Voters give Long Beach mayor more power over port board

Voters give Long Beach mayor more power over port board A Long Beach charter amendment giving the city's mayor greater power is set to have a certain impact on the Port of Long Beach.
   Proposition A, part of a special election ballot, was approved by city voters by nearly a 3-to-2 margin. The proposition amends the city's charter, giving the mayor line-item vetoes of the city’s budget, as well as requiring a two-thirds City Council vote to override his veto. It also provides the mayor with more power over certain city appointments, including the Port of Long Beach's five harbor commissioners.
   The newly granted line-item veto on the city's annual budget will allow the mayor to reduce or eliminate any expenditure. Council members can override the mayoral veto with a two-thirds vote.
   The Port of Long Beach, administered by the city's Harbor Department, has long maintained a high degree of autonomy within the city government. City Hall, before the new amendment, typically had little input into the daily operations of the port, the second-busiest container port in the nation. Under the previous terms of the charter, the mayor and city council had a yes-no vote on the port's entire annual budget. If the port's budget was rejected, it would be sent back to port staff for reworking and then returned to City Hall for another yes-no vote. The new line-item power will give the mayor tremendous influence of the port's purse strings.
   The amendment also granted Mayor Bob Foster the ability to remove a member of a city commission at any time, upon concurrence of two-thirds of the council.
   In the past, harbor commissioners, once appointed, could only be removed for very specific offenses, and then only by a vote of the council. In fact, it has never happened in the nearly 80-year history of the commission, though there have been several resignations or refusals by the council to reappoint sitting members.
   The mayor of Los Angeles has long had the same power over Los Angeles commissioners now granted to the Long Beach mayor over his city's board. The Port of Los Angeles, adjacent to Long Beach and the busiest container port in the nation, has been criticized in the past for being too closely tied to Los Angeles City Hall. Some critics of the new Long Beach amendment cited the Los Angeles City Hall habit of replacing the entire board whenever a new City Hall administration came to power.
   For his part, Long Beach Mayor Bob Foster said following the passage of the amendment that he would use his new powers to make the Harbor Commission more accountable to the citizens of the city.
   Voters soundly defeated an additional proposition that would have changed the current two six-year term limit of Long Beach harbor commissioners to three four-year terms.