned by mogul Elie Samaha who was charged with fraud in 2004). If this trend continues, what this means is that the jobs created for San Pedrans will be low-skill and likely minimum wage — servers, ticket-takers, concierge — hardly enough to inject substantial profits into San Pedro and stimulate the local economy. Moreover, West Harbor may even deter customers from real local businesses located on the nearby historic 6th and 7th streets, leaving the district open to a similar fate of outside encroachment.

I am not the only San Pedran wary of developer’s promises. In 2017, public outcry over the initial designs of the project sent developers back to the drawing board to rethink their stylistic choices. What was produced was a blue, yellow, and red color scheme and the shipping container aesthetic. The revisions missed the point of the locals’ protests, seeming to make it appear that San Pedro culture is showcased at West Harbor. Their website now states, “Our culture is an eclectic mix of cuisine and camaraderie. We celebrate the culture, history, and diversity of the longshoremen, the fishing industry, craftspeople, and small businesses throughout LA County.” Is celebrating longshoremen accomplished through repurposed shipping containers and a nautical theme? Are craftspeople and small businesses respected by tearing down their shops at Ports O’ Call and replacing them with nonnative restaurants? Paying homage to fishermen, longshoremen, and the working class is not achieved by decorating a retail plaza with nautical flags, and San Pedro culture is not reducible to aesthetic frills. West Harbor’s co-opting of San Pedro is inconsiderate of countless lives that have been lost on the docks and at sea. I applaud developers for rethinking their approach and putting in a good-faith effort to appease locals, but good faith alone is not enough, especially when they speak on locals’ behalf while inadvertently working against the well-being of the town. Developers only seem to have realized the economic potential of selling San Pedrans their identity at a 50% markup.

There is still time for West Harbor to right its wrongs. A few restaurant spaces remain and many more retail spots are open. Developers would be wise to contract local businesses for these. Relax the rigid design scheme and partner with local artists to decorate West Harbor with murals and mosaics. Make a better effort to commemorate the cultures that have been here for generations in one of the most diverse communities in Los Angeles — expand the nearby Los Angeles Maritime Museum to encompass exhibits showcasing Mexican, Italian, Croatian, Japanese, Greek and Norwegian cultures that have lived here for over a century. By incorporating real cultural elements, developers would truly showcase local culture and improve the quality of life for the community.

With the project slated to be completed by 2023, I hope it’s not too late for San Pedro. Development is not a boogeyman, but developers must realize that memories are bulldozed along with buildings. My Dad passed not long after those days at Ports O’ Call, and with its removal I’ve only got my stories to tell. And even with the best intentions, development may harm the communities it aims to help. Project leaders at West Harbor need to lengthen the bottom line to include more than profits and treat San Pedro with respect — and respect is more than just an aesthetic.

Nadia Nizetich was born and raised in San Pedro. She spent two years researching tourism in Komiza, Croatia, as an anthropologist and later worked in special education. She is an avid gardener, musician, and writer.

King Tut’s Tom

Lyn Jensen
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King Tut’s Tom

My mother and father were both still alive when I started packing the contents of their homes, so my plans initially focused on storing their property. Managing their former possessions as my own came later. My mother had a three-bedroom home and I was the one moving in during summer 2019, so the plan was different from when I packed my father’s apartment in 2015.

As my father faced his life’s end, I persuaded him to enter a care facility while I moved the contents of his apartment into storage, telling him and myself it was just temporary, just until I could find him a suitable apartment where he could stay “home” with a live-in caregiver.

I hired a moving company, and spent a week packing up the three-room apartment, with assistance from four true friends who earned my undying gratitude. I located a 10-by-20 storage unit for my father’s belongings. I thought I might need a second one but the movers managed to cram everything in, up to the ceiling, barely room to close the door.

Even then the task wasn’t done, because I only contracted with the movers for my father’s apartment, and neighbors informed me — when the movers were almost finished — how my father had taken over all available apartment space not occupied by other renters. Several pieces of patio furniture, all his, sprawled along the walkway, and the neighbors acted like they couldn’t wait to be rid of it. The man had also taken over the apartment’s four-car garage, all of it, for his cars and whatever else he wanted to park in all available garage space. Apparently the manager and other tenants let him do it.

Since I’d already given notice to vacate, my solution was to rent a van and spend more days transporting the remaining furniture — and hardware, tools, equipment, sporting goods, greasy old mechanical parts, whatever else a man can stash in a garage — to the storage unit, and shove things into whatever cubby holes could still be found. At the same time I had to wield my financial power of attorney and sell my father’s cars to an auction house, to pay for his care and the moving expenses.

Days have turned into years as I’ve cleared the storage unit, which I’ve nicknamed King Tut’s Tomb. An untold amount of the contents have been sold, auctioned, given away, recycled, trashed, or put to new use. I’ve reduced the remainder enough to move to a smaller cheaper 8-by-14 unit. At the same time, though, things from my former home and my mother’s home have been added.

Many decisions I still have to make. The early American dining set could be moved to my mother’s house but I lack the ability to move it myself. The antique sideboard will either find space in my mother’s house or get sold, but that decision can wait. I have three stereos — mine, my father’s, my mother’s — but I like having so many entertainment options throughout the house. One whole drawer’s full of perfectly good drafting supplies, but who does manual drafting anymore? My plan is to eventually close up King Tut’s Tomb, but that day is a long way off.

Port Driver Misclassification Dominates Concerns During Clean Truck Fee Workshops

Paul Rosenberg
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Port Driver Misclassification Dominates Concerns During Clean Truck Fee Workshops

The issue of port trucker misclassification was front and center once again as the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach held a pair of Zoom stakeholder workshops to gather input in drafting a long-delayed container fee, which had been promised in the 2017 Clean Air Action Plan, and approved in principle by both ports’ boards in March 2020. Participants included truck drivers, company owners, community, public health and environmental representatives, etc. Zero-emission trucks will be exempt from the fee, but treatment of near-zero (natural gas) trucks is still being weighed, with the possibility of a fee exemption being partial, being phased from full to partial and/or being sunsetted at a future date. Similar considerations apply to subsidized funding of non-zero truck purchases as well.

The first workshop, on Aug. 26, dealt intensively with fee eligibility and funding issues, polling opinions on a set of questions that showed greater support for near-zero fee exemptions (only about 30% flatly opposed) than for funding to help purchase them (roughly 50% opposed). In both cases, support for non-zero technology decreases with time as non-zero vehicles become more available. Support was also strong for funding supporting infrastructure (68%) and for reviewing the program annually (59%). Although the $10 fee was not up for debate it was nonetheless challenged as inadequate.

Trucker misclassification dominated the second workshop on Sept. 1, largely displacing consideration of equity issues involving the community, which were mostly mentioned only in passing.

Grecia Lopez-Reyes, who serves on the board of Latinos in Action, a Long Beach-based community organization, set the tone with her opening comment. “Members of our community living near the poor bear the brunt of the health impacts of air pollution,” she said, “including the very workers who move our goods.” She noted that “over 80% of port drivers are Latino immigrant workers serving as essential workers in our communities,” and that “misclassification has been an obstacle to meeting climate goals because port drivers are responsible for burying all the cost to transitioning to clean trucks.” She called on the ports to end what she called “a flawed system.” “Please protect our community by holding trucking companies and their powerful retail customers accountable,” Lopez-Reyes said. “They need to take responsibility for all the costs.”

Juan Islas, a driver for XPO who was misclassified as an independent contractor instead of a company employee, said the ports “need to make sure that companies like XPO follow the law.”

“Even though the EDD [Employment Development Department] found me to be an employee, XPO still doesn’t pay us payroll taxes like they should,” Islas said. “I spent several years trapped in a loan, making weekly payments on my truck. I had to work long hours driving constantly to earn enough money to pay[it] off. Now, after years of hard work, I put so many miles on my truck, I won’t be able to operate in the port, anymore, or anywhere else in California because it’s reaching the state miles limit.”None of this is legal.

“Under the law, XPO should have paid for the truck \in the first place,” Islas said. You need to hold these companies accountable. They’ve been getting rich off our backs. It’s time to make the trucking companies and retailers pay for their share.”

After 15 years of organizing, a wide range of voices echoed this argument, including attorneys from Earth Justice and the Natural Resources Defense Council, labor representatives from Teamsters Local 396 and the LA County Fed, faith-based leaders from Clergy And Laity United for Economic Justice, activists from the Sierra Club, the Coalition for Clean Air and the LA Alliance for New Economy.

The notable exception was Matt Schrap, CEO of Harbor Trucking Association, who claimed to sympathize with Islas, while marginalizing and trivializing his experience. “Over the years there’s been some bad actors, and there’s bad actors in every single industry,” Schrap said. But it’s not a question of individual ‘bad actors’, it’s the dominant business model that’s flagrantly illegal by misclassifying workers. Even after years of enforcement actions by the California Labor Commissioner — over 500 cases as Michael Munoz of LAANE pointed out — the Port of LA’s survey of 407 port truckers conducted in June and July found that only 160 (less than 40%) were full time employees of trucking companies.

Others were sharply focused on misclassification as a systemic problem, several specifically noting that any fee exemptions should not be granted to lawbreakers. CCA policy director Chris Chavez took this point one step further. When it comes to spending the monies generated to subsidize clean truck purchases, “If you’re going to get the funding you should follow the law,” he said. It should also be locally targeted, he said. “The investments that come out of the Clean Trucks program should maximize the local impact here in the Wilmington, Carson, West Long Beach, the South Coast air basin area.”

Schrap also advanced the idea that truck container fees could result in massive job loss, with freight to other ports. But, “The evidence presented doesn’t show that,” said EarthJustice attorney Adrian Martinez. “What we’ve seen in the past year is that thousands of dollars have been added to shipping containers and there’s 70 plus ships outside our harbor.” This isn’t the first time, he noted. “A lot of times during the debate this hyperbole gets put forward that the industry is going to collapse, and what we’ve seen from decades of experience is that doesn’t happen. There’s going to continue to be a robust industry in the region. ”

Martinez went on to make another spending suggestion. “The ports need to look at funding transformative programs, like putting up larger amounts to companies that are willing to get to zero emissions, willing to be responsible to their drivers, and do some large-scale 50 to 100 to 500 trucks operations.”

Jesse Marquez, founder of the Coalition for A Safe Environment, made a related proposal, to focus near-term on truck short-haul service companies. “There are currently 18 zero-emission trucks that are currently available to service up to 200 miles,” he pointed out.

The workshop proceedings are being summarized by Janine Hamner Holman, the consultant who ran the workshop, and will be presented to the boards in advance of considering a draft proposal for the truck fee tariff. No date has yet been set, but action is expected within the next two months.

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