Before you assume that this post might be a straight up attack on business, let me start with this.
For over 20 years, I was a small business owner. After that, I went into the non-profit world to help women start their business and to help support small business development in places like East Palo Alto and Oakland.
Eventually I entered the policy world when I moved back to Los Angeles to work as the Economic Development Deputy for Los Angeles City Council member Jackie Goldberg.
All to say that I believe it is important to support entrepreneurship and to support businesses that create jobs that compensate their employees fairly, that provide good working conditions and that are good responsible citizens.
Over all those years, I learned that it is important for us to support our local businesses, and larger employers that are fair to their employees.
But I believe that in the policy world – the world of the rules that our leaders work to put in place, to create fairness – there must be a balance so that all of our needs can be met.
In a small community like ours, it is easy, when our Chamber of Commerce advertises as our “community-based” Chamber of Commerce to think that it is.
It is true, they support our local efforts in many ways, and that is a good thing.
But we must remember that the Chamber exists primarily to advocate for the needs of their members, which are almost exclusively businesses.
Nothing wrong with that. Just as unions advocate for the needs of the workers they represent. Or how the Democratic Party or the Republican Party advocate for their candidates. That is why they exist.
The problem is that often, the residents do not have their own advocates.
Let’s just take one issue – the issue of restrictive parking. In a press release, Steve Rose, who has headed the Chamber for over 27 years, gives us his opinion about the “sharing economy.”
“Another issue facing local Nimbys is restrictive parking in residential neighborhoods that attempts to keep local employees and customers from parking in the neighborhoods. How are locals going to handle this intrusion into their neighborhoods?”
This is despite the fact that the existing guidelines for establishing parking districts – that the City Council approved – define a process that gives residents of any particular street the right to establish a parking district, if they can get a super majority of residents to approve it. The Chamber seems to want to do away with these protections so that our streets can become the parking lots for local businesses.
They will succeed in doing this as long as we, the residents, don’t have a voice in the City Council that can counter the voice of the two Chamber-endorsed Council members who will not be retiring – Jeff Cooper and Jim Clarke.
Mr. Cooper has been advocating for this by suggesting that we should have two-hour parking all over Culver City.
Just consider the resources our city would have to spend to enforce this, if it is even possible.
How to Avoid Intrusion
We already know that the city is perfectly capable of building parking lots to avoid the intrusion of cars into our neighborhoods. We also know that we are working hard to rely more on public transit to take us places (to the beach soon!).
Importantly, we have rules in place for protecting residents who are facing excessive parking intrusion. These rules are currently being challenged by setting dangerous precedents. I wrote about it here.
Of equal importance, the Chamber of Commerce has historically been a player in ensuring the leaders it has endorsed refuse to address the important issue of affordable housing in our community. I wrote about it here.
Finally, the voice of renters in our community is not being heard in Culver City as long as the Chamber has a majority on the City Council. I wrote about the challenges they are facing with the latest explosion in rent hikes here.
We need economic development. Businesses need a voice. But residents’ voices also matter.
There has not been a better voice for the needs of residents than Councilmember Meghan Sahli-Wells. Let’s get her re-elected. Let’s elect Daniel Lee, a renter. And Thomas Small, who understands how critical design and traffic management are to building a better city.
Today is Election Day. Vote for candidates who respect residents’ voices.
Ms. Vizcarra, a former School Board candidate, may be contacted at clauvizcarra@gmail.com
