[img]1|right|||no_popup[/img]As a wounded veteran of the divorce courts, I am sharp enough to espy a vendetta when a grunting, hairy-faced, stoop-shouldered bully clambers up the steps of City Hall sporting a gigantic sandwich board that reads “I Am a Vendetta.”

This partially explains City Hall’s hamhanded bullying of landlord Michael Karagozian and the Culver City Ice Arena for the past five weeks.

Why? That is the intriguing question that remains unsolved.

Had this been Frieda’s Florid Estuary for Fanciful Flowers instead of the ice rink that serves thousands of Westside families a week, City Hall would have kept on snoring and ignoring.

What bothers the City Hall denizens so much? Don’t know. But we will eventually.
If City Manager John Nachbar and his aides had borrowed a cadre of military intelligentsia and devoted months to carefully plotting the downfall of the Arena, the splintering of Mr. Karagozian’s business, of Mr. Karagozian’s reputation – instead of merely stumbling into this public relations disaster, he and they could not have performed more abysmally. 

What makes this choking scenario so unpleasant to swallow is that previously I only have known Mr. Nachbar as a low-key, eminently decent, faultlessly honest government employee. I like him.

From the start, City Hall’s stance toward the Ice Arena has been, “I am the boss and you are nothing.” How governmental of them.

As much as I dread taking medicine, equally I would hate to believe the negative assessment of Mr. Nachbar’s latest profile.

What happens to the vulnerable minds of otherwise sweet people when they pledge their fealty to government? Were this private enterprise, the chopping block would have been filled to capacity after City Hall repeatedly committed public relations hari-kari throughout the Arena fiasco.

City Hall’s remarkably poor judgment – there is a slew of guilty henchmen – renews the lie that government is your friend. Only a fool (read: liberal/progressive/leftist) would believe that.

If you gargle the nonsense that has been emanating from City Hall for the past month – “The Arena’s ammonia situation presents a public health hazard, and as elected officials, protecting keeping the public safe is our No. 1 responsibility” – then you believe, pal, that government is your friend.

If they had been brokering honestly about the alleged ammonia threat, they would have handled the purported crisis quietly. Instead, they decided to stomp on the drums by  hourly embarrassing themselves while trying to humiliate any skeptic.

Worse, our suddenly intensely secretive hometown government, comprised of our neighbors, our family members, has let us down.

For the way that City Hall has humiliated thousands of loyal skating families and Mr. Karagozian’s business, they deserve the P.U. Litzer Prize.