California port officials have formed what is believed to be the first LGBT affinity group in the nation for employees and commissioners working at or overseeing maritime facilities across the state.
Six months after the group's first meeting, which was held in San Francisco, its members are focused on increasing its membership and raising awareness of its existence. Another goal is to make the states' ports safe work environments for LGBT employees and officials to be out of the closet.
"One of the things that shocked me was how homophobic and closeted the culture was, historically, for ports," said gay Oakland Port Commissioner Michael Colbruno, who joined the powerful oversight committee last spring. "I'd find people who had worked for 20 years at ports afraid to come out. It was an old boys' network."
Joel Valenzuela, director of maritime operations at the San Diego port, said the climate at his job site has changed since he started working there 15 years ago. He was hired as a straight married man and later came out on the job.
"I was pleasantly surprised. People didn't miss a beat," recalled Valenzuela, who has pictures of his partner and daughters at work.
The San Diego port now recruits during the city's annual Pride festival and its harbor police march in the parade. But Valenzuela acknowledged that he still has concerns about being so out at work.
"I do worry when meeting with customers it might cause us to lose business," he said.
The idea for the port LGBT affinity group grew out of a lunch Colbruno had with his counterpart across the bay, lesbian San Francisco Port Commissioner Leslie Katz, who was appointed to her seat three years ago and was elected president of the commission in January.
"My first thought was to get all the LGBT port commissioners together," recalled Katz. "Then we thought, let's expand it to senior staff."
Last July, the California Association of Port Authorities advisory committee, at the urging of its president, Wayne Darbeau , who is the Port of San Diego's president and CEO, adopted a resolution forming the LGBT affinity group.
Darbeau then surprised the group at its first meeting with a resolution that stated "California's ports support inclusivity of all people regardless of" gender identity or sexual orientation. It added that "diversity generates greatness and success, and California ports provide opportunities for men, women and the transgender community who possess great talent to advance the state's port system."
The majority of the group's members come from Oakland, San Francisco and San Diego, where a gay man, Bob Nelson , is the current president of that city's port commission. So far it has failed to attract members from the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports; there are 11 publicly-owned ports scattered throughout the state.
"It is important that we have an affinity group because we can have influence on all the other ports," Katz said.
Officially called the California Association of Port Authorities (CAPA) LGBT Diversity Group, its inaugural meeting drew more than 30 people, both LGBT and straight attendees. It has since met in San Diego and most recently in Oakland, whose port hosted the group for a daylong meeting in mid-March.
"It has kept its momentum," said Colbruno. "There is a lot of interest in it. Under CAPA we are the only recognized affinity group."
Having the backing of CAPA is "very exciting," said Robert Bernardo, a gay man who has worked at the Oakland port for 12 years. "It shows how far the Port of Oakland and all of the ports have come."
The Port of Oakland created an employee gay-straight alliance in 2006, and, in 2007, the group marched in the San Francisco LGBT Pride parade.
"It was an informal group for LGBT people and our allies at the Port of Oakland to get together for lunch," said Bernardo, who is president of the San Mateo County Harbor Commission.
Richard Sinkoff, a gay man who is director of environmental planning and programs for the Port of Oakland, recently attended an Out and Equal conference for the first time. Not only did it provide for a networking opportunity to attract business to the Oakland port, he said, it highlighted the importance of being out about the port being an LGBT-affirming workplace.
He related how advertisements for a new human resources director for the port said nothing about diversity being a priority. The concern, he said, is that LGBT qualified candidates could decide not to apply thinking they would not be welcome.
"There is real value to small steps we can take at your ports to just raise awareness," said Sinkoff. "We want employees and the public to know something is going on and maybe they might want to talk about this."
Gay man joins SF fire panel
For years LGBT representation has been missing from the San Francisco Fire Commission. That changed March 27 when Ken Cleaveland , a gay man who is the vice president of public policy for the Building Owners and Managers Association, took part in his first meeting as a fire commissioner.
"There has not been a member of the LGBT community on this important commission for some time, so we are excited to have representation. Ken will do a fantastic job," Alice B. Toklas LGBT Democratic Club Co-Chair Zoe Dunning wrote in an email sent to club members last week.
Cleaveland, 66, an Alice board member, stepped down as secretary of the three-person San Francisco Finance Corporation that oversees the revenue bonds issued by the city after Mayor Ed Lee appointed him to the fire commission.
"Here is an opportunity to make our community more visible within the fire department culture of our city," Cleaveland said in a phone interview this week.
Through his job at the building owners association, Cleaveland was involved in a fire policy fight last fall over the installation of air replenishment systems used by firefighters in large buildings downtown. He said those discussions came before he expressed interest about joining the fire commission.
"To my mind that was not a controversy. For the company that had the patent monopoly on the installation of those systems, it was a great controversy to them," he said. "It had no bearing on my decision to become a fire commissioner."
Late night transit, LGBT seniors hearings
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors' Land Use and Economic Development Committee will take up the issue of late night transit options next week.
As the Political Notebook reported in January, District 8 Supervisor Scott Wiener is calling on the city and regional transit officials to re-examine the bus and train services offered at night, not only for the bar-going crowd but also for late-night and graveyard shift workers.
The hearing will begin at 1:30 p.m. Monday, April 14 in Room 263 at City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place.
Wiener will also hold a hearing at the board's Neighborhood Safety and Services Committee to accept the recommendations of the LGBT Aging Policy Task Force on the needs and concerns of senior members of the LGBT community.
The hearing will begin at 10 a.m. Thursday, April 17 in Room 250 at City Hall.
Web Extra: For more queer political news, be sure to check http://www.ebar.com Monday mornings at noon for Political Notes, the notebook's online companion. This week's column highlighted coming votes on proposals to name SF streets after a gay man and a transgender nightclub performer.
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Got a tip on LGBT politics? Call Matthew S. Bajko at (415) 861-5019 or e-mail mailto:.