Dockworkers have lashed out against a decision by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass that leaves the LA harbor commission with only one member local to the community that is most impacted by port activity.
Leaders of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union blasted the call to not renew Commissioner Diane Middleton for another five-year term on the five-member panel during public remarks at the regular harbor commission meeting on Thursday, Aug. 22. Earlier, the mayor had not renewed two other local commissioners to additional terms — Anthony Pirozzi of San Pedro and Lucia Moreno-Linares of Wilmington.
The comments came following commission tributes to Middleton, who was not present.
“We had a voice at this table that was taken from us,” said Gary Herrera, president of ILWU Local 13. “We were stripped of our voice and I don’t see how this commission can stand for it. I don’t and I won’t. And I will be loud.”
“We thank Ms. Middleton for her years of service on the board and to the city,” Zachary Seidl, deputy mayor of communications, said in a statement. “The mayor and her appointees to the commission will continue to serve the Harbor Area and the surrounding communities.”
But Herrera said at the meeting that the mayor’s office “is out of touch with these ports.”
Neither the commission nor Port of Los Angeles staff has a say on appointments, which are made by the mayor and confirmed by the City Council. The confirmation process for Bass’ nominee to replace Middleton, former Assemblymember and Boyle Heights resident John Pérez, has yet to be confirmed.
Los Angeles Councilmember Tim McOsker, who represents the Harbor Area, said he “couldn’t disagree” with objections that have been voiced by union officials.
“I am in no rush” for the confirmation process to begin, he said.
“This cuts in half the local understanding of how decisions by this commission affect the community,” McOsker said. “What can be lost by Diane (Middleton) being unavailable is the perspective of the women and men who work on the waterfront.”
During his initial conversation with Bass following her election in November 2022, McOsker said, he stressed the importance of keeping San Pedro and Wilmington residents on the five-member panel, a practice that goes back 20 years.
Before Middleton — a longtime San Pedro resident and a strong supporter of Bass, who served on the mayor’s transition team after she was elected — was unexpectedly bumped earlier this month. Together with newly appointed Lee Williams of San Pedro, that left the panel with two local residents and the other three from the Boyle Heights and West LA areas.
Now, just Williams remains as a local voice.
The mayor’s process for informing commissioners they would not be kept on was “despicable,” Pirozzi said.
He learned he’d likely not be retained through social media. An aide to the mayor did call eventually, Pirozzi said — but left the news on a voicemail.
“I gave a decade of my life (to the commission), have a little class and show some respect,” he said of the eleventh-hour formal notifications. “Don’t let me find out through the rumor mill.”
Pirozzi said he was also stunned when he heard Middleton was let go, with the notice coming right before the deadline when her current term was up.
“Diane of all people?” Pirozzi said. “She deserved better. I just think how it’s been handled was wrong. Have some class and some respect for people who volunteer their time.”
McOsker has submitted a city ballot measure in November that will ask voters to approve having at least two local residents — one from San Pedro and one from Wilmington — on the five-member harbor commission.
He compared non-resident commissioners to governing via looking at a Google map and not knowing an area by walking it “block by block.”
“Four out of five (of the commissioners now) live a great distance away,” McOsker said. “They’ve not grown up or worked or spent time in this community.”
Local commissioners, by contrast, he said, “breathe the air of the port.”
Not only was Middleton a local resident — who could watch the ships come and go from the port from her home — but she also had deep ties with the ILWU and was even taken in as an “honorary member” earlier this year.
“Everyone who lives in the port radius realizes what an asset Diane Middleton was,” said Greg Mitre, president of the ILWU’s Pensioners unit and a San Pedro native.
“You silenced a voice, you took somebody away from this community and who was an asset to the entire port complex,” he said. “Diane Middleton represented us.”
Middleton said she did not attend Thursday’s meeting because “my term was up.”
“There is considerable concern in the community,” she said.
“This has evoked recollections of the ‘Hundred Years’ War,’” Middleton added, referring to the community’s term for how neighborhoods were ignored by the port for so long.
Middleton spoke both for the community and the union during her tenure and was highly respected for the deep dives she did on board items, asking probing questions on many of the items as they came before the board for votes in open session.
The union, she said, now feels disrespected by the change.
Middleton was praised by fellow commissioners on Thursday for her commitment to the commission and its staff, the port and and longshore workers.
Bass had made “a grave mistake” in letting Middleton go, Mitre said.
“You’ve disrespected the men and women of the ILWU,” he said about the mayor, “and I will never forgive that.”
“It has to be understood we’re not going to walk away from this,” said Norm Tuck, vice president of the ILWU’s Pensioners, who also spoke at the commission meeting. “In my capacity, I’m going to do everything I can to try to do something about what just happened. Three commissioners of the five are (now) from Boyle Heights. Why are we getting this representation?”
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