INSIDE SCOOP

-- Compiled by the Daily Pilot staff

City Council members were thinking more along the lines of a courtroom

when they recently told gadfly Jim Hildreth to stop bugging them and to

take his grudge elsewhere. For months, the Balboa Island resident has

shown up at almost every council meeting to complain about the safety (or

lack thereof) of a ladder that city officials installed near a shore

mooring owned by his family on Balboa Island’s Grand Canal.

But it seems like Hildreth thought of another way to air his issue.

During the June 3 Balboa Island Parade, he marched down Marine Avenue

with a replica of the ladder in tow.

“I feel this float represents what may happen when the ‘city-installed

ladder’ is used,” Hildreth wrote in a note to us. He’s probably referring

to the mannequin that seems to have fallen from the ladder and into the

float’s boat. Hildreth says such an accident might have to happen before

he can take the city to court.

Folks down at City Hall have said in the past that the ladder’s safe

and the matter is closed as far as they’re concerned.