Rln 10 02 14 edition

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Port Truckers Fight Reveals Normalized Exploitation in Company Business Practices p. 3 The California Drought: Foretelling the Shape of Struggles to Come p. 5

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ILWU Trouble at TraPac p. 8 Local Gallery Exhibition on Feminism’s Shifting Definitions p. 11 Everything Tastes Better With Bacon Except the Price p. 14

By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor

T

The Local Publication You Actually Read

hat the USS Iowa is open for the third consecutive year in the Los Angeles Harbor is a victory in itself. The floating museum exceeded the Port of Los Angeles’ expectations of 188,000 visitors per year in its first two years, drawing more than 200,000 visitors each year. In 2013, it topped out at 244,000. This year, the downtown San Pedro plaza watercut opened just ahead of the Tall Ships Festival led by a giant rubber duck. The festival drew more than 270,000 visitors during the last three weeks of this summer. However, this year’s numbers for the battleship museum are down from the first two years. Despite the summer activity on the waterfront those numbers are still within the expectations of Jonathan Williams, the Pacific Battle Center’s president and CEO. “We are going into our third full year of operations and as expected we are slightly down on year two,” Williams replied in an email correspondence to Random Lengths. “I estimate we will see approximately plus or minus 200,000 [visitors] in year three, which is still above the original market study projections. As mentioned, we have seen a big uptick in group sales and event inquiries the past month, so it is possible that we are plateauing earlier than expected.” Even so, the Pacific Battleship Center, the caretaker organization of the historic battleship, is looking forward to new initiatives to draw more tourists. The battleship museum recently completed the ship’s installation of the sewage system and in November, they will launch its sleep aboard program. Yet, with all of this promising news of progress, there appears to be trouble beneath the surface. In September, a former employee at the Pacific Battleship Center drew attention to allegations of labor abuses, environmental safety violations and management issues of the executive staff.

October 2 - 15, 2014

Trouble on the Iowa/ to p. 6

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Rln 10 02 14 edition by Random Lengths News - Issuu