CommentsHERE’S WHAT I KNOW-LA hikers aren’t too pleased with the four-month shutdown for pipe replacement work but there’s another issue that seems to be raising the ire of many Runyon Canyon Park regulars.
It seems back in November, the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks agreed to a cozy corporate branding deal for a basketball court part of the way up the hiking trail. (Photo shows planned site on former tennis court.) The streetwear brand Pink + Dolphin will pay about $260 K for an expensive retaining wall and the court, which will sport the company’s logo. If that weren’t enough, the deal also includes a water fountain for both people and dogs that will be branded with AQUAhydrate, a company whose owners include Ron Burkle, Mark Wahlberg, and Sean “Diddy” Combs. (Why is this sounding like an episode of Entourage?)
The plans didn’t exactly ingratiate Runyon Canyon regulars and the neighbors who packed a special Hollywood Hills West Neighborhood Council meeting earlier this week, wanting to know why their opinions hadn’t been solicited and why the city approved the court without demanding an Environmental Impact Report or conducting sound tests. The 2 ½ hour meeting ended with neighborhood council members voting unanimously to pass a motion opposing the commercialization of the park and the basketball court.
Pushing through decisions without community input and with a decided lack of transparency seems to be the playbook for the Department of Recreation and Parks. See the controversy over the AngelFest three-day multistage extravaganza in the Sepulveda Basin area, abutting and including the Wildlife Reserve.
Plenty of cities have co-opted their sports stadiums for cash and have done so back to the 1926 naming of Wrigley Field. The upswing since the 90s has left more than a few fans refusing to use the corporate moniker – or maybe the ever-changing names are too confusing. In my home state of New Jersey, an arena named after the then-governor went through a turn as the Continental Airlines Arena and is now the Izod Center. Who could keep that straight?
Corporate naming rights do infuse revenue to cash-strapped publicly-funded facilities. And there’s the allure to multi-gazillionaires like David Geffen and Eli Broad.
However, where do we draw the line? If we offer naming rights to a water fountain, what about the White House, the Capitol Building, or the Statue of Liberty?
The Department of Recreation and Parks also needs to be more transparent in its decisions that might impact the environment and the community-at-large.
(Beth Cone Kramer is a successful Los Angeles writer and a columnist for CityWatch.) Photo: LA Curbed. Prepped for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
