An old horror film was sadly, emotionally updated at last evening’s City Council meeting – “The Invasion of the Heart Snatchers.”
Hundreds of heartbroken members of the Save the Ice Arena movement, from articulate tykes in ice dancing dresses to tall adults speaking from the innermost reaches of their unquenched souls, glided quietly, respectfully into overloaded Council Chambers to plead for mercy.
O’Leary to the Rescue?
[img]1379|right|Mehaul O’Leary||no_popup[/img]And it turns out they can cling to a strand of extremely longshot mercy for a few more hours. Perhaps heroically, the well-known, often invoked softie Irish heart of Councilman Mehaul O’Leary dashed to an evident rescue.
Saving the Culver City Ice Arena was not on the Council’s formal agenda, and that was crucial to the presentation. Making the case was restricted to the casual preliminary period known colloquially as Public Comment when, theoretically, the only comments are made by members of the public. Dialoguing with Council members is prohibited. Usually. Not always.
Last evening was an exception.
Declaring that he held unresolved questions about the pending vanquishment of the Ice Arena that draws almost 5,000 skaters weekly to Sepulveda Boulevard, Mr. O’Leary said he wanted to agendize the matter for more penetrating study at the next Council meeting in two weeks, Monday, Jan. 27.
Vote Was Overwehlming
He said, and all four colleagues who unanimously embraced his request, emphasized to the anxious crowd that it was highly unlikely the Council, or anyone else, could reverse the new lease the property owner already has executed with a lessee known corporately as Planet Granite.
Mr. O’Leary, however, left the door slightly ajar, teasingly, tantalizingly telling the edge-of-their-seats supporters that “I am an eternal optimist. This is a new day. Quit crying and be confident.”
In the shadowy regions of his mind, the immigrant from Dublin entertains informal hunches that potential glitches could emerge even though the Ice Arena is due to fade into the past tense in less than three weeks.
Supporters of the Ice Arena – frequently mothers with young daughters in hand and ordinary looking men in oversized, vivid colored hockey sweaters – reminded the City Council that 11,000 have signed their Save the Ice Arena petition. As several noted, “that is 11,000 voters.”
Engaging as the child speakers were, possibly the most persuasive testimony came from parent after parent, moms and dads equally, who said the seductive experience of the Ice Arena magically transformed their children who had not necessarily been a fit in other sections of society.
Can You Top This? No
Who can resist those arguments?
Sign-carriers double-lined the walls to squeeze in the last person. It was Breathing Room Only. They would have dangled from the ceiling if someone had remembered a ladder. A half-dozen television cameras memorialized the moment.
Their arms figuratively outstretched, dozens of supporters – led by former Olympic champion Tai Babilonia – streamed to the podium. Displaying a yearning eloquence born of abject desperation, they begged the relatively powerless Council members to save their 52-year-old building, scheduled to morph into a different enterprise in 19 days.
For days, City Hall officials openly have been saying:
“We empathize with you. But as government, we cannot interfere in a transaction between parties in the private sector. Yes, we know your monthly rent has been nearly doubled to $68,000. Yes, we know a rock-climbing and yoga business is scheduled to take over the space on Feb. 2. But we lack the authority to step in.”
