The city of Los Angeles appears to be getting ready to do another questionable thing, which is to privatize the operation of the Convention Center.

I learned a great deal about the operations of the Convention Center in 1976 when I became the chairman of the Citizens Advisory Committee on the Central Business District Redevelopment Project. If nothing else, I had the longest title I had ever seen.

What I learned is that from inception it had operated at a loss, some very sizable annual losses. I also learned that the reason it lost money is that it didn’t have a hotel connected to it. I suggested to the powers that be that the city exchange a parcel of property with an American Indian tribe and then we could get a hotel-casino built with no problem. Otherwise it just didn’t pencil out. Of course, I was laughed at.

Along comes Staples Center and L.A. Live, and suddenly a hotel is viable, with some assistance from the Community Redevelopment Authority. Now the Convention Center has an outstanding future.

So what is the city going to do after it has lost all that money and just before the Convention Center becomes very profitable? Well, of course the city wants to sell it off to a group that I am sure will make some very nice contributions to some people’s campaign funds. Now I don’t know that for a fact, but based on prior history, I can safely surmise that scenario.

How is it that a company will be willing to spend millions of dollars to update the Convention Center, which on the outside, in my opinion, is the ugliest convention center in the country? Because it knows that the future looks good for the Convention Center now that the two hotels (in one building) have been built. While it takes a few years to book conventions, Los Angeles will now be on top of the list for convention planners, especially during the cold periods and hot periods back east.

Now I haven’t seen the terms of the $480 million debt on the Convention Center that costs $48 million a year to service, which means it will be paid off in less than 15 years (my guess).

I would also guess that someone is going to make a lot of money. And it will not be the city’s taxpayers.

Harold L. Katz is a partner in an accounting firm in Los Angeles, and he is a citizen activist.