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Mostly Cloudy City terms summer season a success
Marketing efforts helped attract visitors and avoid ‘doomsday scenario’
After an exhaustive marketing effort by Long Beach officials to attract visitors to town in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, City Manager Jack Schnirman described the summer after the storm as a success and said that the city had avoided the “doomsday scenario” many residents had feared.
In the months after the storm, city officials, business owners and residents expressed concerns about whether the city could overcome Sandy’s devastation and rebuild in time for the summer, which all agreed was crucial to the local economy.
“We see an answer to the question that we all had: Will we be able to bring people back into the city this summer? And we did,” Schnirman said. “Without a successful summer season, Long Beach would have witnessed widespread shuttering of local businesses and an erosion of the tax base, effectively creating a heavier tax burden on our residents, and we’re happy to say that this doomsday scenario was avoided.”
Although Beach Park revenue was down this year, Schnirman said that the summer season was “quite strong,” and that revenue is expected to top the $2.8 million the city initially budgeted for. Officials said that there were record beach pass sales in June and over the July Fourth weekend, but it is too early to provide final revenue figures.
“It’s still slightly down, as we see from previous years, but we conservatively budgeted this year,” Schnirman said. “We see this summer right in the realm of normalcy. The 2013 beach season fared well, considering the utter devastation caused by Superstorm Sandy. We had a very successful comeback summer, and the numbers bear that.”
Schnirman lauded the efforts of the Department of Public Works, which faced a daunting challenge to rebuild and replenish the beach in time for the summer. City workers replaced 104,000 cubic yards of sand, and built sand berms and access points to the beach in the absence of the boardwalk.
“They managed to prepare the beach for residents and visitors despite a massive construction project being staged on the beach,” Schnirman said, referring to the $44.2 million boardwalk reconstruction.
