WARMING UP TO THE ICE AGE
Long Beach’s deficit just hit $19 million, bus fare was increased, the city auditor wants to go after people with outstanding parking tickets, the city manager/mayor wanted to close down the main library—yet the DLBA, seemingly in its own world, wants to put in a $300,000 ice-skating rink [Diana Bosetti’s “The Ice Rink Cometh,” March 11]? Are you serious? Sounds like another municipally financed boondoggle to me.
CHRIS YANG
Long Beach
Via letters@thedistrictweekly.com

As a member of the downtown business community, I’m very excited about this project and have been from the beginning. I’m baffled that some people think bringing 10,000, 20,000 or 30,000 people into the area is going to HURT retailers. What planet do you people live on? If an ice rink or any other event/promotion can get those people here, it’s our job as the business community to convert those visitors into eaters and shoppers. Getting people into Long Beach and giving locals another reason to come experience what downtown has to offer is all we can ask.
BLUFF HEIGHTS MATT
Via thedistrictweekly.com

An ice-skating rink has already been tried at the Queen Mary. To my knowledge, it didn’t produce the numbers that were anticipated.
JUAN PARDELL
Via thedistrictweekly.com

One thing hurting downtown is it has nothing to get the eastside residents down there except the aquarium. If they can do the ice rink and make it feel family-friendly, it could be a successful draw. And if people from the eastside go down there to skate, maybe they’ll stay and have lunch and support some restaurants. And if they do that, maybe someday there will be some retail available for them to buy some things. (Now I’m talking crazy.)
LB RESIDENT
Via thedistrictweekly.com

HOMELESS PEOPLE, PLEASE GO . . . SOMEWHERE
My guess is that Caitlin Cutt expects readers to thank her for putting a human face on the city’s homeless citizens [“The Greeter,” March 4]. Not me. Bob Hurt and his brethren are a blight on our city as bleak as any of the redevelopment district projects mentioned elsewhere in your pages. I don’t know what the solution is, but let’s face the fact that life in Long Beach is NOT enhanced by city hall’s accepting attitude toward the guys who pee on my neighbor’s front door, block public access to the beach with their bags of garbage, and shit on the bikeway, all the while scaring off potential residents who could actually contribute to the tax base.
BRIAN
Via letters@thedistrictweekly.com