By Susan J. Hartley Santa Monica\ ment? Wouldn’t it have been preferable to provide jobs for our local people and provide income for our local tax bases?
According to your article, this New York consulting firm concluded that the Promenade is dominated by transients who sit on the public benches all day. We spent $54,000 for that! They suggest stadium seating! Then the transients will have more places to sit all day? The New York consulting firm seems to have confused the Promenade with a living room. Then they had the gall, for $54,000, to suggest that the dinosaurs be removed. Why? For more seating — I suppose for the transients! What about the rest of us?
Keep the dinosaurs! Declare them a historic landmark if that’s what it takes. Get the New Yorkers out, get a refund, and if you’re going to squander our money, squander it locally. Even better, eliminate the squandering and instead of this piecemeal approach, i.e., new transit mall, then new Promenade, then new adjacent areas, then new Santa Monica Place, get a master plan together using local consultants. And please keep the dinosaurs!
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 22, 2002. Read the original PDF.