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The original idea of the CityBeat column was to highlight weekly actions at City Hall, albeit as translated through my snarky mind.

More often than not, City Hall officials have been obliging in providing grist for the mill.

This week, however, this column will focus on a shameful inaction, not just by City Hall officials, but by the multi-billion dollar a year shipping industry that Long Beach has long tied its future to.

Let's start with last week's "State of the Port" speech, delivered by Port of Long Beach Executive Director Richard Steinke.

In it, Steinke declared that the top goal for the city's Harbor Department, is to make Long Beach the "Port of the Future."

He explained this will be accomplished by spending several billion of dollars on new terminals, more than a billion dollars on a new Gerald Desmond Bridge and hundreds of millions of dollars more on environmental programs.

"We’ll continue to challenge the status quo on how we move cargo from the ship, through the terminals and over the goods movement infrastructure to consumers across America," said Steinke.

But, he added, the Harbor Department can not do it alone and would require the support of everyone from the public to elected officials to the shipping companies.

Not on that list is one group that right now needs not only the city's assistance, but the assistance of everyone that Steinke did name.

Call them what you will, mariners, sailors, seafarers or seamen--they are literally the arms, legs and backs on which 90 percent of the world's trade moves. Without these seafarers to man the more than 4,600 vessels that call each year in Southern California, there would be no Port of Long Beach or Port of Los Angeles.

Contrary to popular opinion, by and large these seafarers are wholly unrelated to the flags flying on the vessels, with most coming from the Philippines, Eastern Europe, India, China and Indonesia.

They receive meager wages, have few benefits and face horrendous working conditions and hours--all for a career in a profession that is one of the most dangerous of the industrial trades.

One of the few bright spots these seafarers have, at least those calling in the LA/LB ports, is the International Seafarers Center.

This non-profit institution, located on Pico Avenue in the port, is literally a home away from home for seafarers that spend virtually the entire length of their contracts--ranging from 6 months to two years--away from home and aboard a vessel.

The ISC, staffed by two full-time employees and a handful of volunteers, offers a simple list of amenities for the seafarers while in port, such as Internet connections to email or call home, telephones, a game room, videos, magazines, a music library, outdoor activities and even a small snack and merchandise counter (socks are reportedly a big seller).

One of the ISC's key roles, however, is to provide transportation to the seafarers, both to and from their vessels to the ISC and from the ISC to local shopping, such as the downtown Walmart.

Last year, roughly 50,000 seafarers calling at LA/LB visited the ISC. The majority of these spent somewhere between $25 and $50 in Long Beach stores, pumping anywhere from $1.25 million to $2.5 million directly into the city economy.

To offer the seafarers this small respite from their lives aboard ship, the non-profit ISC has, for as long as most people can remember, operated on a shoestring budget--often times from month-to-month based on the success of the group's fund raising. It has also relied heavily on the charity of others, including in the past, both port authorities and many members of the maritime industry.

Some years ago, both port authorities even instituted a voluntary tariff of $25 per ship call to help support the ISC. Assessed against the shipping lines, the tariff in good times was paid by up to 60 percent of the liable vessels. However, in recent years and most notably since the global economic meltdown began, the number paying the tariff has fallen rapidly to about 25 percent of the liable vessels.

Unfortunately, this number of participating shipping lines only brings in about $35,000 a year of the ISC's annual minimum operating budget of $300,000.

In addition to the shipping lines cutting back, fund raising has also dropped off dramatically. The ISC's annual Tug Boat Races event in Long Beach harbor, used to generate up to $60,000, but in recent years has been fortunate to clear $40,000.

In the face of this, the ISC has cut its four part-time workers (who still come to work as volunteers), cut medical benefits for its two full-time employees, reduced the number of vans providing seafarer transport from six to three, and closed its doors on Saturdays.

Despite these self-imposed draconian cuts, the bottom line is this: the ISC is currently running a monthly deficit of $5,000 a month and if no permanent funding solution is found, this humanitarian institution will be forced to shutter its doors for good come July.

The unpaid board of the ISC, filled from top to bottom with icons of the local maritime industry, now plans to ask the ports for that permanent solution in the form of direct annual subsidies (keep in mind that the ports do not use tax dollars and their revenue comes from port facility leases and dockage and wharfage fees assessed to the ocean carriers).

Hopefully, the port authorities will find the courage to step up to the plate, or perhaps find a long-term proactive solution by increasing the voluntary tariff to, say, $100 and making it mandatory. Given that most vessels pay thousands upon thousands of dollars just to dock at the port, it would seem absurd to think that this small fee would break any corporation's piggy bank or represent an incentive to move a vessel to a competing port.

The real question, though, is how did we wind up here? Why has this organization of dedicated well-meaning and civic-minded local residents been forced to put out the beggar cup year after year?

Where have the ports been on this issue--the same ports that right now are planning to spend billions and billions of dollars to improve their facilities so that the shipping lines can generate even more revenue?

Where are the downtown businesses like Walmart that rake in millions of dollars each year from these seafarers?

Why is City Hall silent, while at the same time making tens of thousands of dollars in sales tax dollars off of these seafarers' purchases?

Where are the shipping lines that rake in billions but refuse to pay the $25 per vessel call tariff?

Somewhere along the line, all of these people have forgotten who is actually making all of this multi-billion global enterprise happen. When did doing what is right become secondary to listening to accountants?

Here is a quote from Felix, a Filipino 3rd Engineer, that perfectly describes what is at stake:

"I went to sea when I was married for three days. After nine months during my vacation our daughter was born. She is 14 now. After her birth, I hardly saw her. My wife put a picture on the table and pointed at it everyday saying, 'This is your daddy.' I remember when I went back for a vacation when my daughter was two. I told her that I am her father. She went and grabbed the photograph and said: 'This is my father, not you.'"

How different this situation might have been if Felix had been able to use the facilities at the ISC. A phone call home. A few jittery pictures over an Internet connection. Maybe just a quiet space to write a real letter.

This is why the ISC matters. Love it or leave, the ports have made us integral parts of the global community, and as such, Long Beach has a responsibility to be the best member of that community we can be.

This is why the ports should open their checkbooks and give till it hurts. This is why downtown businesses should offer up some donations. This is why City Hall officials should be blasting the Harbor Department with demands to permanently fix the problem. And this is why the shipping lines should stop hiding behind semantic excuses and start paying what they owe.

It is a simple matter of humanity and the right thing to do. A pittance really, when we are talking about the billions being made, but a pittance that touches so many lives. Lives that will forever remember that a phone call, or Internet connection, or a quite space was made possible by people in Long Beach.

This little bit of humanity, Mr. Steinke, should also be part of the Port of the Future.

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