Long Beach City Attorney Robert Shannon has rejected an appeal to the City Council that sought to overturn the settlement agreement between the Port of Long Beach and the American Trucking Associations. The appeal, filed by the Natural Resources Defense Council, contended that the decision to settle the lawsuit brought by the ATA against the port's clean truck concession plan should have required an environmental analysis.

The rejection letter sent to NRDC attorney David Pettit doesn't address that question. Instead it notes that the agreement reached between the port and the ATA on Oct. 19 was approved the following day in federal district court, where the lawsuit was filed.

The federal court retains jurisdiction and venue in the matter, and the court order trumps any state or local action in conflict with it, the letter says. Also, the appeal is untimely. The municipal code requires that an appeal must be filed within 10 business days, Shannon wrote.

Since the appeal wasn't filed until Nov. 16, it exceeds that limit.

Pettit had also said he would file an appeal of an ordinance passed by the port board last week to amend the port program in accord with the settlement agreement. If such an appeal were to be filed, it would also be rejected for the same reasons, Shannon wrote.

The settlement agreement between the port and the ATA replaces truck concessions with a registration agreement in which trucks arriving at the port would have to comply with all port environmental standards. Critics of the settlement claim that is not enough, and the port's need to be able to exercise control over the licensed motor carriers that hire owner-operators to haul the cargo.

Pettit said he would talk to other organizations that joined the NRDC as co-interveners in the case filed by the ATA and decide what the next step should be.

Shannon's Letter

-- The Cunningham Report