The Tin Collector

VETERANS AGAINST LONG BEACH LAND-FOR-WATER DEAL

Other pickets carried more traditional union placards:

Others protested with:

GIVE US JOBS, NOT SOBS SPIVACK-EVACK WE DON'T WANT YOU HERE WE SAVED THE WHALES YOU SAVE OUR JOBS!

Shane and Chooch had to park a block away in a city parking lot and, after locking up, moved across the shimmering, heated asphalt to where the demonstration was taking place.

"What's going on?" Shane asked a tough-looking woman with inch-long hair wearing a plaid shirt and carrying a sign that read:

BEACHFRONT FOR HzO?

"These idiots are trading the Long Beach Naval Yard to Los Angeles County for a bunch of fuckin' water rights," she growled.

"Naval yard? I thought the navy shut it down years ago."

"Yeah, they did, and now we're giving it to L. A."

"Isn't it federal property?" Shane persisted.

She shot him a withering look. "Where you been, buddy? This is all over the fuckin' news."

"I don't have a TV," Shane answered.

"It was leased land. Now Long Beach's gonna trade it for some dumb water rights."

Shane moved past her and, along with Chooch, climbed up the steps and entered city hall.

The Long Beach Municipal Building was a large brick structure that had been built in the forties. It had a high, two-story rotunda, now overflowing with TV news crews who had set up there for a press conference.

"I'm gonna try and find this guy Spivack," Shane said to Chooch. "Stick close, okay?" "Got it."

Shane moved past the news crews but got stopped at the door to the City Council Chamber by a uniformed Long Beach police officer.

"Sorry, we're maxed out. Fire regs," the cop said.

"LAPD, I'm working." He handed the cop his business card.

"Okay, Sarge, but it's a madhouse in there."

"He's with me," Shane said, indicating Chooch; then they entered the meeting hall.

The council room was a theater-sized, cavernous hall with a sloping floor and raised dais. The room was packed. They could hear a contentious argument being staged over microphones:

"How the hell can you say that the property can't be used by Long Beach?!" a woman yelled from the floor. "I worked at that yard, I was an employee of the Metal Trades Council for thirty years. I thought we were being reamed in '94, when the government closed the only profitable shipyard in the navy. But that's nothing compared to what's going on here. You're taking a huge city asset and trading it for chump change!"

The crowd shouted its approval. The president of the city council banged his gavel for order, then replied, "To begin with, the yard was closed in '94 because it was badly situated, too close to the big refitting yard in San Diego. What's going on here now is good for the city of Long Beach. Mr. Spivack is going to clear all the old military buildings off the site, regrade the property, and develop it. Okay, it's going to be ceded to the city of L. A., but I might remind you that the shipyard borders L. A. on the north and Long Beach on the south, so it's contiguous with them as well as us."

"Who cares? I'm not talking about geography. I'm talking about jobs!" the woman fired back, to a chorus of cheers.

The city council president was prepared. "Long Beach residents will get the jobs because the yard is much closer to our main workforce than to L. A.'s. There'll be hotels, shopping malls, restaurants all employment for Long Beach citizens. And we don't have to float bond issues or construction loans to develop the site. We won't have to pay for its construction; L. A. will. But we will get the major work benefits, plus much-needed water from L. A."

Shane was looking for Anthony Spivack somewhere down front, not paying much attention to the argument going on between the Long Beach City Council and its angry residents. He had the Spivack brochure open to a picture of the CEO. Spivack was a heavyset man with a thick head of close-cropped, curly gray hair. The woman at the mike raised her voice in response, cutting through the background noise with electronic shrillness. "And who, may I ask, gets the municipal tax revenue on all this commercial property, Mr. Cummins?"

Shane spun around and looked up at the president of the Long Beach City Council. He was a slender, hollow-chested man with horn-rimmed glasses, identified by a plaque in front of him on the elevated dais: