September 13, 2023

The Port of Los Angeles has released a draft of its LA Waterfront Connectivity Plan. While the plan mentions Battleship IOWA favorably many times, it doesn’t confirm or convey a sense of urgency for when its relocation should happen.

I believe that we should be there as soon as possible to connect to the waterfront, and thus want to influence that priority in the plan’s final version.

I’ll have an opportunity to do so during a public commentary meeting at the end of this month. My goal is to augment my comments with a fat stack of your support letters.

The meeting is fast approaching, so we need these letters immediately. Feel free to write your own or simply sign and return the one attached below.

If you choose to write your own, here are some thoughts to get you started.

Relocating Battleship IOWA sooner rather than later will:

• Place the San Pedro/LA Waterfront in a league with renowned waterfront destinations like San Diego and Baltimore
• Bring economic sustainability to the waterfront, potentially tripling the average amount spent by each visitor
• Link the commercial waterfront and downtown San Pedro to the Outer Harbor attractions including AltaSea, Crafted, Lane Victory, and more
• Expand our space available for community events, meetings, and gatherings, enhancing our capacity to champion more community causes
• Increase foot traffic to the waterfront

Battleship IOWA has made tremendous strides over twelve years while hidden behind multiple layers of fencing. It’s time to break her out of jail and let her become an anchor of the West Harbor development.

So in the spirit of breaking out, please email your letter of support to jailbreak@labattleship.com. I’ll print them all out and hopefully have a truckload to carry with me on the 28th.

We don’t have much time, so please email your letter to jailbreak@labattleship.com no later than Wednesday, September 20th.

Thank you,

Jonathan Williams
President & CEO

P.S. I’ll be presenting your letters on Thursday, September 28th from 6pm to 8pm at the Port of Los Angeles building, 425 South Palos Verdes Street, San Pedro, CA 90731. Please feel free to join me. We don’t want to dominate this meeting, but we do want our voices and presence to be heard.

Click here to read more information about this meeting and initiative. 

Click the button below for the letter template described above.

From now until September 30, 2023, use the promo code NMSN23 and get an EXTRA 3 MONTHS added to your membership! Click below to learn more and join.