It may be complicated.

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In less than two months from now on May 16, 2017, the City Council is scheduled to hear an appeal of a city staff-proffered draft Environmental Impact Report offered to justify the proposed Belmont Plaza Aquatics Center. The draft EIR contends that Harry Bridges Park isn't even feasible to consider for a public pool.

[Draft EIR text] The Harry Bridges Memorial Park is a 4.1-acre park located within the Tidelands on the Pier J waterfront at Queens Highway and Harbor Scenic Drive in the City of Long Beach. The site consists of turf, trees, and small facilities for outside events. The site was considered because it does not contain major structures and because of its location near existing public use areas such as the Queen Mary, the Long Beach Arena, and the Aquarium of the Pacific.

However, the Harry Bridges Memorial Park was designated as part of the parkland mitigation for the development of the Aquarium of the Pacific and Rainbow Harbor to replace recreational open space in Shoreline Park funded under the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) Act. Under Section 6(f)(3) of the LWCF Act, the Harry Bridges Memorial Park may not be converted to uses other than public outdoor recreation uses.

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LBREPORT.com notes that the federal law actually says: "No property acquired or developed with assistance under this section shall, without the approval of the Secretary, be converted to other than public outdoor recreation uses. The Secretary shall approve such conversion only if he finds it to be in accord with the then existing comprehensive statewide outdoor recreation plan and only upon such conditions as he deems necessary to assure the substitution of other recreation properties of at least equal fair market value and of reasonably equivalent usefulness and location."

So...is letting a permanently constructed amphitheater to consume federally-acquired parkland, for events we presume would include commercial pay-to-attend events, a "public outdoor recreation use?" The City may have to come up with a plan to "assure the substitution of other recreation properties of at least equal fair market value and of reasonably equivalent usefulness and location."

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Then there's City of Long Beach law, specifically Section 905 of the LB City Charter, added by a vote of the people in 2007 (roughly 75% voting yes) titled "Parks in Perpetuity":

...Notwithstanding any other provisions of this Charter to the contrary, those areas that have been dedicated or designated as public park or recreation areas of the City shall not be sold or otherwise alienated unless first authorized or later ratified by an affirmative vote of a majority of the qualified electors of the City voting at an election for such purpose; except that the City Council may sell or alienate public parks or recreation areas, or any portions thereof, if, after a public hearing, and the approval of the Parks and Recreation Commission, the City Council determines that said park or recreation areas will be replaced by other dedicated or designated park or recreation areas on substantially an amenity for amenity basis, and at a ratio of at least two to one (2:1); and further that an approximately equal portion of the replacement land will be located in the park service area where the land was converted, and an approximately equal portion of the replacement land will be located in a park service area needing parkland as determined by the Parks and Recreation Commission.

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The Parks in Perpetuity ballot measure was put on the ballot in response to City Hall taking part of Scherer Park for LBPD's North Division police facility. That came after several notorious City Hall erasures of public park land.

The public once had real park land along the south side of downtown Ocean Blvd. between Alamitos Ave. and nearly the L.A. River. The eastern section, called Victory Park, is now visible mainly in ghostly legal markers, shrubbery and benches fronting City Hall-enabled high rises; the western section, called Santa Cruz Park, was similarly erased but in recent years has been partially restored nearby.

Lincoln Park (the eastern part of LB's Civic Center) was erased amid a public promise of green space on the roof of the Main Library; city officials eventually made the roof inaccessible to the public and in Dec. 2015, the City Council voted to demolish the Main Library and replace it with a smaller library with some nearby open space as part of a new Civic Center.

A chunk of Heartwell Park vanished during Mayor O'Neill's administration to expand LB's Day Nursery with the Beverly Lewis O’Neill Infant/Toddler Center and Hazel Liff Center.

One of the first results of the Parks in Perpetuity Charter Amendment was the creation of Ed "Pops" Davenport Park (land area taken at Scherer Park replaced two-for-one) on 55th Way east of Paramount Blvd.

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And there's also the possibility that some may raise other environmental issues...including inviting outdoor audiences to breathe the sorts of things put into the air by operations at the immediately adjacent Port of Long Beach.