Taxpayers’ Yacht — If You’ve Got Connections
From 2012.
Los Angeles has its own $1,000,000 yacht. It costs close to $300,000 a year to staff it. It needs about $700,000 in upgrades. The city’s bureaucrats in charge tried to avoid a reporter’s questions. It didn’t work.
Yes, it’s a boondoggle. There are probably millions of them in America. But this one is photogenic.
What is the justification for the yacht? It stimulates trade, the mayor said — after he denied that it is a yacht. It’s a boat. Right. A 73-foot boat.
Jean Shepherd, who wrote A Christmas Story, once defined a yacht this way: “It’s a boat that doesn’t do anything.” His father told him that when he was a kid. That’s pretty accurate.
The port bought the yacht in 1988. So, it’s a 24-year boondoggle. A reporter only now found out about it.
The yacht is used for public relations tours.
Now that there has been a news story on it, there will be more requests for free rides.
Taxpayers are being taken for a ride. It’s not free. Two captains: $147,000 salaries. Deck hands: $106,000. Fuel and maintenance: $32,000.
It needs new engines: $469,000. Where will the money come from? There is the U.S. government’s $469,000 to promote jobs. Then another $200,000 from the Port of Los Angeles.
The expenditures are coming even when port General Manager Geraldine Knatz testified before the City Council that she is watching spending.Councilmembers called her in because they were following up on our investigation last year, which revealed the port threw a $200,000 party in Korea.
Knatz claimed that she learned her lesson.
For further reading, click losangeles.cbslocal.com.
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Published on March 23, 2012. The original is here.