The City Council Chambers were again awash in superlatives The subject was the proposed six-acre City park, Palisades Garden Walk, at Oeean and  Colorado. Staff and some Council members instantly dub it\\\\ “our Central Park.” It is more  or less in the center of town, but there is  no basis for the link to America’s most celebrated park, which is vast and intricately made – one of those marvels that our forebears made that we can’t match — perhaps because they were making America, and we are unmaking it. The purpose of the session,  at the  April 13 Council meeting, was approval of James Comer’s  Field Operations as the park architect, and an initial payment of $3.2 million. Councilman Kevin McKeown said Comer was the 21^st century Frederick Law Olmsted, the legendary architect of Central Park. That’s as silly as ranking our doily of a Park with Central Park. But Councilman Bobby Shriver brought his colleagues back to earth when he questioned the selection process. First, the City asked that architects submit  qualifications, not proposals. It then assembled a panel of “experts” to choose a “winner,” and, voila, Comer. Shriver was botnered by the fact that three people who don’t know Santa Monica have chosen the designer of our latest “centerpiece.” Other Council members and staff were clearly offended –  the  process is “common practice…standard…and it “works.” But it doesn’t. The City’s design record in the last several decades ranges from mediocre to awful. Shriver and Councilman Bob Holbrook voted not to approve the selection of Comer. Mayor Pro Tem Pam O’Connor, and Council members Gleam Davis, Terry O’Day and McKeown were all ayes. Richard Bloom was Absent. Comer got the job, but the debate over the selection process has just begun.