{"id":5505,"date":"2008-10-08T07:06:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-08T07:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lbpost.com\/articles\/sports\/long-beach-officially-aquatic-capital-of-america\/"},"modified":"2008-10-08T07:06:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-08T07:06:00","slug":"long-beach-officially-aquatic-capital-of-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/long-beach-officially-aquatic-capital-of-america","title":{"rendered":"Long Beach Officially Aquatic Capital Of America"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"float: left; padding-right: 10px; padding-bottom: 5px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignleft size-full wp-image-2635\" src=\"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/10\/photo55873.jpg\" alt=\"\" align=\"left\" width=\"250\" height=\"190\" \/><\/div>\n<p>Phil Hester and his Department of Parks, Recreation and Marine have done it again. The Department, which was selected Best In The Nation in 2006, has been involved with a committee of interested residents which formed in order to get Long Beach its latest, shiniest national distinction: Aquatic Capital of America.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>One of those residents, Tom Shadden, presented a proposal to the City Council last night and when City Manager Patrick H. West put his pen to paper, the proposal was approved.&nbsp; Long Beach is now officially the Aquatic Capital of America.<\/p>\n<p>Long Beach\u2019s extraordinary number of aquatic assets and activities from beaches, boating and swimming\/diving to the Queen Mary, the Aquarium of the Pacific and the Port of Long Beach made the decision easy for all parties involved.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is all very positive for the city,\u201d says Shadden.&nbsp; \u201cIt will bring attention to current events, like the Sea Festival, and draw more events\u2026 This is another way for the city to gain recognition nationally and internationally.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The new tag will most likely be used on promotional material in an effort to draw big aquatic events such as the Olympic Swimming Trials, which were held here in 2004.<\/p>\n<p>Along with enhancing the city\u2019s reputation as a tourist destination, the moniker should also increase employment opportunities and expand water-related educational and recreational opportunities, while enhancing the significance and visibility of aquatic training programs and events.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m excited to hear opinions from people,\u201d says Shadden.&nbsp; \u201cIdeas of how we can use in business and activities.&nbsp; This will be an evolving process, but it\u2019s all about the exposure.&nbsp; It\u2019s all good.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The city of Long Beach has a new moniker, and its a pretty darn good one. What does this mean for the city? The answers are a click away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":17032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-5505","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5505"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5505\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5505"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5505"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5505"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5505"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5505"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}