Supporters of Diane Middleton, dropped from the Los Angeles harbor commission by Mayor Karen Bass in August, are not going down without a fight.
That was clear by the crowd that turned out Monday night, Sept. 10, in a show of support — and anger — inspired by concern over local representation on the Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners.
“Many people have said we’re going to fight for your reinstatement,” Middleton told the gathering in the San Pedro Municipal Building. “I would respectfully decline, I’ve moved on.”
What the Harbor Area does need, the San Pedro resident and retired attorney said, is a guarantee going forward that the five-member panel in the future will include members from Wilmington, San Pedro — and a voice for port labor.
The informal gathering — called by Los Angeles City Councilmember Tim McOsker who represents the area — drew close to 100 people clearly willing to join forces to work toward that goal.
Their strategy:
- Start with a campaign to express their views to the mayor through a “Harbor Voices for the Harbor Commission” movement with letters and emails.
- Then organize support for L.A. City measure HH, sponsored by McOsker, that would provide two dedicated seats — one from Wilmington and another from San Pedro — on the commission, along with a port labor voice.
“We responded to the people who had reached out to us,” McOsker said Tuesday in a follow-up telephone interview about the gathering he organized, adding that the issue has galvanized many in the Harbor Area. “If we wanted to, we could have made it many, many hundreds, that would have been easy to do.”
Middleton’s surprising ouster from the port panel — following the dismissal of two other local commissioners who were also up for reappointment but were replaced by commissioners who are not local — sent shockwaves across the community that has struggled through the decades to solidify local representation on the panel.
Several…
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