Norberto's Great Trip Blog

I hope the OC Register makes Norberto Santana's Great Park Blog a permanent feature -- or even better, give him a blog where he can write and comment about issues on his general beat. Norberto's a natural blogger: his posts are very informative, wonderfully written and easy to read. You get a sense of the players and the process that is conventional news reporting has difficulty imparting.

Norberto's latest posts -- here and here and here --  are well worth reading. Here's an excerpt from his "A Fistful of Euros" post:

Paris parks are an amazing scene on a Sunday afternoon. Most people live in the vicinity of urban parks, and the variety of scenes is amazing. Whether it’s a pick-up soccer game, seniors walking their dogs or young lovers kissing in the midst of a crowd on a bench, these parks are alive…

The scene reminds me a bit of Centennial Park in Santa Ana.

And I’m still wondering whether we needed to travel 6,000 miles at the cost of $50,000 to see this…

This is definitely no vacation, and delegation members are moving constantly. The hotels are swanky, but I wonder whether a Motel 6 would have sufficed given the time the delegation is spending in them.

I just wonder whether all of this is worth the perceptual problems these politicians – who all seem to be thoughtful people – could face with the public.

It’s not like any one of the three finalist firms aren’t reputable with good designs...

At a waterfall in a Paris park, Irvine Councilman Steven Choi calls me over to an amazing man-made waterfall, points to the green dot on his map of Paris and says, “see, you could never imagine the sights and smell of this without coming.”

LNR Senior Vice President Kevin Hanson – whose firm keeps getting called Lennar – also points to the wedding party on the steps of the park and notes that watching this couple spend their most important day at the park is a valuable customer satisfaction survey.

Fair enough…But again, couldn’t you see that at Centennial Park in Santa Ana?

Comments

[MrWhipple]

At a waterfall in a Paris park, Irvine Councilman Steven Choi calls ... says, "see, you could never imagine the sights and smell of this without coming."

Not unlike a Great Pork board meeting.