What a small (conflicted) world!
For many years, Marty Hente has been a very active member of the Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church. In 2012, he served as president of the Church Council while Ken Smith served as a member of the Church Council.
Mr. Smith is the person who, absent any proof or mitigation effort, claims that the church needs the 10700 block of Farragut Drive as its parking lot.
On March 15, at about 1:30 a.m., the City Council commissioned a specific “parking study” to determine the parking intrusion on Farragut.
The City Engineer and the Traffic Engineer warned Councilmember Andrew Weissman that the “traffic study” was designed to fail and was unfair to the Farragut residents.
The “parking study” will not permit all-day-school/business parking to be considered; and, thus, will not count that intrusion.
Mr. Weissman swore the City Engineer to not mention the flaw to the public or other Council members. He agreed.
Back to the ranch. Since 2007, Mr. Hente and Joel Falter have served on Culver City’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT). Mr. Falter serves as the Vice President and Mr. Hente as the Fleet Manager.
Here’s the kicker: Mr. Falter is the Chief Operating Officer and vice president of Los Angeles Operations of KOA Corp.
Whom do you think the City Council commissioned to do the $35,000 “parking study” that is designed to fail? KOA. That’s the same KOA where the COO and VP is a longtime buddy of one of the church’s most active members. Anyone see any public disclosures that should have been made by KOA and Mr. Falter? Also, one might wonder why, with all the capable firms in L.A., KOA was selected.
Mr. Greenberg may be contacted at plgreen@att.net
Les, I agree with your comment that, and I quote, “The “parking study” will not permit all-day-school/business parking to be considered; and, thus, will not count that intrusion.”
However, since under NO circumstances, will all-day parking of any kind EVER be allowed on that block, why would the city want to have a study done that would allow all-day parking?
The study is going to show what the parking will be like on Farragut Dr. using the same criteria that is being used on most of the residential streets in Culver City when the residents have voted to have permit parking. Many of the streets in the area of the schools and church don’t have or want permit parking, even though the over restrictive parking that was previously allowed on Farragut Dr. put more pressure on their streets, they somehow survived.
It also sounds to me like you are insinuating that KOA was chosen because a member of our church, Marty Hente, knows someone who works for KOA. Does that also imply that since Marty and Joel know each other, that KOA would automatically skew the study in favor of Grace Lutheran Church???
What you don’t mention is that the City of Culver City has used KOA to do parking studies for over 20 years! They are a highly reputable firm and do work for many cities in Southern California. Here is a quote from their website with respects a job they are currently doing,
Los Angeles, California
KOA prepared the transportation element of the EIR for the proposed Mangrove Estates mixed-use and transit-oriented development (TOD) project in downtown Los Angeles. KOA analyzed the traffic impacts associated with four project development schemes, and working with LADOT, created a robust set of transportation demand and transportation systems management tools to mitigate traffic impacts. Strategies included reduced parking, car sharing, bike sharing, bike lockers, transit kiosks, and other non-auto-oriented improvements.
Les, what are we really talking about here? I, and some other members of the church, feel that members and guests of the church should be able to park for an hour or two during a weekday without fear that one of your neighbors will be on the phone to CCPD before they even have chance to lock their car door.
Based on my personal obervation, the number of cars parked on Farragut during the study, which allows 2 hour parking during the week, has been virtually the same as when there was no parking from 8:00AM until 10:00PM. So what’s the problem? Why all the lawsuits, the name calling, the insuations that there is this deep, dark plot to impact the quality of life of the residents of Farragut Dr.?