OC RIVERWALK as envisioned (City of Anajeim).

Let’s play a little game called “Shoulda Seen That Coming.”

The purpose is to guess whether or not something in the OC might reasonably be anticipated. Let’s get started.

Some Huntington Beach council members on Tuesday expressed surprise over the overwhelmingly negative response to their plans to “outsource” library services to a private firm. Should they have “Seen That Coming?”

Absolutely. They actually kind of jumped the gun. The adoption of new content rules in city libraries regarding all holdings with “sexual content” to be moved in to adult book section aroused enough opposition so when the “next” controversial library proposal was brought forward, fans of the local public library were loaded for bear.

With an election coming up in November, the controversial “outsourcing” idea may be used as a political cudgel against candidates hoping to defeat incumbent liberal councilmembers Dan Kalmick, Rhonda Bolton and Natalie Moser by tying them to an unpopular proposal.

So, the answer is: Shoulda Seen That Coming.

Next up is the OC Riverwalk planned for Anaheim.

As we all know, the Santa Ana River – at least through Orange County – is actually no river at all; it’s more like a concrete ditch or a gigantic illegal skateboard park.

However, the river may be making a comeback in the OC in the form of OC Riverwalk, to be created in Anaheim on a stretch from Ball Road south to Orangewood Avenue.

The idea is to use inflatable dams to create a local “river” for recreation and add pedestrian and bicycle bridges from the Anaheim side to the Santa Ana “shore.” Trails would be expanded and widened and the riverbank itself would be rebuilt to serve both as a flood control channel and an “amenity space.”

The river does not touch Garden Grove but does flow along Huntington Beach’s eastern limits.

Anaheim has received grants from several agencies and the project is still years away, but if successful, could be extended all the way to the Pacific Coast one day.

A real river in the Santa Ana River? I didn’t see that coming.