The city has provided -- let's hope for the time being only -- even more reason to leave the neighborhood come the weekend. Or maybe what it provided is less reason to visit Echo Park Lake. Chicken Corner did, in fact, make a beach run on Sunday, but heard through the grapevine that the boats on the lake have been shut down. Because they are "financially unsustainable." Does it really cost that much to run the historic and enriching concession? Does a soccer field -- which has to be mowed and tended, etc. -- have to make money? Isn't free, or low-cost, enjoyment of recreational services worth something? Isn't recreational enjoyment -- of a lake that the city maintains for the public anyway -- the kind of service that strengthens families and builds civic morale?

Garcetti's office said they were on the case. But the boats were unavailable this weekend.

Given that the city's strapped in so many directions -- hospitals, schools, for two -- I wouldn't raise my voice to call for a new boathouse, a new lake and a new boats concession. But, once we already have these things, to let them rot seems penny-pinching, informed by a very poor sense of asset management and maximization.