As one of the world's busiest waterways, the bustling Port of Los Angeles and the areas surrounding it present a major crime-fighting challenge for both the independent harbor police force and the Los Angeles Police Department.
Officers must provide protection 24/7 to businesses located on the port's 7,500 acres, to ships plying its more than 43 miles of waterfront and to the 1.2 million passengers who embark on cruises from there each year.
To be more effective, our officers need help.
An obscure amendment set to be considered by the Los Angeles City Council this week would provide the LAPD and the Port Police with more resources to keep the port more secure, to help businesses based there better prevent crime and to protect residents in nearby neighborhoods.
LAPD officers support the expansion of the Community Redevelopment Agency project, which would focus on the Los Angeles Harbor and Wilmington Park area and add port property acreage to its territory.
If approved, the addition of these properties would increase the size of the redevelopment area to make it eligible for millions of dollars in additional federal aid. These dollars could be used to rehabilitate port properties, which would make the region more attractive for business owners and residents, and thus discourage crime.
The LAPD and the Port Police are proud of a long tradition of working together to protect the Harbor Area, where they have historically responded to a number of community concerns, including visiting homeless encampments and cracking down on excessive speeding.
As a result of their combined efforts, crime has been reduced in neighborhoods encircling the port. Still, crime in Wilmington over the last six months - at 165.7 crimes per 10,000 people, according to the Los Angeles Times crime database - is higher than in nearby Carson, Harbor City, San Pedro and west Carson. The database shows that the LAPD has recorded a whopping 764 property crimes in the area, including theft from vehicles and grand theft auto, since March.
Some merchants who are currently operating in the area - including chop shops and small manufacturing facilities - attract gang activity, making neighborhoods unsafe for families. The proliferation of gangs near the port is caused in part by blight that plagues the area's remaining, rundown industrial centers.
Unsightly buildings discourage businesses from relocating there, resulting in the loss of jobs, as well as the underutilization of properties and continued deterioration of the environment around the harbor, according to a recent report completed by Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry F. Miller for the Los Angeles City Council's Housing, Community and Economic Development Committee.
The CRA has a proven track record of recruiting job-rich businesses into its development areas, raising the reputations of these regions as being safe, bustling business centers, and making them more secure. It happened in North Hollywood. It's happening in downtown Los Angeles. And it could happen in the Harbor Area. It needs to happen in the Harbor Area.
Since 1974, the agency has invested millions of dollars in the 232-acre Los Angeles Harbor Industrial Center Redevelopment Project, which is also known as the Wilmington Industrial Park. This investment attracted 75 new businesses that now occupy more than 900,000 square feet of new industrial facilities. These firms represent close to $40 million in private investment in the area, according to CRA documents, and have created more than 1,220 permanent jobs and $32 million in annual wages.
But even with this investment, about 40 percent of the port area continues to be home to underutilized properties that include truck and container parking, open storage yards, automobile and marine salvage yards, oil extraction equipment, unimproved dirt streets and alleys that are used for other purposes that can attract crime.
According to CRA documents, despite recent efforts by the city of Los Angeles to rid the area of trash and abandoned vehicles, correct numerous code violations on private property, fight illegal dumping and fix unpaved public right-of-ways, the "perception of crime and contaminated soils are significant deterrents in attracting new businesses."
The City Council should move quickly to approve adding port properties to the CRA's harbor redevelopment area to ensure that new funding will be made available to attract new businesses to an area that is heavily blighted and underserved, so we can tackle increasing crime anew.
Paul M. Weber is president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
