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Letters to the Editor: First he’s a ‘deplorable’ and now he’s a ‘Grinch’?

Glendale Police Chief Carl Povilaitis, Mayor Ara Najarian and City Councilman Vartan Gharpetian leave a Nov. 22 event to mark the opening of a temporary ice rink on the parking lot behind Glendale City Hall. “There are some grinches out there who wanted to steal Christmas..." Najarian said, referring to naysayers of the $500,000 installation. A reader writes to comment on being called a Grinch by the mayor.
(Tim Berger/Glendale News-Press)
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Grinch. Really?

First I was in Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” and now I am Ara Najarian’s “grinch” because I think spending $500,000 on a temporary skating rink is too much. That apparently makes me anti-holiday.

I find it very interesting that when you don’t agree with the hair-brained idea of a politician you get branded as stupid. What makes them so much smarter than me? I have no idea.

Then our mayor has the nerve to let us know he hopes to recoup $150,000 on ticket sales and skate rentals, making the actual cost to taxpayers (hopefully) just $350,000.

I am no math genius but by my calculations at $12 per ticket and $5 skate rental (assuming no one has their own skates) they are going to need in excess of 13,500 customers to reach their goal. Seems like a lofty goal to me.

The street in front of my house needs to be completely replaced. Pothole patching crews are around every other week. A couple of more traffic officers would have been a nice use of the $500,000 due to the horrible traffic problems in Glendale.

I am sure that many “Grinch”-like residents can think of more good uses for the money. Maybe next year.

I hope we hear what the actual revenue turns out to be. I can hardly wait to be pleasantly surprised.

Jim Kussman
Glendale

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In lieu of the temporary, expensive ice rink behind City Hall, a traveling Glendale area bibliophile like myself might have hoped that at least the Glendale Central Library would have remained open the last Saturday of November.

Instead it made it a typical, four consecutive day’s worth of not being open — kind of an extended holiday.

At least the county libraries in the area were all open on Saturday, and the La Crescenta site was open on the first Sunday of December.

Harvey Pearson
Los Feliz

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