Sea Festival’s Chris Pook still won’t tell us how he’s spending the public’s money. Maybe he’ll talk to you
By Dave Wielenga

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

Chris Pook still doesn’t want to talk about how he’s spending the public’s money—not to The District, anyway, not until we write something nice about the way he’s running the Long Beach Sea Festival.

“At this time, in light of your article last week, we see no value in sitting down with you,” Pook wrote on May 15, his latest e-mailed rejection of a District request for a live interview.

Pook was referring to The District’s May 9 story, “You’ve Been Pook’d!” which cited city documents showing he has run the Sea Festival for the past two years without a signed contract, without securing promised sponsorships and without delivering a promised financial return to the city. Meanwhile, Pook received more than $100,000 in city subsidies, a monthly salary of $6,500 plus expenses, a city-paid assistant and secretary, as well as uncounted hours of work by city staff.

Pook sent his latest e-mail before reading The District’s May 16 story, “Sand Trap?” The article quoted local business representatives who charged that Pook’s use of city officials to pursue Sea Festival sponsorships raises the specter of a “pay-to-play” connection between sponsorships and city favors.

“The appropriate time [for an interview] would have been before you wrote the [first] article,” Pook maintained in his e-mail.
Unfortunately, Pook took more than a week to respond to multiple interview requests for that article—two left on a pair of telephone answering machines and another left in person with his assistant, Gemma Bannon.

Pook finally phoned on May 8, after The District had gone to press. He said he’d been out of town. He accused The District of not trying hard enough to contact him, insisting that another reporter had reached him. He said messages should have been left with city manager Jerry Miller and city department chiefs Phil Hester (Parks and Recreation) and David Ashman (Special Events). Actually, The District had requested interviews or information about the Sea Festival from those officials; like Pook, none responded.

Pook has subsequently refused to communicate with The District in person or by phone, instead sending occasional e-mails. Even an interview request through the Special Events Department—per Pook’s earlier suggestion—didn’t help. “I’m sorry, but Chris Pook doesn’t work out of this office,” said the receptionist. “He occasionally comes in for meetings, but this isn’t the place to call to reach him.”

Pook’s latest communiqué did offer The District at least a ray of hope.

“We will wait till the City Manager’s Report to Council is made on May 22nd and we have seen what further writings emerge in your ‘publication’ and the implications of those writings,” wrote Pook.

It was unclear what Pook meant by “we”—whether he was using it in the royal sense to refer to himself, or whether he was declaring that all taxpayer-paid city officials involved with the Sea Festival are forbidden to speak with The District until he gives them permission.

But it’s clear what kind of “writings” induce Pook to grant interviews. After he met with the Press-Telegram’s editorial board, the paper’s May 9 edition featured 508 words of unverified information and unqualified praise for Pook’s stewardship of Sea Festival.

Full disclosure: I worked for the Press-Telegram for 23 years. Big surprise: Pook remembers.

“It is dissappointing (sic) that the Dave Wielenga of the P-T days is not working on this story,” Pook lamented in a May 14 e-mail, “as he would have assembled all the facts before writing the story and not putting together convenient bits and pieces that make for controversial reading.”

A day later, Pook was still bemoaning the journalistic principles of The District compared to the Press-Telegram as he delivered his latest rejection of an interview request.

“Again I would say to you it is very dissappointing (sic) that you have decided to listen to the words of a few ‘disenchanted’ people,” he wrote, “and not look at the entire Sea Festival project and what it can mean in the big picture for The City of Long Beach in the long run.”

Or what it can mean in the big picture for Pook—unless, by now, he considers those the same thing.

Tags: Chris Pook