$14 MILLION IN YOUR L.A. HARBOR MONEY TO AMUSE CRUISE SHIP TOURISTS: IS IT A TRAFFIC STOPPER OR A TRAFFIC HAZARD?
With 100-foot high plumes of recycled water, the new one-acre, $14 million fountain at L.A.’s Harbor has San Pedro residents questioning the city’s sanity. Officials, of course, think they’ve got a hit with cruise ship tourists who will love the opera music that accompanies the watery display at the main entrance to the terminals near the Viincent Thomas Bridge where traffic has come to a halt.
MONEY GOES DOWN THE DRAIN AND POOR KIDS HAVE NO PLACE TO SWIM – THAT’S WHY WE NEED A GANG TAX
Two years ago, it took an audit of the Department of Recreation and Parks to show half the city’s 54 swimming pools had serious infrastructure problems and six were closed altogether.
Fortunately, the audit also “discovered” $21 million in loose cash in the department’s books which helped make some repair. Some of that money went to replace pipes at the Reseda poolwhich was damaged in the 1994 earthquake and closed in 2001. “But when workers filled the pool last week, some
250,000 gallons of water leaked out of an old steel pipe that was not
part of the repair program,” the Daily News reports. So the repair money went down the drain because the fixed the wrong pipes and now Councilman Dennis Zine wants to use the proposed gang tax to build a new pool.
BAD NEWS: FREEWAY FIX WILL MAKE STREET TRAFFIC WORSE;
GOOD NEWS: THERE’S NO MONEY TO DO THE WORK
Proving the news media matters, the state has spent hundreds of millions of dollars fixing the wretched 101-405 interchange and now has agreed with environmentalists on a plan for a new bridge from the 405 south to the 101 west that protects a corner of the wildlife refuge. The problem is traffic from Burbank Boulevard will be pushed onto local streets and residents are upset. On the upside, it’s all talk since the state is bankrupt and has to raid transportation bond and tax money to pay salaries.
SHORT TAKES:
Steve Lopez says Locke High School in Watts is off to a promising start under Green Dot charter school management.
The Wall Street Journal has joined the pack with straight-faced coverage of Councilwoman Jan Perry’s proposed one-year ban on new fast food restaurants while the whole council moves ahead on banning plastic bags at supermarkets. Mayor Sam draws a connection with the city’s failure to deal with illegal immigrants who commit murder and other crimes.
Does the Mayor Sam piece go something like Doug McIntyre’s take, which is pretty much the same as mine?
Now that there are so many newly hired cops on the streets, they have nothing to do but stand around and look as each other; the gangs are all gone; every student is getting straight As; all the potholes are mended; traffic flows smoothly; Tonio found his missing 10,000 trees and they’re all planted; all city cement pond swimming holes are filled and the water is running as freely as traffic…
the city is now safe from the dreaded attack of the plastic bag!
The fountain makes traffic slow? Jeez, what’s wrong with this city? If Washington DC can cope with the Lincoln Memorial, we should be able to deal with some water squirting in the air.
Regarding your piece on City swimming pools, you said that “…Two years ago, it took an audit of the Department of Recreation and Parks to show half the city’s 54 swimming pools had serious infrastructure problems and six were closed altogether…”
No, it did not. Laura Chick’s audit of Rec and Parks did not expose the swimming pool issue. In 2004, Rec and Parks published a public self-study that clearly shows the problems with City pools. See
http://www.laparks.org/dos/aquatic/poolsReport04/index.htm
Back in 2004, Rec and Parks management was trying to get the Council and the public’s attention on the fact that the continuous cutting and bleeding of that department over the past two decades and the resulting deferred maintenance has already had a severe and costly impact on recreational opportunities for kids in this City.
So where are we in 2008? Rec and Parks was cut 17% — the highest in the City — and the part of their funding that comes from volitile sources like the real estate market was increased to an all-time high, meaning that the losses could easily go higher than the 17%.
Ron, the blame for Rec and Parks’ current status goes squarely on the City Council and Mayor. They’ve not only crippled RAP budget-wise, but they continue to add new parks and facilities while rarely if ever approving additional maintenance and security funding for the new facilities. (Is the grotesque $14 mill bidet in the Harbor considered a park?)
One place to stop the systematic destruction of this department is to FORCE the City Council to add a proper amount maintenance, staff, and Park Ranger funding for each and every new facility they add. This should be in the City Charter.
Another way is to force the City Council to fund RAP at a minimum level to properly maintain, staff, and provide security services for what it already has. That’s the least this City can do for its children.
There’s so much more to say about this situation, but I’ll stop here and let folks digest this much.
-Petra
Bidet? Thanks for planting that image in my mind.
Was maintenance and security for the fountain paid for with item #31 on today’s City Council agenda? It passed unanimously.
http://lacity.org/clk/councilagendas/clkcouncilagendas354500_07232008.pdf
It reads, “relative to funding for additional council services and support to the community of Council District 15.”
And it just happens to be for $50,000.