A Historic Opportunity Or A Royal Pain? City's Queen Mary Lessee Bankruptcy-Hobbled Urban Commons Hands Ship And Adjacent Developable Land Back to City

LBReport.com

News
A Historic Opportunity Or A Royal Pain? City's Queen Mary Lessee Bankruptcy-Hobbled Urban Commons Hands Ship And Adjacent Developable Land Back to City

If LBREPORT.com didn't tell you,
who would?No one in LBREPORT.com's ownership, reporting or editorial decision-making has ties to development interests, advocacy groups or other special interests; or is seeking or receiving benefits of City development-related decisions; or holds a City Hall appointive position; or has contributed sums to political campaigns for Long Beach incumbents or challengers. LBREPORT.com isn't part of an out of town corporate cluster and no one its ownership, editorial or publishing decisionmaking has been part of the governing board of any City government body or other entity on whose policies we report.

LBREPORT.com is reader and advertiser supported. Support independent news in LB similar to the way people support NPR and PBS stations. We're not non-profit so it's not tax deductible but $49.95 (less than an annual dollar a week) helps keep us online.

(June 4, 2021, 11:35 p.m.- As flashed earlier today (June 4) on LBREPORT.com's front page and Facebook platform, in the wake of City Hall's Queen Mary lessee/bankruptcy-hobbled Urban Commons suddenly abandoning its leases to the ship and surrounding developable property to the City, city management hurriedly agendized an item for the June 8 City Council meeting to appropriate up to $500,000, offset by the Tidelands Operating Fund), to pay Moffatt and Nichol to provide what management calls "needed engineering design services...for critical repair work on the Queen Mary."

[In late 2019, city management retained Moffatt and Nichol to "review" reports by the City's long time Queen Mary inspector, Ed Pribonic, whose reports vexed city management by alerting the public to increasingly serious maintenance issues. City management then ended the City's contract with whstleblower Pribonic.]

On the upcoming June 8 Council item, city management also seeks Council approval to pay Evolution Hospitality, the current on-ship operator, for what management calls a "short term caretaking agreement" of up to $2 million for up to six months.

Management's agendizing memo states in pertinent part:

[T]he City has a unique opportunity to address critical repairs to safety systems identified in recent inspection reports that were not completed by the former operator. More specifically, there are approximately $5 million in short-term repairs that City contract engineer Moffatt & Nichols recommends to immediately improve safety and stability of the Queen Mary when it is reopened to visitors, including the installation of temporary bilge pumps and warning systems, repairs to bulkheads, removal of lifeboats, and the installation of an emergency generator. Completing these repairs while the Queen Mary is closed to visitors will al low better and more efficient access to hard-to-reach areas of the Queen Mary and likely shorten the time that it takes to complete the work. The total estimated cost for this engineering and construction design work is less than $500,000.

In response to an inquiry from LBREPORT.com, Deputy City Attorney Rich Anthony says: "The surrender does not affect the City’s claims for sums owed. The City did not agree to give up any of its rights or remedies against the debtor in exchange for the surrender."