Oops, they did it again.
Here we are, on the eve of the US semiquincentennial, and LA officials continue to load expenses and uncertainty on a Fourth of July parade in the San Fernando Valley.
Last month, Mayor Karen Bass’ office balked at covering the cost of traffic control and street closures for the parade –– for the first time in the event’s more than 50-year history.
Now, the city might tack on $5K for “no parking” signs along with other sundry expenses.
How much, exactly? No one knows.
Parade organizers, who have rallied to fundraise so the show can go on, say the city’s bills are just estimates; that they don’t know how much the whole shebang will cost; and –– get this –– that Bass’ office even suggested changing the date of the parade to save money.
This is silly-season stuff.
Change the date of a Fourth of July parade? To when, exactly?
The city finds $20,000 too steep a cost? Get real. That’s about 0.0001% of LA’s $15 billion budget for the coming fiscal year.
And LA waits until the eleventh hour to pull the rug, or the street closure funds, out from under the parade? And: Even at this late date, it can’t or won’t provide a reliable inventory of costs? Ridiculous.
If city brass intended to stiff the beloved Sunland-Tujunga Fourth of July Parade –– be it out of parsimony or political pique on the nation’s 250th birthday blowout –– it should have leveled with organizers months ago.
It’s almost as if Bass and a lunatic faction of socialists on the City Council don’t want this parade to happen.
It’s almost as if they don’t like the USA (even as they “lead” a swath of it).
It’s almost as if they’d rather spite President Donald Trump –– and his grand, dramatic and patriotic semiquincentennial blowout –– than help the city’s own residents stage a parade, enjoy tradition and celebrate a special national milestone.
It would not be the first time petty political animus held sway.
Also this year, the California Coastal Commission, a notoriously intrusive far-left panel, effectively forced the cancellation of a long-running July 4 fireworks show in Long Beach.
Commissioners claimed that starting this year (not next year or last year or any other year but the nation’s 250th), a 15- or 20-minute fireworks display would simply cause too much coastal pollution –– a laughable notion in a major port city where cargo ships foul the environment every day.
LA’s claim that suddenly, this year, $20K is too much to bear, is no less flimsy.
It seems, in fact, that there might not be any “oops” about it. City officials are not that innocent.
