Former Long Beach Harbor Commission President James Hankla told a luncheon crowd Thursday that the environmental community made a devil's bargain with the Teamster Union and "come hell or high water, they are going to defend that position." Hankla is a former Long Beach City Manager who later served as chief executive for the Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority. When he retired from ACTA, he was appointed to a six-year term on the harbor commission. His comments came during a "fireside chat" at the METRANS National Urban Freight Conference.

He said the Teamsters came and talked to port officials about a plan for cleaning up the trucking fleet before the port's Clean Truck Program was put together.

The plan would have cleared the way for the Teamsters to unionize port drivers. Hankla said he recognized that the union plan would drive thousands of owner-operators out of business and was never in favor of any employee-driver mandate.

 - The Cunningham Report