Reviewing the ‘City Hall Circus’

Bravo to The Times for printing the facts objectively about the mess in Long Beach resulting from unrestrained and unplanned development!

Mayor Kell is typically being demagogic when he says there is “plenty of blame to go around” for the mushrooming apartment houses where single-family dwellings stood a few months ago. He and three other members of the City Council alone approved this sellout. What Kell really means is there is plenty of blame to try to spread around, which he is, of course, trying to do.

Yet even Kell is exceeded in artful dodging by Councilwoman Jan Hall, who managed to lead both the city of Long Beach and the RTD into disaster simultaneously and then duck responsibility for both.

Not mentioned in your coverage was the incredible ineptitude displayed by Kell, Hall and company, in the matter of the airport and the Pandora’s box of noise and pollution that has opened up. While other cities have been going in the direction of placing airports away from city centers and population, our council, of course, is going in precisely the opposite direction and trying to expand one in a prime residential section of our city!

One who has followed the City Hall circus would, of course, expect a “solution” from Kell and Hall for the parking problem they have created; they want to harass a tiny, politically unprotected minority of small boat owners who cause probably less than one-tenth of 1% of the problem (“Long Beach Thinks Again About Paving of Greenbelt,” Times, Dec. 4). Thus they can continue to flail around while giving the superficial impression of doing something.

Finally, to call the Long Beach Planning Department ineffectual is to be unduly charitable. They have proven themselves to be the Keystone Kops of urban planning.

One fears the inmates are running the asylum. Please keep your spotlight focused; it may perchance do some good.

JACK L. MORROW

Long Beach