Wachs is Right

While the Los Angeles Business Journal feels obliged to castigate L.A. City Councilman Joel Wachs for his actions regarding the downtown sports arena (“Delusional Wachs,” Editorial, Sept. 22) I feel compelled to offer congratulations to the councilman for doing that for which he was elected. He’s guarding the purse strings of the harried taxpayers while the rest of the council is falling all over itself in its rush to buy the pie-in-the-sky downtown arena proposal.

I have a couple of quick questions. First: Where are the thousands of jobs and all the hotels and restaurants that were to follow construction of the new Convention Center? Why is nobody talking about that? Second: If the downtown arena will also bring restaurants, hotels and jobs, why was the hotel torn down that stood for many years between the Forum and Hollywood Park? Shall we believe that a hotel, with its restaurant and jobs, is slated for reconstruction near the downtown arena?

Get real folks: Years ago, the Santa Monica City Council bought pie-in-the-sky from Colorado Place developers. Take a drive by that monument to gullibility.

If the L.A. Councilmembers really believe anything more than an arena will be built to further clog the downtown arteries, I’ve got some land in Florida that would make a great hockey rink if we could only freeze it.

Face it: People are not staying in hotels, patronizing local restaurants in droves or strolling leisurely throughout the area at the present site of the Lakers and Kings. What is going to make them do so because the venue is moved downtown?

The arrogance of the developers in threatening the citizens with abandonment of their project if they don’t get their way should prompt all the taxpayers to send bon voyage telegrams.

JOHN D. YOZZO

Lina Graphics

Los Angeles