CALmatters Commentary: State busy offloading 2 civic embarrassments
We human beings are tempted to shirk responsibility when our lapses of judgment result in negative consequences.
Rather than owning up and handling those consequences, we often try to shift the onus or remediation costs to others.
Politics is rife with examples of the syndrome, such as what happened when Southern California began to see portions of its film industry gravitate to other states and nations with lower production costs. Rather than adjusting operations to remain competitive, the industry successfully pressured state officials for subsidies from taxpayers.
Currently, there are two other noteworthy examples of offloading civic embarrassments.
We human beings are tempted to shirk responsibility when our lapses of judgment result in negative consequences.
Rather than owning up and handling those consequences, we often try to shift the onus or remediation costs to others.
Politics is rife with examples of the syndrome, such as what happened when Southern California began to see portions of its film industry gravitate to other states and nations with lower production costs. Rather than adjusting operations to remain competitive, the industry successfully pressured state officials for subsidies from taxpayers.
Currently, there are two other noteworthy examples of offloading civic embarrassments.
The first hot mess is the Queen Mary, a 1930s-vintage ocean liner that the City of Long Beach, flush with money from its oil-producing tidelands, foolishly purchased 54 years ago. Local officials thought the ship would become a floating hotel, museum and the catalyst for repositioning Long Beach as a tourist destination, but it nev
We human beings are tempted to shirk responsibility when our lapses of judgment result in negative consequences.
Rather than owning up and handling those consequences, we often try to shift the onus or remediation costs to others.
Politics is rife with examples of the syndrome, such as what happened when Southern California began to see portions of its film industry gravitate to other states and nations with lower production costs. Rather than adjusting operations to remain competitive, the industry successfully pressured state officials for subsidies from taxpayers.
Currently, there are two other noteworthy examples of offloading civic embarrassments.
The first hot mess is the Queen Mary, a 1930s-vintage ocean liner that the City of Long Beach, flush with money from its oil-producing tidelands, foolishly purchased 54 years ago. Local officials thought the ship would become a floating hotel, museum and the catalyst for repositioning Long Beach as a tourist destination, but it nev
In summary
California is seeing two current examples of offloading civic fiascos rather than dealing with them directly.
We human beings are tempted to shirk responsibility when our lapses of judgment result in negative consequences.
Rather than owning up and handling those consequences, we often try to shift the onus or remediation costs to others.
Politics is rife with examples of the syndrome, such as what happened when Southern California began to see portions of its film industry gravitate to other states and nations with lower production costs. Rather than adjusting operations to remain competitive, the industry successfully pressured state officials for subsidies from taxpayers.
A former Queen Mary operator neglected the ship and failed to perform more than $20 million in critical repair work, resulting in “significant issues and damage” to the historic vessel before the operator filed for bankruptcy, the city of Long Beach alleges in a recent court filing.
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The city filed legal action last week as part of ongoing bankruptcy hearings for current Queen Mary operator Eagle Hospitality Trust, which filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January. The ship’s lease is set to go to auction in May.
Former operator Urban Commons, which signed a 66-year lease to run the city-owned ship in 2016, created Eagle Hospitality Trust to list on the Singapore Stock Exchange in 2019. Eagle Hospitality took over as the ship’s operator last year after Urban Commons suffered a string of financial problems. However, Urban Commons’ limited liability corporation, Urban Commons Queensway, remains liable to the city under the lease agreement.