“What I'm trying to say, sir, is listen to us,” Long Beach Port Driver Oscar Tarelo told Mayor Bob Foster at last night’s packed city council meeting. “This program that Long Beach is giving us is not gonna work because it’s too expensive for us."

We couldn’t agree more, Oscar. The Road has argued that doling out even the most generous subsidies to impoverished workers doesn’t avoid making Long Beach taxpayers the backers of the next generation of sub-prime loans. But now it would seem the Port’s claim of subsidizing 80 percent of the truck is patently false.

The vague outline of a lease-to-own proposal approved February 19 claims that drivers’ truck payments will be $500-$700 per month. But an analysis of the document shows that that the maximum subsidy level is only 72 percent, not 80 percent, with the average likely being far lower, since POLB representatives are now telling drivers who call a hotline that the payment will be more like $800-900 a month.

Under the terms, drivers will have to pay from $49,000 up to $73,800 in truck payments over seven years. To sweeten the pot, drivers will have to make a $7,000 to $15,000 balloon payment at the end of the seven-year lease term to own the truck.

The more likely scenario is a subsidy of only 62 to 67 percent on truck payments expected to total from between $123,000 and $206,000 over seven years.

Who’s counting? Using even the conservative 72 percent figure, it’s a difference of over $14,000 that drivers will have to pay over the life of the lease – far higher than many current drivers have paid for their existing “dirty” truck.

Yes, as Mayor Bob Foster outright admitted yesterday in response to an audience question at a UCLA-sponsored economic forecast conference, it will be a burden for the drivers. But he is also too afraid of the industry to require capitalized companies to take responsibility for clean trucks so the new fleet would actually remain green, and directed the Port of Long Beach to continue to saddle underpaid drivers with debt.

Tarelo told the Long Beach Press-Telegram drivers knew of a better solution for their families that would also keep dirty diesel trucks off the road for good: “I know for sure (fellow drivers) are going to go to L.A. to avoid making payments on loans we can’t afford.”