Vindication

A number of my Facebook friends took issue with my post mortem on the Quiksilver Pro. I stand vindicated by today's Long Beach Herald.

Quote #1: Quiksilver's vice president of marketing, Mike Matey, told the Herald that dealing with the city had its challenges - and that the company had contingency plans to hold the event elsewhere - but that Quiksilver wanted to make it work in Long Beach and ultimately pulled together with the city...

Quiksilver itself says the court is still out as to whether the Pro event will return to Long Beach next year. Who can blame them? They've seen our city for the amateurs we are. Thank God for the great surf - it may be the saving grace that could bring the Pro back in 2012.

Quote #2: [LB City Manager Charles] Theofan noted those challenges as well. 'I would say that there were some disagreements from the administration's point of view about the festival itself, and there were many things that changed from what [Quiksilver] originally announced in their press release..."

Hence, the reason for retaining an experienced event planning consultant with big-brand credentials to represent the city's interest.

Other Aha! Moments

Theofan said that the city granted Quiksilver an event permit for the competition and surf site - including its merchandise tent... if the Quik Pro N.Y. returns, the city and Quiksilver would most likely have a contract outlining the details of the event.

OMG. It's worse than I thought. Only the most naive of city administrations would allow an event of the magnitude originally permitted to proceed without a contract and without negotiating in the city's best interest.What in the world were they thinking??!!

It has yet to be determined how much the city will be reimbursed for the event.

Ditto the above. For additional commentary, see all of my previous posts on this subject.

Could somebody please talk some sense into our city leadership and persuade them that the investment in an experienced counselor will more than pay for itself in risk mitigation, revenue potential and all-around resident satisfaction? I, for one, would be very willing to offer some names for consideration. It is a wise man who recognizes his own limitations and is confident enough to surround himself with others smarter than he.

Post Mortem

There is an awful lot of residual rancor about the recently concluded Quiksilver Pro. If you believe the gossip, the breakdown is between Quiksilver and the city. And if you believe the media, it's between the residents and the city.
 
Um, is there a common denominator here? Does it start with C?

The dissent need not be water under the bridge. It can serve as a lesson for how we can do this sort of thing bigger and better next time, with clearly defined benefits to the taxpayers.

I believe the success of the entire event was undermined from the start by the appointment of Lenny Remo as the city's chief liaison with Quiksilver. Remo, a professional restaurateur and former City Council member, has served as the city's secretary of labor relations since January. How this qualifies him to negotiate with a global brand highly experienced in large-scale events the world over I cannot begin to imagine. Good intentions aside, Remo was out of his league from the get-go. He didn't stand a chance of realistically envisioning the myriad details, the potential impacts on the city or the ways in which Quiksilver would seek to manipulate logistics to its own advantage. This was no partnership; it was a business contract. And playing David to Quiksilver's Goliath without appropriate ammunition was a naive miscalculation of incredible magnitude.

Rather than relying on local leadership (term used loosely), the city should have retained the services of a qualified special events consultant experienced in big-brand sponsorship to represent our interest. The consultant would have helped us evaluate the opportunity, audit past QS events for purposes of comparison, talk with former host cities, develop a goals statement, itemize desired deliverables, articulate non-negotiables, and facilitate negotiations. The outcome would have been a business plan covering everything from music to BMX demonstrations to liquor sales  -- just some of the items of bickering and dissension. There would have been few if any surprises, as a game plan covering all possible contingencies -- including weather -- would have been in place.

Most important, an experienced consultant would have helped make sure that LB derived more than simple  glory from the event. Increased revenue to local businesses would not have been left to chance, but rather planned for and facilitated through such means as free east-west bus service; an LB visitor card, with embedded coupons to restaurants and retail stores; or other vehicles. In addition, a defined benefit to taxpayers, such as a stipend for repaving our winter/flood-ravaged streets, upgrading the boardwalk or repairing Magnolia Playground, could have been included as a key part of the event design.

There was no need for the last minute waffling about whether and how to proceed following Hurricane Irene, or for the protest march staged by Unsound and other event advocates. A professionally executed, comprehensive event plan would have obviated these completely avoidable circumstances.

A citizens' advisory board would have been another asset to mitigate taxpayer backlash and create buy-in before specific decisions were carved in stone.

There is talk on the street that Quiksilver is now soured on Long Beach and will certainly not return next year. I hope this is not the case. There is still tremendous potential for the 2012 Pro event to be a rousing success both for QS and for LB, if only the proper management steps are taken in advance.

Let LB do the unprecedented: admit to its shortcomings this year, commit to doing better next year, and submit to a new-and-improved management plan to bring home the gold with Quiksilver in 2012.

Forever Starts Tomorrow

No parent should ever have to bury a child. Tomorrow is going to be a black day for Marie and Al Doerbecker. My heart bleeds for them.

Good Night, Irene

It has been forever since I've posted and I feel terribly guilty. But the truth is that while everyone else has been bemoaning how fast the summer is going, I was busy relishing every second of it right from the get-go. Rather than lamenting its passing, I have been focused single-mindedly on appreciating and enjoying the season while it is upon us. Net net: I have ignored my blogging responsibilities. And so, I take a moment tonight to note a few developments and will catch up on others once the Labor Day ritual has been performed.


Of course, the big news of the day is Tropical Storm Irene (formerly Hurricane Irene), which has kept us all glued to our TVs and most of us bound to our homes. As it was unfolding, I was already conscious of the "one day" appeal of this weather system; to wit, "one day you'll regale your grandchildren with tales of where you were and what you saw." We completely flounted the mandatory evacuation order and stayed put. I figured that we live in a big brick house that could withstand pretty much any gale-force wind, but it was never put to the test. Hurricane Irene was downgraded before she ever reach our shores.

We used the weekend as a party invitation. Bloody Marys yesterday, Mimosas today. What could be better? Truth be told, we suffered much more during the rain storm two weeks ago. But Irene was great for an adrenaline jolt, and while I don't wish for a repeat any time soon, we all came out just fine in the end.

That's all I've got for tonight. More later. Good night, Irene.

All Bets Are Off

Saturday morning

If I were a betting woman, I would have lost a big one this weekend. I never thought the City of Long Beach would actually pull off the re-opening of the National Blvd.beach restrooms right on schedule, in time for the Fourth of July weekend, as promised. Rarely have I been so glad to be wrong. What for years was an unsanitary cinder block necessity of last resort has morphed into a tiled mecca with 15 stalls, 4 sinks WITH SOAP, and 2 super-duper hot air hand driers. Yippee!

Our group, men and women alike, was giddy with delight. We kept trekking up the beach to revisit the new haven. Dermot declared that he would be packing a toothbrush the next day.

Sunday afternoon

Alas, no good deed goes unpunished. By this afternoon, our precious new refuge was displaying an ominous resemblance to its filthy forebear. An outsized roll of toilet paper, pilfered from a stall, was laying sodden on the edge of a sink. A wad of tissue was balled up on the floor underneath. A mother was washing her infant in one of the handsinks, and she gifted us her used bathroom tissue next to the faucet when she finished.

As a I stood surveying the scene in frank disbelief, I was momentarily gladdened to see an attendant with a broom and dustpan enter. In fact, I spoke to her to commiserate about the rapid state of disrepair unfolding before our eyes. But alas, after a few half-hearted swipes at some sand accumulated on the floor, she turned and left, leaving the restroom virtually untouched and unchanged by her presence.

I followed her outside to the maintenance truck and asked if she had seen the refuse in the room she had just departed, the one in which she had stood just seconds earlier, the one that she is employed to clean and maintain. Her answer was no. But she assured me that she'd be back later to clean it up. That was at 3:30. At 5:45, I stopped in on my way home to check. No surprises there - nothing had changed.

And I guess that's the bottom line. It's business as usual in Long Beach. It took an outside force (the upcoming Quiksilver Surf Competition) to deliver what the taxpayers had been asking for for years and years -- the simple dignity of a restroom fit for human occupation. And now that we have it, it looks like we may have to wait for Quiksilver to actually arrive in Long Beach to get the simple maintenance we need to keep the restroom in proper sanitary condition.

Or maybe we'll get lucky and I'll turn out to be wrong again. Lightening could strike twice, couldn't it?

Nassau Residents in Bondage

Can I please have $400 million? I need to know by August 1, because if you can't do it, I'll find someone else who will. Need more time to think about it? To figure out how you're going to finance the loan you'll need in order to show me the money? Tell you what. I'll make you a deal. If you can do the math, analyze the long-range implications, consult your advisors, and you decide in my favor, I'll reimburse you for any expenses you incur in the process. But if you decide against me, the costs are on your balance sheet, not mine.

What idiot would take that deal? Apparently, Charles Wang is hoping we will.  We being the taxpayers of Nassau County.

The $400 million in question is the amount of the bond Nassau County will have to float in order to finance a new Coliseum and minor league baseball park at Mitchel Field.  Wang projects that the new complex will throw off at least $14 million a year in sales, as well as additional tax revenues from those sales, which will largely offset the debt service.

Whether or not that is true, and whether or not the project is a good or bad deal for Nassau, incentivizing us to make sure the vote goes his way seems like a stacked deck to me. Wang should either cover the costs of the referendum, however it turns out, as an investment and a show of good faith, or the county should finance it on the merits of the proposal. Paying off financially strapped taxpayers to effect a particular outcome feels suspiciously like graft.

Don't we already have enough of that kind of problem in Nassau without entering into bondage to make that sort of thing official?

Sugo: Don't Go

Sugar is a necessary if hidden ingredient in many pasta sauces. It cuts the acidity of the tomato and enhances the richness of the flavor. But when the sauce is sweet enough to substitute for dessert, or to provoke the onset of diabetes, someone has used a heavy hand. Such was the case at Sugo a few nights ago, where our disappointing meal was gamely delivered by a frazzled server working the crowded room solo. All in all, it was not a great experience, and although I've always enjoyed Sugo's electic dining room as well as it eclectic menu, we will not be returning any time soon without a clean bill of health from our dentist.

A Pothole for Every Pot Roast

The potholes are back at the Waldbaum's parking lot. Driving there is like navigating a moonscape. For a store that is fighting for its life against the backdrop of a parent company in chapter 11, you would think local management would go out of its way to assure that the shopping experience at their location is as accommodating and enjoyable as possible. Not so in Long Beach. I wonder if the local auto body repair shops will honor Waldbaum's coupons?

Catching Up

Somehow, Memorial Day -- the moral equivalent of New Year's in Long Beach -- has come and gone without proper acknowledgement from me. The oversight is especially grievous since this year the momentous beginning of beach season arrived with uncharasterically magnificant weather -- a reason to shout out, if ever there was one.  Nonetheless, I managed to let it pass without comment.

So, too, did I miss the opportunity to publicly observe the closing -- and subsequent reopening -- of the Long Beach Cinema, developments so significant that they made the news pages not only of the Long Beach Herald and Long Beach Patch, but also of Newsday. I am too late to share the photos I took of the shuttered theatre, the paint peeling from its facade and the poster cases emptied of coming attractions, or even the ones of workmen on ladders redressing these wounds as they prepared the theatre for its second debut, which has since come and gone. Shame on me.

I also failed to rail about the sudden renovation of the restrooms on National Blvd. beach.Not that the refurbishment is unwelcome or unneeded. To the contrary, we neighborhood residents who have frequented National Blvd. beach and suffered the filthy cement-block restrooms season after season, we taxpayers who have repeatedly requested modernization of the unsanitary facility year after year, are suddenly being treated to a makeover. Why? Because the Quik Silver Pro Surfing Championship is coming to town this Labor Day, and the substandard men's and ladies rooms to which we locals have been subjected since anyone can remember are apparently not sufficient for the out-of-towners who will flood our beach for 10 days in September. Adding injury to insult, the renovations are taking place as I write this, and will keep the facilities closed until at least July 4 weekend.

Leave it to our wise City Council to inconvenience the taxpayers, when the work could easily have been completed in the spring, well before the Memorial Day beach start. Only in LB would upgrades be undertaken for the comfort of visitors, the sheer number of whom are almost certain to trample the very improvements that will have been completed for their benefit, presumably on our tax dollars. Leaving local residents, once again, to make do with substandard accommodations for which we have paid one way or another (in dollars, inconvenience or both). In other words, it's business as usual here in Long Beach.

End of an Era

It's official.The Olivians have lost a branch. The Conners are leaving and setting up a new homestead in Tampa, FL.

Linda and Chuck and their 3 daughters arrived next door to the Gelfands 10 years ago. Their timing couldn't have been better. My babysitting travesties (plural) were in desperate need of a solution, and Jackie and Allyson Conner were the answer to my prayers.

All of the kids on the block were little then, and the families of West Olive Street bonded together in the best it takes a village tradition. If you came home from work and your kids were missing, it was a sure bet they were at one of the neighbor's, helping themselves to the refrigerator. We naturally gravitated to each other, on the beach and on the weekends. In the early days, we rotated hosting backyard parties, which served as our primary summer social life until the kids got old enough to maraude the neighborhood on their bikes. All the while the Olivians got closer and closer, and became a group fixture on National Blvd. beach, next to the lifeguard mountain. Even as the kids outgrew us, the families remained close, and we adults still occupy the same spot on the sand we have always staked out.

It was at Dermott's big birthday party at the Avenue Cafe this winter that we first learned the Conners were planning to jump ship. I felt the shock waves viscerally. It would truly mark the end of an era. Jackie and Allyson have long since graduated college. Kaley, the youngest Conner daughter, is graduating high school early, by special arrangement, as my older son, Jake, prepares to walk with his senior class. My younger son, Luke,  is 6 feet tall and no longer needs babying (least of all from me).

The Conners are ready for a change.But I'm not so sure I am. I love our little group.I love that our families grew up together and I love the bond that we've shared. I'm a total sentimental fool.

Of course I wish the Conners everything wonderful at their new home. And naturally, we will carry on without them. But I'm secretly imagining the future reunion we might have. Either those of us left behind will descend on them en masse in Tampa, or they will return to the scene of the crime next to the lifeguard mountain where we will surely be sitting, passing the cantelope, sharing gossip and soaking up the rays.

Bon voyage, Conners. We will surely miss you!

Surfing Saga: Chapter 2

This week's LB Herald offers more details about the pending onslaught otherwise known as the Quicksilver Pro surfing competition.  Here's what we now know:

• The top 16 NY surfers will compete in the Empire State Trials in Long Beach on Sept. 2 (the launch of Labor Day weekend).
• The winner will compete in the Quiksilver Pro Trials in Long Beach on Sept. 3.
• The winner of that will compete with 33 other world-class surfers in the Quiksilver Pro New York, taking place in Long Beach from Sept. 4 (Labor Day) through Sept. 15.
• It will be one of  the largest surfing contests in the country.
• It will offer a $1 million prize purse - more than twice the pay out of any other event on the world tour.
• The event is expected to attract thousands of spectators to our shore.

Our city manager, Charles Theofan, says the event will be a "revenue generator" for the Allegria Hotel, local shops and restaurants, and even enterprising homeowners seeking to rent accommodations to the flood of humanity that will overtake the city. He also says that Quiksilver will be covering the costs of police, sanitation and other municipal support services.

What he doesn't say -- and what the Herald does not report -- is how this monstrous event is going to benefit local taxpayers. What's in it for us?

Will Quiksilver be paying a stipend to the city to compensate us for the extraordinary inconvenience the event will create for local residents? A stipend that could be used for tax relief, or to repave winter-ravaged streets, or to upgrade the boardwalk, or to landscape the municipality? Or to create a reserve fund for homeowners and businesses who sustain damage as a result of the hoards converging on or grazing our property as they migrate towards the beach? Or blocking our driveways and intersections?

There has been no public referendum, no official communication arriving in our mailboxes, no emails from the city, no direct outreach from our elected or appointed leaders to inform us about any aspect of the event at all. In fact, if I didn't read the Herald or have my ear to my neighborhood grapevine,  I might not have any inkling of what is about to come to town..

Imagine walking out of your home Labor Day weekend with cooler and beach chair in hand, only to confront an army of strangers overtaking your block on their way to your spot on the sand! In Long Beach, that would be heresy. And you know what happens to heretics: they get burned at the stake. That may be too extreme for the Quiksilver Pro collaborators, but if I were them, I'd be making sure that the largest event in our city's history turns out to be a sure-fire success.

Reading Room Ruminations

A strong public library with well-stocked stacks, a diverse cultural calendar and an engaging program of activities is central to any vibrant community. So when the budget for these core offerings is cut in order to accommodate increases in personnel and related overhead costs, something is definitely rotten in Denmark.

The LB library budget put forth for 2011-2012 actually decreases expenditures for essential items including books, films, sound recordings, audio-visual rentals, and periodicals and other materials, while increasing the line items for personnel, insurance, retirement contributions, social security and health expenses. In fact, the proposed spend on basic media decreases 7%, while the personnel expense increases 1.5% and related expenses increase 11.9%! 

The math just doesn't add up to the kind of library asset that we can or should fund without challenge. Something surely stinks right here in LB.