Farragut Is Back: Court Denies Greenberg Motion

It should have come as no surprise that last Thursday, Judge Michael

Johnson denied Les Greenberg’s motion to reconsider his previous decision in favor of the Culver City City Council with respect to alleged violation of the Brown Act.

We now have taken one more step towards a traffic study on the 10700 block of Farragut Drive that will determine, once and for all, if the residents of that block truly need the overly restrictive parking district currently in force.

Mr. Greenberg has said many times in this newspaper that he did not want the city to “waste” the money for a parking study. Yet he had no problem filing a lawsuit that saw the city spend thousands of dollars and waste many hours

of staff time, even though he knew he had no chance to win the lawsuit.

I will say, though, that he did buy more time for the private parking he now enjoys, which, hopefully, is coming to an end.

Actually, I won’t be the least bit surprised if Mr. Greenberg doesn’t file another frivolous lawsuit or two in order to delay this much-needed study for as long as possible.

In his heart, Mr. Greenberg knows that Grace Lutheran Church, and the rest of the small businesses in the area, have had little effect on the parking on Farragut in the past, currently, nor likely in the future.

It appears that Mr. Greenberg feels that a mistake by a previous Council that allowed this parking district to exist, is now an “entitlement” and cannot be changed by the current City Council.

There is one way to settle this issue without having to spend any money on a traffic study, or waste more of the city’s time and money, and also save Mr. Greenberg from losing more lawsuits.

All the residents of Farragut need do

is to communicate their desire to accept the new “standard” residential permit parking restrictions. These allow non-residents to park for up to two hours, between the hours of 10 a.m. through 6 p.m., Monday through Saturday, with no further restrictions other than street- sweeping hours.

This is a win-win for everyone:

• Visitors to the church can park on Farragut for an hour or two during the week, and
• The two-hour parking restriction also would apply on Saturdays. Currently it does not.

I look forward to Mr. Greenberg and his wife Paulette being the good neighbors they profess to be by accepting the new parking standard for the 10700 block of Farragut Drive.

Mr. Smith, a leader of Grace Lutheran Church and opponent of Mr. Greenberg’s stance on parking in the targeted block of Farragut Drive, may be contacted at kenandjoz@ca.rr.com