Long Beach Lobbies Navy to Save Shipyard

WASHINGTON — Long Beach Mayor Ernie Kell, mounting a vigorous defense of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard, led a delegation to the Pentagon on Thursday in an attempt to persuade Navy officials that the facility will be indispensable to the service’s future mission and should not be closed.

Kell and his four-member delegation told top military officials, including Adm. Frank D. Kelso, chief of naval operations, that the public facility is one of the government’s most productive and efficient ship repair facilities. It is also a significant source of jobs in Los Angeles County, employing 4,100 workers.

Its closure, the local officials said, would remove a model of government efficiency and a key competitor of private shipyards.

“If they close the most efficient facility they have, they’re not worried about economics, they’re worried about politics,” said Long Beach Councilman Ray Grabinski.

In addition to Grabinski, Kell was accompanied by Councilmen Alan Lowenthal and Evan Anderson Braude, and by J.B. Larkins, president of the Long Beach Naval Shipyard Employees Assn.

Although the shipyard was not on the final list of bases recommended for closing last year, Long Beach officials fear that it will be targeted when the Pentagon begins a new round of base assessments next month in search of savings. In early deliberations, the Base Closures Commission of 1991 put the Long Beach Naval Shipyard on a list of candidates for closure, but later left it off the list.

That commission did call for the closure of the Long Beach Naval Station.

Long Beach officials said they fear that the shipyard--one of a handful of government-owned ship repair facilities in the United States--will reappear on the list of closure candidates when the Navy offers its recommendations to the new Base Closures Commission this month.

By lobbying the Navy directly, the officials said, they hope to avert that. The Long Beach delegation promised to continue lobbying if the installation appears on the closure list.

“This is only the first salvo, the start of our campaign,” said Del Smith, a Washington lobbyist helping to orchestrate the effort to keep the shipyard open.

Commissioners said that in the wake of the Los Angeles riots, which sparked significant unrest in Long Beach, the naval shipyard has been an island of stability and hope for many residents. Minority workers account for 60% of the shipyard’s work force. For many Long Beach residents, the facility is the area’s best route to apprenticeship, training and skilled employment, the officials said.

“We have a model here for providing highly skilled training and economic opportunities for a diverse population,” Lowenthal said. “We have a community here that is already too far removed from good economic opportunities. We don’t need more jobs in McDonald’s fast food.”

Kell and Larkins said the shipyard, which has streamlined its operations and cut its personnel rolls almost in half in recent years, has become the government’s most competitive public shipyard. As a result, it exerts pressure on the West Coast’s seven private shipyards to keep their bids for government repair work low.

As the Navy seeks to repair new ships and retire a number of old ones, possibly including dozens of submarines, the Long Beach yard will remain the only West Coast shipyard that can accommodate Navy vessels ranging from nuclear-powered aircraft carriers to submarines.