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By Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell
In 1969, Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn stated, “Long Beach bought an old bucket, a rust bucket.” He was of course talking about the infamous Queen Mary.
The Queen Mary has been permanently berthed and stuck in the mud behind a rock wall in the city of Long Beach for 55 years, far removed from the vessel’s 33 years spent traveling the high seas.
Unlike its celebrated ocean cruises and the contributions the vessel made during World War II, the history of the Queen Mary in Long Beach is a well-documented voyage of mismanagement, missing public funds, structural deterioration and multiple bankruptcies.
Repeated audits have exposed missing funds, lack of any strategic management plan, and an apparent willful neglect in the face of critical city inspector reports and marine engineering analysis, which documented the decrepit condition of the vessel — including parts of the ship that pose a threat to public safety.During its tenure, management and oversight of the Queen Mary has gone back and forth between the City and Port several times.
To be blunt, the Queen Mary has been both a failure as an attraction and as a public policy.
The cost of maintaining the vessel, let alone developing it into a self-sustaining attraction, was estimated to be $389 million in 2016. Six years later, the cost is probably much higher, and would require hundreds of millions of additional investment to make the property into a viable business operation. That kind of financial investment would be felt in taxpayers’ wallets and could be better used to address more pressing issues like clean air and efficient goods movement.
The current proposal to transfer the Queen Mary back to the Port of Long Beach would severely harm the Port’s own financial stability and future plans, including delaying its highly-touted Pier B railyard modernization and expansion project that will keep the port competitive amid soaring congestion and record cargo demands. It would also derail the Port from undertaking additional capital projects — which include funding for a transition to zero emissions technologies that are badly needed to protect neighboring communities from poor air quality and combat the global impact of climate change.
Throwing taxpayer dollars at repairs that have been avoided for years is no longer a responsible option to fix the Queen Mary. It is difficult to admit failure, especially when public funds are being spent, many of which cannot adequately be accounted for. The reality is that the Queen Mary is extremely old and will require an incredible amount of public funding, not just now but for the foreseeable future. Wouldn’t our tax dollars be better spent actually investing in our community?
The Queen Mary isn’t going anywhere. It sits rusting away, tethered to the equally forlorn rotting Russian submarine. Together, they illustrate a harsh picture.
Until a thorough engineering and commercial review is conducted, and done in an open process, the transfer of the Queen Mary to the Port of Long Beach should be halted. If Long Beach cannot commit to such a public process, then perhaps the Los Angeles County Grand Jury should be requested to review the situation to provide an independent, third-party review and guidance.
There is way too much at stake. The future of the Port of Long Beach, its associated jobs and their industry leading environmental programs are as much on the line as the ancient Queen Mary.
Patrick O’Donnell represents Long Beach (District 70) in the California State Assembly and is Chair of the Assembly Select Committee on Ports and Goods Movement.
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