The Los Angeles Daily Journal, a legal publication, carried an entertainment note concerning dancers scheduled to perform in "sequenced halter tops" as they pranced to ZZ Top's "Runaround Girl."

If a legal journal says "sequenced halter tops," that's what they were. But, for the sake of artistic integrity, should they not have danced to ABCD Top's "Singlefile Girl?"

Created during that national craze when stores fled downtowns and plopped in suburbia, the Main Street mall has a storied history of well-intentioned cosmetic surgery.

A dozen years ago, the city put up $99K (aiming to leverage $400K more) for pavement, lighting, tree-and-homeless removal and a horse-drawn trolley lane. City Hall's aversion to horse poop (tolerated only inside the council chambers) derailed the last item.

Now comes the Hudson Bay (the city manager's howling for $10 million): massive expenditures on eye-glazing "infrastructure." Paving. Water & power to entertainment venues. Defined dining areas for cafes.

"The mall slips and slides over that old (Main) street," observed Ian Davidson, chair of the Riverside Downtown Partnership and the man trying to herd various biz and chamber types toward a consensus. "Putting in that infrastructure is not going to be cheap."

The result, he says, will be a mall that plays to an arts 'n' cultcha (not retail) theme, ideally luring residents of downtown's contemplated condos to galleries and restaurants.

The $10 million should get folks' attention. Some natterer will either ask what else could be had for that kind of money, or is that all we're getting.

This would be the Hudster's cue to resurrect the horse-drawn trolley. Even in '94, experts counseled that horses could wear diapers. Arts and culture might one day be downtown's beacon. But, in a time of pumpflation, a city that leads SoCal into the Horse & Huggie Era would be an instant hit.

City Hall has managed to create quite a buzz about Restaurant Row near RivPlaza. But just so everyone's on the same menu, there is no project. No restaurants inked. Not one.

What we do have -- say city types -- is intense restaurant and customer interest. If demand is that intense, why is the city spending up to $6 million to buy the land? Can't developers do the heavy lifting (excluding the one condemnation)?

Gage: "It's a lot easier to acquire the land, get everything assembled." Then pick a developer. Will the city get its dough back when it sells scraped-clean land to the Big Winner? Gage: "It's hard to say...We hope to get our money back many times over in sales and property tax."

Silver lining for the RivCo DA, where various prosecutors have recently resigned or been put on leave following allegations of DUI, disorderly conduct, misdemeanor battery, etc. But this puts the DA in a great position to land a big grant and set up a special unit to prosecute its own prosecutors.

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