Wednesday, July 8, 2009

CM PRESS # 745

LIGA AZTECA BASKETBALL

In case you missed it, Liga Azteca Basketball ( or in English, Aztec Basketball Leagues) 2422 S. Shelton Street, Santa Ana, Ca. 92707 is the outfit that the Parks and Recreation Commission decided to rent the City of Costa Mesa's only indoor basketball court to on Sundays, after the City kicks out the Costa Mesa residents who presently use the court.

The CM PRESS previously brought up the issue of possible extra wear and tear on the facility because of the intense use proposed by Liga Azteca Basketball.

Our concern then and now is that Costa Mesa taxpayers may get stuck with wear and tear bills, years after Liga Azteca Basketball has left the scene. When we brought this up, our concerns were dismissed out of hand by the geniuses on the Parks and Recreation Commission.

So, what are some of the numbers that may indicate the level of wear and tear on the court, the restrooms, public areas, and the parking lot and other areas?

According to the owner of Azteca (it's a for profit outfit), they plan to use the court for 8 hours and to run 10 games with 20 teams during those 8 hours.

As you probably know, a basketball team may have as many as 15 players (ABA), and at any one time there are 5 players from each team on the court along with 3 officials.

If Azteca follows official ABA standards, they'll also have an official timer and an official scorer. Then, there are coaches and others involved with each team (maybe 5 people?).

Will food be sold to audience members? We don't know. But, it's likely. So are we looking at roach coaches in the parking lot or something else? What about family members who may not want to watch the games, will they be using other parts of the facility?

Azteca told the PRC that about 200 people show up to watch the games.

So, if we use a little Kentucky windage and make a rough estimate, we can say there may be approximately 500 people involved in some way with Azteca at the Downtown Civic Center on Sundays.

Of course, they may not all be there at the same time, as people will be coming and going, but no matter how you slice it, we could have a large crowd there on Sundays.

Also, even though many people will come in the same cars, we may still have 200 cars (?) in the parking lot on Sundays and most of those cars will arrive from Santa Ana and find themselves in and adding to the traffic nightmare near Triangle Square.

Remember, don't use the above figures as gospel--they're just our very rough estimate based on what little we have been able to learn about this.

Naturally, the Parks and Recreation Commissioners didn't ask questions that would have given us more accurate figures.

Maybe the City Council should get rid of the PRC and use the almost $ 5,000 that this commission costs us to fund concerts in the park.
# # #

IF THERE'S NO MONEY, THERE'S NO MONEY!
(Sometimes, adults just have to say "no" to kids)

The economy stinks. Your income is way off from what it usually is. You don't know how you're going to pay the bills.

You come home from your second job and your wife nags you to spend more money on sports and similar things for the kids. You're worried about putting food on the table.

She tells you that the kids are going to turn into violent street criminals and terrorize the city if you don't spend money on sports and concerts and similar items. And, she says you also have to pay for these things for the neighbors' kids so they won't terrorize people.

You tell her that there's only a hundred bucks left in the bank account and you don't see much money coming down the pike and that you think it would be prudent to try to save that hundred bucks for food and other necessities and maybe some unexpected emergencies.

She whines and cries and shows you pictures of kids and tells you that you're ignorant and mean spirited and that it takes a village to raise a kid, and how kids are our future, and blah, blah, blah,blah....

Then, all her friends from the Bleeding Heart Social Club and Left Wing Kook Society also start calling you names. They tell you to go out and find a third and fourth job to raise more money."It's for the kids, you lousy, heartless bum. You just have to bring in more money."

That, dear friends, is a dramatization based on true events, as we say in Hollywood. And, it describes pretty much what happened at the City Council meeting last night.

The adults on the City Council--Mayor Mansoor, and Councilmembers Bever and Monahan-- withstood withering fire from a crowd of nags that looked to us to be Foley supporters.

Despite all the heat they were taking last night, and earlier from the usual kooks who drool their numbnut opinions on the pages of the almost daily Daily Pilot, the trio showed backbone and did the right thing by cutting out programs that would be nice to have, but which are not necessary.

Sometimes, adults just have to say "no" to children. Children (and even adults with child like brains) just want ice cream and cookies all day and all night.

Monahan was particularly good as he pointed out more than once that the City only has about $1.5 million in unrestricted reserves.

Folks, $1.5 million may sound like a lot to many of us, but it's about like you or I having $100 in the bank. It's nothing compared to the on-going expenses of this city.

The know-nothings in the audience didn't get it. There was a parade of know-nothings going to the podium where they emoted. Many just repeated the same stupid things as they stood under a large slide show of smiling children that we guess was put together at the request of Foley.

We wonder if Leece will take pause as to the direction in which she seems to be heading after she got praise from some of the know-nothing kooks who want the Westside to remain a ghetto.

If the kooks like Leece's direction, then she ought to know that she's going the wrong way.

We get ambushed by a couple of libs

As the CM PRESS was leaving the meeting, a couple of libs stopped us and sneered some typical crap about how kids would become criminals now.

We asked how they knew that, and one of them replied (we kid you not) that when she was four years old, there was a mean kid in her neighborhood, but he was turned around by getting involved in some programs that are similar to those that were cut from the budget.

We asked her to explain how it is, if the lefty social programs work so well in Costa Mesa, that our violent crime rate is up thirty-six percent over last year yet some of the programs have been in place for twenty or thirty years.

She replied that she "doesn't have all the answers." Right. In fact, she has few of the answers. Like most libs, she's simply working on emotion.

Emotion won't pay the bills and it won't correct the systemic problems we have in Costa Mesa.

We also noted at the meeting last night there was frequent use of the euphemism "dense areas" to describe the slums that successive city councils have kept in this city. The lefties kept saying that the kids in the dense areas need the mobile recreation van and similar things.

No they don't. What they need is for the City to remove the slums. Start thinning them out. No slums = no slum problems.

One lib told us that the City doesn't have the money to thin out the slums as we've suggested for years.

Well, maybe it doesn't right now. But it did in the past and will in the future.

You see, the City doesn't have to pay all cash to buy a slum building. It can use available cash for down payments and make monthly payments, just as you or I do when we buy property.

Then, the City can raze the buildings and put in pocket parks instead of funding a mobile recreation vehicle.

Oh, and by the way, that mobile recreation vehicle seems to be parked on Shalimar (one of those, er, "dense areas") much of the time. And, its exact location on the street is often right across from the pocket park that was created after a previous city council bought and tore down a slum building. So, if there's a park, why do they need the recreation van?

We suggested the City could save some money by getting rid of the useless Parks and Recreation Commission.

PS: In case you're one of Foley's supporters, and thus not too bright, the above story is called a m e t a p h o r. You see, the husband who comes home to be nagged represents Mansoor, Bever and Monahan. Home is City Hall. The nags are...well...you can probably figure it out for yourself from this point.
# # #
COUNCIL PUTS OFF THE DAY WORKER ISSUE UNTIL A MEETING LATER NEXT MONTH
Maybe they read CM PRESS # 744, in which we pointed out that there may be a First Amendment problem with the proposed ordinance because of the missing job center element.
# # #
SHOPPING CART ORDINANCE PASSES--5-0 vote
Once it goes into effect (in a little more than a month) stores with 15 or more carts will have to find a way to keep them from being removed from the property.
# # #
Those are our opinions. Thanks for reading them.

No comments:

Post a Comment

 http://frankspeech.com/