We’re paying too much for hotel deals
Re “Mayor Brokers Hotel Deal,” Oct. 18
The incredible cash cow of the Convention Center continues. When the center annex was built, we were told it would boost hotel occupancy, then hovering below 50%. Upon completion of the annex, the new word was that the area needed upscale hotels to help with convention bookings.
Now the Los Angeles City Council offers $290 million for another hotel to help the Convention Center escape the need for $20 million a year of public money to offset its losses.
The city’s Community Development Department has a dim track record of siphoning precious tax dollars into the pockets of developers while ignoring the very real needs of housing for the needy and urgent urban renewal.
We need to end the pork of costly circular reasoning and do the taxpayers a favor. Let the so-called free market dictate how many hotel rooms the Convention Center needs.
FRED GLIENNA
South Pasadena
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